Van Jones tells the most important Prince story

On CNN, Van Jones tells the truth about Prince's life, which is that Prince was a generous soul. He says this is the most important story to remember about the man other than Prince was a genius musician.

I knew some of what Jones said about what Prince as philanthropist. I remembered his alignment with Yes, We Code and his concern about and help for New Orleans, but much of this I did not know.

The next video is Jones's 2015 interview with USA Today in which he talked about Prince supporting Yes, We Code and that movement'ss first hackathon, which was held in New Orleans in 2014. Prince headlined the Essence Festival here that year. That concert was the last time I saw Prince perform live.

Black Teen,14, Killed for Allegedly Wielding BB Gun (video)

Tuesday evening, Houma, Louisiana, deputies shot and killed 14-year-old Cameron Tillman when the teen opened a door while allegedly holding a BB gun. The shooting occurred less than 24 hours before an Ohio grand jury declined to indict police officers who shot to death John Crawford III, a black man who was holding a BB gun in a Walmart that he found on the store's shelves. He was talking on the phone when he was killed.

The deupty shot Tillman four times. WDSU reports a spontaneous memorial for the slain youth grows outside the house in which he was shot. His blood still stains the floorboards.

According to the Associated Press, the stories about what happened Tuesday evening differ. The Terrebonne Parish Sheriff's office tells their version; teens who witnessed the killing tell another.

". . .  the sheriff says, he [Tillman] flung open a door brandishing a BB gun made to look like a Sig Sauer .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol. Relatives of other teens who were there when Cameron Tillman was killed Tuesday evening say that's not true. (AP)

Witnesses say Tillman was not holding the BB gun, and the gun was on a table in the middle of the room when the deputy fired first directly at Tillman and then fired more shots through the door when Tillman quickly shut it. The teens say that the deputy did not announce himself, and that Tillman opened the door because he thought it was a friend.

Perhaps taking a page from how the police handled the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Sheriff Jerry Larpenter defends the shooting and has not yet identified the seven-year police force veteran who killed Tillman, reports the Houma Courier:

"He knocked on the door and said 'Sheriff's Office, come out.' A very short time after, Tillman threw the door open brandishing that gun toward the officer. The officer feared for his life, and, unfortunately, the individual was shot four times," Larpenter claims. "He (Tillman) turned that gun toward the deputy, and that deputy had to shoot or assume he would be shot." (via Courier)

The police were called by a neighbor who reported seeing young men brandishing weapons, says the sheriff's office. (I don't fault people for calling when they see groups of people with guns, but I also know that Louisiana has some of the loosest gun laws in the country, and since the teens were indoors, I wonder what the neighbor saw.)

The Associated press reports that Larpenter is no longer giving interviews.

Unfortunately for this nation and young Tillman's family, we've all seen this show before. When will we stop the encores?

In related news, Police Chief Tom Jackson apologized via video today to the family of Mike Brown Jr. for how long Brown's body was left in the street, and he said he's realized that some African-Americans mistrust the police department and he hopes to do better.

Woman Who Posted Video of Her Father, a Judge, Beating Her, Appears on Today Show with Her Mother

Hillary Adams, 23, the daughter of Judge William Adams of Rockport, Texas, Aransas County, appeared on the Today Show this morning to talk about the disturbing video she posted on YouTube that shows her father and mother beating her in 2004. She was 16 years old at the time of the beating and that wasn't the only one, she says.

The video sparked anger and outrage on the Internet. It is difficult to watch and learning that Hillary has Cerebral Palsy only makes her father seem like more of a monster as he curses at her and whips her with his belt. In the video he speaks of beating her into submission.

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Hillary told Matt Lauer that she uploaded the video to YouTube after her father continued to harrass her. "She'd had enough," says another reporter in the Today Show clip.

The judge responded yesterday and only admits to losing his temper. He claims he was disciplining his child, nothing more. Furthermore, he says that the video looks worse than what really happened, and he was beating his daughter because she was lying and stealing. In the YouTube video he calls the beating a spanking.

Hillary says she had downloaded music from an overseas website. Whether it was illegal or not is open for debate, but Judge Adams, a family court judge thought the infraction demanded a brutal response. In the YouTube video he says he never wanted a computer in his house.

The judge most likely cannot be prosecuted, say legal experts, but he may be forced from the bench, according to multiple news sources. The public's flooded Rockport court offices with demands that he be removed from office and subjected to harsher consequences.

Hillary's mother Haley also speaks during the Today Show interview. She has divorced the Judge since the 2004 beating and apologized for participating in the abuse. She also says that she was brainwashed and confused after living with a controlling man who is now threatening to take her to court and sue for custody of their other daughter.

Hillary says that the beatings happened regularly, which is why she set up the camera, but she couldn't release her footage sooner because she was still a minor and living under her father's roof.

Watch the video. I also recommend Rita Arens's post at BlogHer, which at the time of this writing has 125 comments from women fuming over the judge and the YouTube video.

Hillary appears in her Today Show interview to be conflicted about having posted the video because of the number of people who now want to harm her father. She hopes that he gets help and therapy, she tells Lauer.

I don't think therapy can help a man at his age who doesn't think he's done anything wrong. According to Hillary, when she told him she would post the video online, he seemed to dare her to do so. I hope he's thrown from the bench and disbarred.

Related: Former Florida Judge Karen Mills-Francis tells a CNN panel featuring Dr. Drew that it's not illegal in Texas to beat your child with a belt and the panel turns on her, getting pretty angry.



An older story, earlier this year a father beat his adopted daughter to death and claimed his religious beliefs dictated his doing so.

Brian Bradley Raps "Stop Looking at My Mom!" (X Factor Videos)

O.K. This is the kid, Brian Bradley, who was on The X Factor USA Thursday night rapping his song "Stop Looking at My Mom!" or to be more accurate "my momz." Apparently he had an "official video" already on YouTube with more than 80,000 hits. It was posted in October 2010 and it's cute, showing other kids protecting their moms from lusting eyes. You can buy the mp3 at Amazon.com.

The video below is his audition from the show itself and includes his pretense of challenging Simon Cowell before he starts his rap. Bradley says he wants to be bigger than Jay-Z, but based on what L.A.Reid told him, I think at least that talent scout was thinking more along the lines of Bradley being like Will Smith. He told the kid, age 14, that he can do TV, film, and records. When Bradley left the stage, Reid said to Cowell that the kid is a triple threat, which means he can act, sing, and dance.

Decoding High School: Why Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth

I saw this segment yesterday on CNN with Alexandra Robbins, author of the new book Why Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth. I used to say regularly to children who complained about not fitting in at school, "Geeks rule the world," and sometimes I'd end up in a debate about the difference between geeks and nerds. If you check Amazon, you'll discover a lot of books have the word "geeks" in the title, but the last time I bought one it was Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho by Jon Katz.

The Katz book is about two specific "geeks," misfits who were bullied, and how they succeeded and found their place through network technology, while the Robbins book is about different types of high school students and where they fit or don't fit in on the teen social hierarchy chart. Here is the publisher's description as posted to Amazon:

*Now a New York Times bestseller* In a smart, entertaining, reassuring book that reads like fiction, Alexandra Robbins manages to cross Gossip Girl with Freaks and Geeks and explain the fascinating psychology and science behind popularity and outcasthood. She reveals that the things that set students apart in high school are the things that help them stand out later in life. Robbins follows seven real people grappling with the uncertainties of high school social life, including:

• The Loner, who has withdrawn