Rattle Magazine published my poem last month

Almost a month has passed since Rattle Magazine published my poem "Digital Anthropologists Find Our Hashtags" for its Poets Respond series. The poem explores specifically the consecutive shooting deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, by police officers in the first full week of July.

Just hours after I submitted the poem, a sniper killed and wounded police officers in Dallas, Texas. That week of July brimmed too much with violence, grief, and pointed fingers. So, although I was pleased Rattle had accepted the poem, I was also too through with humanity to share at this blog my poem's publication on Tuesday, July 12.

I share it now because since then I've gotten notes and calls from people telling me how they felt about the poem, which you may read at Rattle's site. Acknowledging publication at my blog is appropriate.

The poem was one of two the magazine published that week following the shootings. On Sunday, July  10, the site posted "The Dead Line," a poem by Nicole Homer, a poem that uses repetition to good effect.

Also, the website for the Academy of American Poets, Poets.org, published a poem by the current Poet Laureate for the United States, Juan Felipe Herrera, entitled "@ the Crossroads--A Sudden American Poem." Herrera's verse also addresses the present crisis and sorrow of police relationships with black and brown communities. Clearly he wrote his poem after the Dallas tragedy because the epigraph names the slain officers and is dated July 10. Homer and I wrote our poems before Dallas.

Sadly, by the time America solves this problem, by the time we all do the hard work of facing the root causes of this race-related crisis and too often reasonable distrust of police of officers, the world may have volumes of poems exploring or tackling this subject. There is no easy solution here because solutions means behaviors and systems must change, and people fear change, especially when change challenges the foundation of long-held world views and practices.

Verse can soothe, make space for catharsis, and initiate dialogue beyond the heated center. Poetry may not be as popular as it once was in this nation, but the art remains a source humans turn to during troubling hours.

The Chloe Goins Cosby Accusation Is Awfully Convenient

As almost anyone who knows me will attest, I am not a Bill Cosby defender. I wrote a long post weeks ago explaining why I think the 77-year-old mega-star is guilty. But I've also acknowledged that not all the women may be telling the truth. Some may be pilers-on for whatever reason.

Piler-on: a person, for instance, who hears about a big, public bus accident, claims they were injured in the accident, but later it's discovered that the person wasn't actually on the bus. That's where I see the 24-year-old Chloe Goins. The bus wreck here is the rape and sexual assault accusations exploding against Cosby, and Goins, or maybe someone behind Goins, is trying to cash in. She's piling on. (I apologize Ms. Goins if I'm wrong about you, but I'm saying what I fee.)

Her accusation that Cosby drugged and possibly molested her at the Playboy Mansion when she was 18 feels off, and that it happened in 2008--on the cusp of probable statutes of limitations expiration--seems rather convenient.

Goins is not saying that Cosby raped her. I want to make that clear. So, she's not taking on the stigma of being a rape victim. She says she can't be sure what Cosby (allegedly) did to her but alleges that she woke up to find him masturbating while licking her toes. The timing of her allegation after so many others whose allegations are beyond prosecution flashes like a big red light in my head.

Again for emphasis, my distrust of her is strictly a gut feeling. She could be telling the absolute truth, and like many victims of sexual assault or molestation, she may not have come forward because she was afraid. Cosby is a powerful, older man after all, and she, just six years ago, was a naive girl at the Playboy Mansion possibly afraid no one would believe her for no other reason than she was at the Playboy Mansion. But of all the women who've come forward, she's the one who strikes me as someone who, after having read all the other accusations, had time to think and manufacture a similar testimony.

Also, of all the other women, Goins seems the most like someone who could turn her accusation into a bonanza. She's white, young, and attractive with that bleached blonde, starlet vibe. Or as Prince could have said to someone like her, "U got the look."  She may have more to gain with this accusation and with time before the cameras than she has to lose.

Interestingly, in an interview with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, her attorney, Spencer Kurvin, made a comment last night that indicates he's aware that Goins has a lot to gain. He seemed not to include his client when he spoke of the other women who had come forward with nothing to gain. However he did say that his client risks criminal prosecution for false reporting if it's shown that her story is not true and taking that risk, as well as enduring the emotional difficulty of making such an accusation, gives her credibility.

His comments aside, when I say Goins is attractive, I'm not talking strictly about physical attractiveness. I'm talking about her appearing to be a carefully crafted marketing package, a "commodity." In the picture to the left, as she stands before photographers outside the LAPD building, she has the style and composure of someone with a smoothly constructed public image to maintain.

She also seems like someone who would understand that no matter how her case turns out--Cosby guilty or not guilty--a book deal and celebrity status may be right around the corner.

No, I'm not saying she's a slut nor am I attempting to shame her for her past as Radar Online and others seem determined to do. I'm saying she impresses me in this moment as an opportunist.

Okay. So, take away my feminist card!

Can I be wrong here? Of course I can. Will I be sorry to learn from facts that her story is true? Yes, I will because that will mean she's been abused. If her story is true, then I feel truly sorry for her. No woman should have her body touched sexually without her permission.

And I even admit now that I may be biased against her because she has that stereotypical lean and hungry look for fame. But just as I've shared my opinion on Cosby, I'm sharing it on her accusation. Fishy, fishy, fishy. Cosby is probably guilty of molesting some other woman, but I doubt that he's guilty of molesting Goins. And I usually lean toward giving victims of alleged sexual assault the benefit of the doubt.

On another note, you'd think by now Cosby could have found the accuser with the shakiest story and offered her money to recant. A recanter would cast a shadow on all his accusers, appearing to confirm the suspicions of the Cosby faithful, even some of the Cosby wobbly. They are desperate for anything they can find to logically discredit accusers of America's Dad.

Some Cosby apologists have concocted intricate conspiracy theories about the allegations. (I stress allegations because Bill Cosby has not been charged with any crime.) I've heard everything from the women plotted together to get his money to the mainstream media planned the whole thing because they live to bring black men down. I've even heard that white supremacists have brainwashed black people who believe the women. Yep. I've heard such craziness. Somebody, please, please make it stop.

Dear Friends Still Defending Bill Cosby At All Cost

Dear Friend:

I apologize for my long response about allegations against Bill Cosby. To help you decide whether you'll read my entire thought process, you should know that this letter is divided into three parts. The first part laments the disillusionment that comes with considering these allegations against him and shares the background of what I know about Bill Cosby having seen him on TV since the 1960s, read about him in print, and heard about him in the news over the last five decades. The second part (here) tells you what I think about the accusations and why I've drawn the conclusions I've drawn that do not favor him. The third part questions societal beliefs about women.

I've written so much on this topic because I would like to stop repeating myself to people who insist that the accusations against Cosby are ridiculous because he's never been charged with a crime, and it's unfair to think he may have done anything wrong. "There's been no trial and everyone's innocent until proven guilty," they say, "So, I wish you all would shut up about Dr. Cosby (he has a Ed.D.) until a jury hears the case and a judge makes a decision."

They continue along this vein even when others respond, "But the statute of limitations has run out for both civil and criminal charges. Bill Cosby will not face a jury or judge."

Before I go further, please let me express my sympathy for you and other Americans, including me. We are all rightfully disturbed and saddened to hear of these horrible accusations against a beloved entertainer. I know some of you have concerns about Cosby's legacy. Some of you may consider yourself to be not necessarily a fan of Cosby just a "warrior for justice" who will not "rush to judgment." You may even call yourself "neutral" but feel compelled to chime in nonetheless because you have a friend who was falsely accused of rape and all this Cosby talk reminds you of that painful period. So, I'm sympathize with any agony and discomfort you've experienced in discussing Cosby.

I see as well that many of you, some dear friends, too, feel personally wounded by this current string of accusations. His character Dr. Cliff Huxtable was America's ideal dad, after all. In many ways, so was Cosby himself between his hilarious comedy routines about fatherhood (I own some of his DVDs) and those warm commercials for Jell-O Pudding he did with adorable, giggling children. So, I understand that some of you sense yourselves becoming disillusioned thinking about the possibility of his guilt and perhaps virulently angry at "the media" and his accusers. You refuse to think the man you think you know may have done anything so horrible. It feels better, perhaps, to think that these stories are just another plot to bring down a "good Black man."

You find also that you fume especially at people like me who refuse to call the women liars. I get that. It seems to you that we are crucifying him and maligning him openly. I sort of feel that way, too, sometimes, especially when I see that Gloria Allred, the ambulance chaser, with all her theatrics has inserted herself into this scandal. 

But whatever you feel about Cosby today whatever you may think of his accusers, by now we all should know that from here on, no matter what is said or believed, proven or not proven about Bill Cosby, we're experiencing an American tragedy and journeying through the stages of grief. We are perplexed. We feel betrayed when we hear about Dr. Cosby and all these women. 

For most of my life I've been a fan of Bill Cosby, but I consider myself to be more objective about him than some fans. Cosby the man is separate from Cosby the entertainer in my mind. Cosby the man is a philanthropist and appears to want to do some good in this world, but as a man he is also an imperfect being exhibiting signs of duplicity.

So, I still admire Cosby's work as a comedian, actor, director, and producer. I still appreciate how he worked his way to a level of power in the entertainment industry that few black men ever achieve and how he's managed his money.

I also respect his hard work in earning a doctorate while also working as a comedian and actor and that he's taught in prisons, and I'm old enough to remember his accomplishments from pre-Cosby Show days. Not too shabby. However, I did not care much for his Silver Throat: Bill Cosby Sings album that was part of my family's record collection. By the time his pudding days rolled around, it seemed he could do no wrong. My grandmother and my mother, both dead now, would express how proud they were of Cosby because represented black peoplewell. Halcyon days became halcyon decades for Bill.

As we know, I and my family are not anomalies. Not only have many black people loved this man, but people of all ethnic groups. By 1981 advertising executives were saying Cosby was so marketable that he  "transcended" being black. And he donated so much money to good causes. What was there not to like?

When his son Ennis died, I was as mournful and angry as if Bill Cosby were a personal friend. I was even annoyed when news broke that Autumn Jackson had tried to blackmail him, saying he was her biological father. Married and more naive in my thirties than I am now, I did not want to believe Bill could be unfaithful to his beautiful, loving wife Camille. Still, I did not ignore the revelation that although Cosby denied being Jackson's father, he had admitted to having an affair with her mother and to "providing regular financial support" for both of them.

I was naive but not that naive.

Either Cosby was the nicest man in the world, kinder than some husbands are to ex-wives and the acknowledged mothers of their children, or he was Jackson's father. But if he were her father, then he also had a stern side, was a man with titanium will and the cool temperament to send his flesh and blood to jail.

Internal decapitation in real life, atlanto occipital dis-something (Video)

It's in the news again, atlanto occipital disarticulation. However, this time it's being called atlanto occipital dislocation. When I wrote about this way to die in 2010, I did so because the term was used on TNT's Rizzoli & Isles. This times I noticed it because it happened in real life.

Channel 9, serving Lakewood, Colorado, reports that a "Centennial man survived internal decapitation." Last month John Boyer, 25, was ejected from the back seat of his friend's SUV when his friend fell asleep at the wheel and lost control of the vehicle. The SUV jumped the guardrail and flipped over a few times. As a result, Boyer, who was not wearing a seat belt, awoke in the hospital where he was told his skull had separated from his spine. Read more at Channel 9.

This can happen after a severe whiplash, according to a guest doctor on The Doctors, but it's still very rare. Nonetheless, you'll find videos that discuss other cases on YouTube. Rarely do people survive this horrific injury.

Marvin Gaye's family wins first round in "Blurred Lines" Case

The judge ruled against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams in this first leg of the "Blurred Lines" case, rejecting the duo's attempt to have the Marvin Gayes family's case thrown out of court.

"Defendants have made a sufficient showing that elements of Blurred Lines may be substantially similar to protected, original elements of Got to Give It Up," Judge John Kronstadt of the US District Court for Central California said."

As a result of the judge's ruling, Thicke and Pharrell will have to face Gaye's family in court. Get out your popcorn, folks.

The judge also ruled that the case against Thicke and Paula Patton may move forward. Gaye's family has charged that the pair stole elements of Gaye's "After the Dance" for its tune "Love After War." I didn't know about that one. Damn, Robin, write your own stuff, please!

Read more at ABC Australia or at the Chicago Tribune, and yes, I'm one of the people who thinks "Blurred Lines" sounds too much like Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up." I also discussed it with a friend of mine, a professional musician and songwriter, and she too said the song's are obviously too close for copyright comfort.

Since Darren Wilson was shooting at Michael Brown while the teen was running away from him, then . . .

Why I have allowed Darren Wilson supporters to engage me on Twitter, I don't know. Who has the time to talk to people who keep talking about "waiting for the facts" when it's already clear that they've bought Officer Wilson's story in the absence of facts? Last week I found myself attempting to reason with one man, but no matter how many ways I explained to him that the police do not dispute that Mike Brown Jr. was unarmed and Wilson began shooting from a distance of more than 25 feet, finally shooting Brown fatally somewhere between seven and two feet away, Twitter man kept parroting, "But the autopsy shows he wasn't shot in the back."

Does saying Wilson was shooting at Brown while  Brown was running way the same as saying Wilson shot Brown the back? I don't think so. Wilson was shooting at a moving target, so he was more likely to miss.

I repeated to this man more than once that I was not saying that Mike Brown was shot in the back. I'm saying that according to multiple witnesses, Wilson began shooting after Brown at the same time the 18-year-old was running, putting more distance between himself and the cop. This means that Wilson was shooting at the unarmed teen in a residential area while Wilson was not in immediate danger.

Twitter man swore that the police had disputed that Wilson fired while Brown was running, but he had nothing to cite to back that up, and people who have been seriously paying attention to the Ferguson story know that one problem with the Ferguson Police Chief is that he has been uncommunicative with citizens and sometimes deceptive when he is. Still, the man tweeted back that Brown "was not shot in the back."

I almost tweeted to him that I suspected he suffered from a reading comprehension problem, but I decided to block him instead because he added nothing to my feed but stupidity and rudeness. Honestly, I think some of these Wilson supporters think Black people operate via some kind of hive mind, so if one Black person uses the phrase "shot in the back," that must means all Black people are saying that.

What did Martin Luther King Jr. mean, "A riot is the language of the unheard"?

Last year about this time, a whole year before the civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, after the killing of 18-year-old Mike Brown, CBS's 60 Minutes posted an overtime segment featuring Martin Luther King, Jr. The segment is part of last year's commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights March on Washington. Its headline is the King quote you may have heard repeated since the tear gas began to cloud Ferguson's night air:

"A riot is the language of the unheard."

The overtime piece features Mike Wallace's 1966 interview with King in which he asked the Civil Rights leader how he felt about a growing number of Black people rejecting non-violent methods. Here is part of what was said, but I hope you watch the full video interview yourself.

MIKE WALLACE: There's an increasingly vocal minority who disagree totally with your tactics, Dr. King.

KING: There's no doubt about that. I will agree that there is a group in the Negro community advocating violence now. I happen to feel that this group represents a numerical minority. Surveys have revealed this. The vast majority of Negroes still feel that the best way to deal with the dilemma that we face in this country is through non-violent resistance, and I don't think this vocal group will be able to make a real dent in the Negro community in terms of swaying 22 million Negroes to this particular point of view. And I contend that the cry of "black power" is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro. I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.

WALLACE: How many summers like this do you imagine that we can expect?

KING: Well, I would say this: we don't have long. The mood of the Negro community now is one of urgency, one of saying that we aren't going to wait. That we've got to have our freedom. We've waited too long. So that I would say that every summer we're going to have this kind of vigorous protest. My hope is that it will be non-violent. I would hope that we can avoid riots because riots are self-defeating and socially destructive. I would hope that we can avoid riots, but that we would be as militant and as determined next summer and through the winter as we have been this summer. And I think the answer about how long it will take will depend on the federal government, on the city halls of our various cities, and on White America to a large extent. This is where we are at this point, and I think White America will determine how long it will be and which way we go in the future.

Lagniappe: I also recommend this editorial by Rebecca Carroll at the Guardian, "Why are white people scared of black people's rage at Mike Brown's death?" Carroll addresses her complaint directly to a white audience. Here's a key passage:

You are the ones who created this godforsaken racist system by using your circumstantial power and privilege 400 years ago to institutionalize white supremacy. Now use that power and privilege you still have, 400 years later, to dismantle it.

And please don’t quibble about whether you have any direct lineage to the architects of racism. You are benefitting from it, so you have a direct responsibility to figure out how to undo it. Because maybe you’ve seen what happens when we black people try to undo it in 2014 – they call in the National Guard.

Finally, if you've been wondering where people who are more informed about what's happening in Ferguson get their news, try this Vox.com list of reporters who are tweeting news live from the ground in Ferguson.

Adage the news: Today's thought on dissent in Ferguson

Click the image to enlarge it.

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to
question authority. - Ben Franklin

Not for the Sake of Dissent

Humans in positions of power
generally do what they should do.

But without the people questioning,
would the powerful stay true?

Nordette N. Adams
2014

Elegy for Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

For Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

About now, Maya, would be time for me to learn
to write an elegy, a form I've never tried.
You have joined the ancestors.
But even in death you urge a woman to learn.

About now I should write the lofty verse,
place you with Amiri in Heaven,
brown feet deep in Elysian grasses or in the river
near Enkai's hidden hut. I should write
you reciting before the Creator.        You now
have audience eternal with Dunbar,
salons with Hurston, Hughes, and Brooks.
You hug Martin and Malcolm again and again,
grasp why we have been burdened.
Then you see Jimmy Baldwin!
You're greeting, too, those unfamously departed
you made feel famous in their time.
     (That girl behind me in college —
      you rushed me to tell her of her beauty.
       Her dark skin, polished copper.
       Her nose like yours.
       Her thick lips, the invitation to life.
       She glowed and glowed.
       What became of her?
       She needed to hear.
       Did I?
       I did not know then who I was or maybe
              you saw how much I knew,
       and for a long time I struggled with how
       you looked through me. Did I resist blessing?)
Maya, you leap again — I should write — dancing
the dance none may rehearse.

But you do not need a poem from me.
My thin voice need not elevate
your memory: the world breathes your legacy.
Everywhere an article.
Everywhere a tweet.
Everywhere your face, your height,
your wisdom words
make books of mourning.

Nordette N. Adams, May 28, 2014

7 Pieces of Timeless Wisdom from Maya Angelou at Mother Jones
Maya Angelou, a daughter of the South, a voice for us all at the Los Angeles Times

LeVar Burton Shows His Hands to Police to Calm Officers

I did not watch the CNN report on the n-word versus cracker. I'm too old to waste my time with fruitless discussions; however, this clip from that show with LeVar Burton, Wynton Marsalis, Don Lemon, and Tim Wise came to my attention, and I thought it was worth posting.

In the clip Burton tells how he, as a black man, behaves when stopped in his car by police officers. Then Don Lemon talks about how often he was stopped by the police in Baton Rouge, and Tim Wise, who lived in New Orleans for 10 years and graduated from Tulane, tells of how he locked himself out of his car one day in New Orleans. A policeman saw him breaking into the car and without bothering to find out whether it was Wise's car or not, the officer proceeded to show him how to get into the car. The officer said, "Wait, you're not doing it right." Wise said he knows that if he had been black that would have never happened.

Now, I know that's true.

As for CNN, lately I've had little patience for that network. I don't know if they've had some changes in management or what, but in the last six weeks or so, the coverage has seemed inaccurate and flat to me, the brief segment above may be one of the exceptions, but even in it there's little room for depth. Also, its coverage of the Zimmerman trial feels like the work of chimpanzees. Are they pulling their trial experts' names out of a hat?

Doctors Used to Give Women Orgasms in the Office? (Video)

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In the video above, MSNBC's Professor Melissa Harris-Perry talks about how female sexual desire has been treated throughout history in our male-dominated culture. Pointing to a New York Times Magazine article "Unexcited" about Lybrido, a new pill awaiting FDA approval that's supposed to "stoke sexual desire in women,"  Harris-Perry says the article was adapted from Daniel Berger's new book What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire by Daniel Berger (Browse inside the book at Harper-Collins.).

The drug "would be a milestone in the medicalization of women's sexual desire," according to Harris-Perry and others. She says that in the past, all the way back to ancient Greece, women's sexual desire has been treated as an illness. She reminds viewers that the word hysteria, associated with uncontrollable emotions and madness, was derived from the Greek word for uterus. Here's what Merriam-Webster has to say about that:

New Latin, from English hysteric, adjective, from Latin hystericus, from Greek hysterikos, from hystera womb; from the Greek notion that hysteria was peculiar to women and caused by disturbances of the uterus First Known Use: 1801

Harris-Perry says "female hysteria" was treated as a mental illness as early as the fourth century A.D. and the Greek philosopher Plato pronounced "a sexually frustrated uterus that wanders throughout the body as nothing less than a threat to female sanity." A lack of sexual desire as well as strong sexual desire were both considered to be symptoms of uterus-driven illness, and male doctors as recently as the 1950s prescribed orgasms as the cure for that, "the orgasm cure."

I've observed that we still have a tendency in this culture to declare that women are sexually frustrated when  they appear to be highly focused or high-strung. Just last night, for instance, I heard a male character on the BBC's Orphan Black finale tell a female detective character who questioned him aggressively that she clearly needed to "get laid."

But the shock for me in Harris-Perry's commentary and report was not that doctors told women that orgasms would help them. What floored me was this bit of history: if the doctor prescribed orgasms and the woman's husband was not able to give her one, then her male doctor would fill that script personally. So, you know, I had to look this up, and here is what I found in the book The Story of V: A Natural History of Female Sexuality by Catherine Blackledge:

Over the centuries, the methods prescribed to induce orgasm in so-called hysterical women included advocating being 'strongly encountered by their husbands' if they had one. Alternatively, if a woman was single, widowed, or confined to a nunnery, the recommendation could be horse-riding, pelvic rocking in swings, chairs, or hammocks, or vaginal massage—the latter to be provided by the patient's physician or midwife.

Hmm. This gives a whole new meaning to "call the midwife" that I'll need to get out of my head. Here's a clip from the book.



I already knew about the hystera-hysteria history and how male chauvinism and patriarchy (also racism) have corrupted the scientific study of female health issues, but it never crossed my mind that sexism went so far in manipulating female patients.  Talk about abuse of power. Now when I see old movies in which male characters look at women and joke to their male friends about the perks of being a doctor, I'll view the scene in a whole new light.

Huffington Post Fails with Teaser for Oprah Breast Cancer Scare on Its Media Page or Ain't Oprah a Woman, Too?

Usually when I link to Huffington Post, I do so because one of its writers has written something worthy of thought or uncovered a political issue that the mainstream media has overlooked. Unfortunately, that's not why I'm linking to that website today. HuffPo is possibly large enough and powerful enough now to be called a mainstream media outlet itself, and due its reach and power, the website's big failure today regarding Oprah's breast cancer scare news is doubly troubling.

I'm speaking of the teaser HuffPo ran about Oprah at the top of its media section's main page. If you missed it, the screenshot is below this paragraph. The only thing I've added is the cloud burst identifying the teaser's wording as a fail. In big orange and black letters the teaser reads, "O Dear: Who Would Have Thought OWN Was the Least of Her Worries."

Dear Huffington Post: It's not okay to minimize a breast cancer scare. Yes, Oprah Winfrey is powerful, and yes, she is struggling to save her OWN venture and her magazine, and it's true that due to her power and influence, she often has been the punchline of jokes, but under no circumstances should anyone make light of her or anyone else's experience with a breast cancer scare. "O Dear: Who Would Have Thought OWN Was the Least of Her Worries" is too flip a teaser for such a potentially fatal healthcare outcome, scare or no scare. (I don't have the time to discuss the sexist implications with the use of "O Dear" here when applied to such a serious matter.)

If you saw and clicked the link on the media page, then you know that it linked to an article by the website's media editor, Jack Mirkinson, in which the lead is "Oprah had a recent breast cancer scare and may shut down her magazine if it starts losing money, the New York Times revealed on Monday."  (The lead is problematic as well with its implication that the breast cancer scare is somehow connected to the failing magazine, but any analysis of the article would mean another blog post.)

Later in the article, Mirkinson references the New York Times story again in which its author recounts Oprah's announcement about her breast cancer scare at a conference. Mirkinson characterizes the announcement as "startling," so one has to wonder how he, as an editor of the media section, let such a callous teaser slip through. (I recall that the website had a similarly tacky headline during the Aurora, Colorado, massacre: "Horror in Aurora" was on the first page, a much too glib headline for such a tragedy due to the headline's similarity to the "Thrilla in Manila" rhyme that promoted one of Muhammad Ali's famous fights.)

The wording was also problematic for other reasons. Oprah Winfrey is not just a billionaire media mogul; she's also an African American woman and African American women are at a greater risk for breast cancer in its most deadly forms. Cancer does not discriminate, so Oprah's wealth doesn't shield her from being genuinely afraid of bad test results. (See my 2009 post on the higher incidence of fatal breast cancer among black women.).

Additionally telling for the Huffington Post, it published its poorly worded teaser just as a black woman's website posted an article about black women and breast cancer. At Madame Noire, writer Charing Balla asks "Is Racism The Reason Black Women Are More Likely To Die From Breast Cancer? Looking at the disparity between black women and white women in early detection for breast cancer and morbidity rates, the post discusses that "black women have a 41 percent higher death rate from breast cancer than their white counterparts."

When I first saw the provocative headline, I thought it was over the top, but a few minutes later I saw the Huffington Post teaser and I began to think perhaps I was too hard on the Madame Noire headline.

Knowing the facts about low diagnosis and survival rates for breast cancer among African-American women and that these low rates may be attributed, in part, to the medical community not listening to or showing racial bias toward black women, I'm even more disappointed with the Huffington Post's failure on its coverage of Oprah's breast cancer scare. With HuffPo's treatment of Oprah here, it falls into two pits: The dehumanization of celebrities and the dehumanization of the African-American female into the strong black woman stereotype to whom, some think, no consideration or concern is due.

Now I consider that Arianna Huffington needs to take a look at what her media empire is really contributing to multicultural news coverage. Her mega website appears to be losing its way despite its so-called progressive leanings toward inclusion. Over the last few years, through a syndication and aggregation model, Huff Po has turned its news coverage into a profit center promoting the commodification of humans by ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, and I see a problem.

The Huffington Post has its Black Voices, Latino Voices, women's section, and Gay Voices, but it's missing its sensitivity voice. In its rush to capitalize on identity politics and information segregation, the website has neglected to cultivate among its staff the kind of knowledge it takes to push news through such segmented channels with genuine multicultural intelligence.

The HuffPo teaser failed not only Oprah, black women, and women in general, it failed humanity  as well. The website missed the chance to educate readers about a serious health crisis among black women and to show compassion. Oprah Winfrey, after all, is human first and she should be treated during her breast cancer scare with the same compassion as any other human would be treated following a cancer scare. She is a big personality, but in human frailty, we are all small.

Lagniappe: In the video below Alice Walker reads Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman." I see it as an appropriate ending for a post about a mainstream media outlet's failure to show compassion toward Oprah  because as a black woman often called "powerful" and "a queen," her image carries the essence of the "strong black woman" stereotype.



Sojourner Truth's famous speech is often used to discuss Western culture's tendency to minimize the pain of black women, dehumanizing them as beasts of burden who can handle anything. This matter of the mythological black super woman who requires no protection sometimes presents a conundrum for modern black feminists/womanists seeking balance between being strong while also needing protection sometimes. It seems that in humanity's march toward greater inclusion, there remains a danger of segmenting the other into the same, overly-simplified, flat and essentialized images of older racist and sexist thinking.

Facebook Users Mistake Katrina-Associated Photo for Hurricane Sandy in New York? No, That's Nebraska.

Most likely, the artist who created the Hurricane Sandy picture (left) did not intend to create confusion, but the picture he or she created that shows a hurricane behind the Statue of Liberty is being mistaken on Facebook (10/29/2012) as “an amazing shot of New York today with the Frankenstorm bearing down.” Some people think it’s a real photo of Sandy, but if you look closely, you’ll notice that it looks like someone photo-shopped a Hurricane Katrina into a Liberty picture. (It's actually a photo from a 2004 storm in Nebraska.)

The Sandy Comes to Liberty photo began circulating last night. Facebook users are leaving comments with posters who've shared the picture such as "wow! amazing shot!!! Hope everyone is ok" and "You shouldn't mess with Mother Nature."

Since I started working on this post (around 12:30 p.m.) and after I left a comment telling someone who shared the photo that the picture looked like a Hurricane Katrina photo, the person who originally posted the picture left this comment beneath it:

Ok… apparently this pic has gone viral from my wall with 99,989 shares. In the last 15 minutes I have had like 200 people add me as a friend because of this pic. So I called the person who texted it to me and she then called her friend who is in New York and he told her that it was fake. So now I have 200 friends who like a photo that is fake on my wall. Funny, but awkward….

And I was even wrong about it looking like a Hurricane Katrina photo, although years ago I used the photo as a graphic to go with a Hurricane Katrina poem because someone else had posted it with Hurricane Katrina news. I do recall, though, thinking back then that the land in the photo did not look like Louisiana or Mississippi terrain. Ah, such is the digital life. Verify. Verify. Verify.

The Statue of Liberty faces southeast, so a storm coming from the southeast would not be at Liberty’s backside before reaching Jersey City, NJ, or the Big Apple. People often get excited and don't think too hard when looking at pictures in emergency weather situations. And the urge to compare Hurricane Sandy to Hurricane Katrina and other big storms seems to be strong. They're even doing it at CNN.

Whether Sandy is a Katrina or an Isaac, people in the North East should take this storm seriously. Even a Category One can do a lot of damage.

At last count, the Sandy Comes to Liberty picture had more than 155,000 shares on Facebook.

For more faked or mistaken storm photos, check out this post at Buzzfeed. Related: Meteorologist Compares Hurricane Sandy to Hurricane Katrina.

News Driven Visions Strike Again through Poetry

Cinéma Vérité
By Nordette N. Adams

A mother creeps through the streets
of New Orleans. Her dress has the hue
of fresh blood because her children
are dead. She clangs an old cowbell,
     shouting:

"You thought it was a movie, but

the Zombie Apocalypse is here.
People fear leaving their homes
because the dead-eyed
swarm.

"I have seen the walking dead.
Their teeth gleam as bullets,
seeking warm flesh, biting necks,
infecting. They fall upon our
town, old City of the Dead,
new City of Dread, where
they, futureless, aim AK47s
at the heads of their reflections,
futureless, copulating with the Void.

"Romero may now be named a prophet, or
in the words of Paul Revere revised,
'The zombies are coming! The Zombies
are here!' See them," she points
toward the corner of Washington and
Carrollton Avenues, ten steps from a college
by Gert Town, not far from Holly Grove,
minutes from the Sheriff's office.

"See how they stagger beside the canals,
listening for the sounds of our rising,
listening for the rhythm of our breathing,
listening for the rush of our blood.

"See them," she yells, "cruising
in their pimped trucks,looking
for their kind who love plastic,
metal, and stone more than they may
ever love the beautiful drool of a baby's
budding kisses on a parent's cheek;
yet, they seek zombie brides to bear
their zombie children who will arrive
next to your children some day, dead-eyed
at school, famished, never having known
the fragance of a healthy father
who lives with sweet promise.

From all directions a chorus chants:
"Shaped by zombie life into the image
of a grave, these zombie children limp
into the world, unable
to see beyond the gloom, unable
to jump at the sun, unable
to make room for life's potential
unable to leap or run the obstacle
course the sytem's laid out for them."

The mother wrings her hand, then wipes her
palms against her red dress, hollering
her madness, "I wish I could tell you
different. I wish I had an intelligible
hope to pray, but I am at the end
of heavenly tongues. Dear Lord, mercy."
She gazes down Broadway, taking in its
tarred-over pot holes, its ugly lumps.
They look like burial mounds to her.
"I fear Death has won!"

A man of the city comes and stands beside her.
He carries something she had tossed in a ditch.
Falling to the hem of her dress, he sobs:
"Take up your sword, again, Spirit of Truth.
Might not you birth more children?"

He lifts his head to the skies,
"Take up your healing salve,
O' Love. Apply it to her eyes.
Take up your golden quiver,
Courage. Pierce our inner breasts.
And you, Justice, take to your great
chariot. Deliver to us a warrior's
endurance and wisdom, revive
in us a savior's heart. Providence,
shall you not arm those willing to fight
for light in the city
with the arrows and the skill to slay
the Cyclops of Violence?

"Yes, we have empowered it to spit its virus
into our streets, into the nostrils
of the hopeless, but will you let the remnants
of hope perish with the horde?
Take up your garment of grace."

He reaches for the mother's hand and
strokes it. She sits beside him. They
tarry a while and try not to shudder
at the sssuhhhhhh-sssuhhhhhh of dragging feet,
at the groans and growls of dead throats.
They think of how a giggling toddler sounds,
and then they plead for a way,
a way to rewire the zombie mind,
a way to call the children home
before the Void comes culling
a larger share.

© Copyright  2012 Nordette N. Adams 
Cross-posted at The Urban Mother's Book of Prayers.

Sikh shootings: hatred, blurry vision seems forever connected

When I heard about the horrific shooting at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisc., yesterday, I immediately assumed it was a hate crime, but I hoped it was a domestic violence incident such as the one in Lakeland, Fla., last year in which a man burst through the doors of a Christian church and shot two people. Earlier he had shot his own wife to death in their home. I had hoped the shooting at the Sikh temple was like that—the actions of a disturbed person with a personal vendetta.

I say personal because although domestic violence is a serious issue that harms the entire community, a man angry about the failure of his marriage or one spouse's attempt to subdue a mate is an isolated matter: "Sounds like a personal problem," we used to say of such incidents, meaning that it is a problem from which we may distance ourselves and declare, "Nobody in my family would come after me with a gun. Nobody wants to kill me."

A hate crime, however, meaning a crime directed at someone because that person belongs to a specific ethnic, religious, ideological, or, perhaps, biological group, feels different. No matter what group you belong to, you may be assured that somewhere there is another group (or individual) that hates your group and that person may have access to guns. If you are a member of a religious community or a person of color, the likelihood some other group hates you is even higher. So, while I had hoped the Wisconsin shooting was not a hate crime, I could not shake the feeling that hate crime was most likely the case.

The video above is a September 2011 report from Democracy Now: "Ten Years After 9/11, Little-Known Sikh Community Still Target of Violence and Harassment."

In the case of this past weekend's shooting, I was even more convinced that it was a hate crime because I remembered the beginning of a rise in hate crimes against Sikhs after 9/11. I recalled the reports of the Sikh man shot to death in Arizona in mid-September 2001 because someone in a pick-up truck thought he was Muslim.

When I heard about that crime more than 10 years ago, I mumbled something about idiocy, hatred, and blindness, I think. Today I contemplate those general thoughts again, in particular how hatred, which by nature couples with rage, distorts reality and blurs vision.

Although I question the rigor of scholarship behind a study that finds a correlation between lower I.Q., bigotry, and racism, I can't help but think there may be some validity to its conclusions in light of white supremacists and self-appointed 9/11 avengers consistently misidentifying Sikhs as Muslims. Or could it be that hatred infects the human eye and brain in ways that make haters incapable of differentiating between groups that are in some ways similar?

Perhaps the hatred lowers its practitioners to the point of indulging animalistic behaviors; perhaps they become like Pavlov's dog but dumber, so not only do they react to bells but anything that resembles a bell. Maybe it's not surprising then that ultimately they need a pack as well to reinforce their hatred and fears; hence, the Wisconsin shooter's membership in a white supremacist band and his need to hang with people as insecure and fearful of the other as he is may be somewhat typical.

However, people in general do seek out those with whom they share the same goals and mentality. They do this because it gives them the power to act as one and effect material changes or sustain the status quo in their cultures. A hatred group, then, especially with a mind to act on that hate, is a terrible thing.

But even if these hateful people were to accurately identify their targets, would that make them any less repulsive, any more evolved? Either way they wallow in a pool of baser instincts and hold humanity back. If the Wisconsin shooter had attacked a Muslim temple he would have been equally wrong, equally deserving of punishment, equally evil.

And this is all the time I have today to contemplate such evil because who can withstand looking into the abyss so long? Indeed, that may be the source of the hater's disease, too much time looking into the darkness for communion with those of the same ugly mindset, too little time looking for the light.

Does Chik-fil-A's Dan Cathy care about your boycott threats?

Are there any men out there who will boycott Chik-fil-A because Dan Cathy also downed men who divorce and remarry? He said, ". . . and we are all married to our first wives." (I guess he voted for Obama in 2008, not McCain.)

More than likely he disapproves old-school Mormonism, drinking and smoking, and probably scientists who believe in evolution, too. Seriously, it is not news that Cathy is an Evangelical Christian. I don't know why some in the media and gay activists are tripping anew over his statements to the Baptist Press.

Read the quote behind the uproar here

Christina Pesoli at the Huffington Post calls Cathy's decision to state that he believes in "traditional marriage" (and so does not support gay marriage) "a bird-brained business decision." I disagree. Cathy made a shrewd business decision considering to whom he was speaking, and it's the same decision he's been making for years.

She asks, "But what does marriage equality have to do with fried chicken sandwiches?" Nothing, Miss Pesoli, nothing at all, but Cathy was not being interviewed by a business magazine; he was being interviewed by the Baptist press. The Baptist Press is interested in how people live out their Christian faith and who's on the same page with them, not the business of business. The interviewer asked Cathy a question, and he answered it honestly.

I don't mean to pick on Pesoli; her blog post just happened to catch my eye. Nonetheless, she notes that the number of people supporting gay marriage is increasing as though Cathy should be concerned about that. In terms of his business, probably, that growing constituency is the farthest thing from Cathy's mind.

Cathy made what Christians call a "faith-based" decision. He attributes his success in the food industry to God blessing him because he is a "faithful" Christian according to what he believes a faithful Christian to be. Cathy has shown America for years that he will stand by what his religious beliefs tell him to stand by—which is why (in case someone didn't notice) his restaurant is closed on Sundays. There are Christian ministries devoted entirely to financial management according to Christian values. Pundits who discuss Chik-fil-A without considering this context are ill-prepared.

Chik-fil-A is not a publicly-traded company, so its stock will not drop over Cathy's frankness, but consumers who don't like what Cathy said and thinks their dollars matter to him probably should not eat at his restaurant for the peace of their own consciences. If you're one of these consumers,  know, however, that your dollars do not matter to Cathy; your soul does.

You may call his beliefs hateful, but he thinks he speaks from love. I mean, there's much of which he disapproves based on his Evangelical beliefs, and part of those beliefs preach that guiding others by his life example toward fundamentalist Christian principles is an act of love for which God will reward him.

Furthermore, the New Testament speaks of Christian's suffering for their beliefs. His pastor will undoubtedly tell him to wear this public censure as a badge of honor, and some fundamentalist Christians who never eat at Chik-fil-A will make sure to do so this month.

Would Cathy join a group that burns crosses on gay people's lawns or send money to a group that supports the so-called "corrective" raping of lesbians? That's highly unlikely. Would he donate money to a Christian counseling service that treats homosexuality as a mental disorder? Probably. So, do what you've got to do, but you'll have trouble convincing Cathy and those like him that their beliefs flow from hate.

And no one can call Cathy a hypocrite, either, in terms of acting on what he thinks the Bible teaches. Unlike some Christian schools here in Louisiana, Dan Cathy will not compromise for the sake of getting more cash. Fundamentalist Christian schools are often on one hand anti-government social programs, believing that the more public money the masses receive from the government, the less they will depend on God, but on the other hand there the schools are—willing to take government money in the form of school vouchers. They've got a rationale for it, but it smacks of compromise.

"Now, what can we do to make Dan Cathy and Chik-fil-A pay?" murmurs the echo chamber. (Folks are so "eye for an eye" on this matter that they can't fathom the reality that eyes don't matter to Cathy: he'll gladly be blind for God.) Some Cathy slammers are going for that predictable standby strategy of the Civil Rights movement: the boycott.

Gay Rights = Civil Rights?

More and more people like to compare the Gay Rights movement to the Civil Rights movement. Although I agree that Gay Rights are also Civil Rights in this American republic, I think Gay Rights activists show that they are still operating with the mentality of activism infants when they get sucked into the organized boycotting of a business because its owner thinks homosexuals are morally inferior, or will not accept homosexuality as the natural biological state of some humans, or refuses to support the gay marriage agenda.

Therein lies the difference between the 60s Civil Rights boycott strategy to topple Jim Crow and the calls of some current Gay Rights supporters and activists to boyc . . . Continued at WritingJunkie.net, where you will also find Cathy's full quote and a .pdf of his interview with the Baptist Press.

The Colorado Shooting: processing our fragility and the odd coincidences in this tragic moment

At the outset, my prayers are with the victims and their families whose lives have been irrevocably changed due to today's massacre in Aurora, Colorado (71 people shot of which 12 are dead). There's no need for me to cover the details here because any reader can visit the websites of the major networks and watch as well as read the coverage of James Holmes's rampage. I'm posting now because I'm processing the carnage and can't help pondering odd coincidences emerging in this story.

Raw Hypertext
by Nordette N. Adams

First, I heard that one of the victims, Jessica (Ghawi) Redfield, who aspired to be a sports newscaster, "narrowly escaped death" at the Toronto Mall shootings on June 3. She wrote about it at her blog under "Late Night Thoughts on Eaton Centre Shooting." As MTV reports, "Redfield escaped the incident unscathed, only to be counted among the victims of Friday's shooting."

Perhaps we should consider here that humans love
and revere guns more than the mysteries of breath,
more than the quest for sapient connections.

Second, Warner Brothers has pulled its preview of Gangster Squad, which was supposed to run in theaters before The Dark Knight Rises, because the end of the trailer has a scene of gangsters shooting up a movie theater. Although Gangster Squad is a period piece, taking place in the 1940s, the studio rightfully understands that given today's shootings in a movie theater, showing such a scene to moviegoers would seem callous, but still . . .

Perhaps we should consider here that humans love
and revere guns more than the mysteries of breath,
more than the quest for sapient connections.

Third, and finally, Gabbie Giffords has been mentioned during news coverage of today's tragedy. The congresswoman was shot last year during a massacre at a speaking event but survived. What I'm recalling here is the eerie coincidence of the July 15 episode of HBO's Newsroom.  Last week's show, "I Will Fix You," ended with breaking news of that horrific Arizona massacre and who has the right to declare a human dead. The characters had been involved in a variety of petty, personal dramas when the news of the shooting broke; the tragedy seemed to snap them out of their insular worlds and wake them to our American crisis and weeping.

Breitbart.com has decried the episode as Aaron Sorkin, the show's writer, firing blanks at the Second Amendment, America's right o bear arms just in case the government evolves to a socialist state and revokes our right to kill each other. Today, however, although I'm sure the Breitbarts would object, Sorkin sounds civilized.

Perhaps we should consider here that humans love
and revere guns 
more . . .

© 2012 Nordette N. Adams

Related: Mashable covers story from social media angle, and below is ABC's report. In the video you'll see a young man fall apart recounting what he saw. So many people's heads will be messed up over this massacre. It's another dark moment in our history that reminds us of how fragile we are.



I end this post with some Sting's lyrics and his music video.

Fragile

by Sting

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star, like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are, how fragile we are

Fox News places Zimmerman in an angry black world

Listening to George Zimmerman's interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, some viewers may wonder if Zimmerman is changing his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. He told the Fox News pundit that killing Trayvon Martin was "God's plan." I heard about the statement on CNN this morning, and later a friend on Facebook posted this link to Think Progress with the same story and the video you see below.



Mediabistro has the full interview.

Think Progress updated its news brief with this note:

At the very end of the interview, Zimmerman went back to the question and said, “I do wish there was something, anything I could have done that would have put me in the position where I didn’t have to take his life. And I do want to tell everyone…that I’m sorry that this happened.”

Zimmerman sounds mentally unstable with his incongruous rationalization and apology, but he's always struck me as having some kind of asocial pathology motivating his behavior and making him also "crazy like a fox." I wonder, therefore, if he's about to play the "insanity card" for his defense. Why else would he do such a crazy interview?

The headline for this story at Fox News says, "Zimmerman says he's sorry Trayvon Martin's family had to bury their child; family calls apology insincere." The story itself reveals why Zimmerman's statements offended Trayvon's parents.

Martin's mother and father watched the interview and appeared on "Fox & Friends" Thursday morning. His mother and father both said Zimmerman's apology appeared insincere and were troubled that the man accused of killing their son considered it all "God’s plan."

"I don't understand what he was thinking by saying it was God's plan that he murdered our child," Tracy Martin, the teen’s father said. "I really don’t understand what God he worships because it’s not the same God that I worship."

Sabrina Fulton, Martin’s mother, also appeared angered by the comment.

"Why would God have him kill an unarmed teenager?" she asked. "It makes no sense."

It's good that the story includes this information, but most people take a headline as summary or the most important point/take-away of the story; hence, Fox News's message for the reader is really "George is remorseful but the boy's parents won't forgive him." So, Fox News continues to show its support for Zimmerman. With its headline--which does not mention Zimmerman's "God's plan" statement but declares instead that he said he was sorry and Trayvon's parents thought his apology was insincere--Fox News doubles down on its goal to paint Zimmerman as sympathetic and the parents as harsh and unreasonable (by extension the black community becomes the same).

It appears that Fox News (and possibly soon some other conservative, pro-Zimmerman pundits)  is using Trayvon's parents to represent African Americans as a whole (the parents become a metonymical and synecdochical rhetorical device); in doing so, Fox News continues the conservative strategy of painting African Americans as an unforgiving people who want more than they deserve.

Remember Limbaugh and his assertion that "angry" black people have been in a 30 year plot to teach their children to hate America, or how easily Bill O'Reilly called Michelle Obama an "angry woman", or how quickly the late Andrew Breitbart gained attention with his fake Shirley Sherrod video. More recently, consider that the clip of the NAACP booing Romney can be used to make that group and the black community seem "hateful," and ponder as well that Hannity recently found an otherwise obscure black man of questionable credibility to call the NAACP a "hate group". This angry black people spin in reporting and punditry plays into a narrative that is gaining visibility in some conservative media circles that says an unreported "race war rages". By inference and accretion of tales about "angry black people," Fox and allies persuade viewers that black people are waging this war.

This spin creates fertile ground, in a Fox News world, to cultivate the story that Zimmerman is an innocent victim of angry black people; he is not a murderer or even a man guilty of manslaughter but a white martyr being hounded by the black mob. (I mean, has any Fox News pundit ever challenged Zimmerman's version of events or expressed genuine remorse that Trayvon is not here to tell his side of the story?) Finally, the Fox News interpretation of Zimmernan's plight becomes another tale in the far-right grand narrative that black people are taking over America; this convenient and effective myth keeps certain people pulling the GOP lever no matter what.

ABC news also reports on the Zimmerman interiview.

George W. Bush's head on a spike? Tsk, tsk, Game of Thrones. HBO yanks season one episode.

On one hand, this whole controversy about HBO's Game of Thrones using a fake severed head of former president George W. Bush in episode 10 of season one is silly. It's something that the GOP blew up to recast itself as oppressed for the sake of gaining more power. How Cersei Lannister of them.

On the other hand, I've got to wag my finger at the Game of Throne producers and directors. Really? Dudes, as the HBO executives have now told you, that was tacky and disrespectful. A profile of the former president's head appears in the scene in which devil spawn King Joffrey Baratheon (all Lannister by blood) forces the less-and-less naive Sansa Stark to look at her father's decapitated head on a stick atop a palace wall with other so-called traitors' heads.

I see this foolishness with GWB's head in light of the Golden Rule—Do unto others as you would have them do unto you—and so I consider how would I feel if that were a fake President Obama head decapitated on that stick. I'd have smoke coming from my ears.

The show's response has been that the use of GWB's head was not a political statement but the result of budget constraints: due to a lack of funds, they used whatever heads they could find. It is to laugh that's such a bogus answer. And the whole thing feels like a publicity stunt given that no one would have known that was 43's head if the show's creators hadn't revealed it during the DVD commentary. What's more likely, however, is that some guy on the art team saw the head and did want to make a statement and used it quietly, not spilling the beans until after the show was in the can.

CNET reports that HBO, reacting to the uproar, will not run that episode of Thrones on the HBO Go platform until the offensive scene's been edited; same goes for the television broadcasts. In addition, the network has stopped future shipments of season one DVDs.

Darn it! I knew I should have bought that season.

Rodney King Found Dead at Bottom of Pool

What can I say about the death of Rodney King at age 47 but R.I.P., accidental and imperfect icon. I wish I could say that his death represents the end of an era, but with the Trayvon Martin case, the Darius Simmons case (not his murder as much as how the police treated the family while his body lay on the sidewalk) and other similar cases, I know any announcement of an end to police officers brutalizing black people or trampling their rights would be a leap. (And yes, I know that all police officers are not racist or dishonest; I know that we have criminals in the black community who leave more death and destruction in their wake than police departments; and I know that Rodney King was no angel, but why is it that black people have to be angels in order to receive the same protections of their rights as others in America?)

For readers too young to recall King's significance, he was the black man who became a symbol for racially-motivated police brutality after four white police officers were caught on camera beating him in 1991. King almost died from the blows; doctors operated for at least five hours. Despite the video evidence, hospital records, and pictures of King's pummeled face, jurors acquitted the officers, and the incredible verdict set off a fury of rioting in Los Angeles.

CNN reports today that King drowned:

"Police in Rialto, California, received a 911 call from King's fiancee, Cynthia Kelly, about 5:25 a.m., said Capt. Randy DeAnda. Responding officers found King at the bottom of the pool, removed him and attempted to revive him. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital, DeAnda said.

There were no preliminary signs of foul play, he said, and no obvious injuries on King's body. Police are conducting a drowning investigation, DeAnda said, and King's body would be autopsied."

In 1991, an amateur videographer recorded King's beating, and per CNN, Milton Grimes (King's attorney) said then, "We finally caught the Loch Ness Monster with a camcorder."

That was how the beating on video struck many African Americans, as finally we have proof that police officers abuse their powers in the black community. So, when the jury found the officers not guilty, all hell broke loose.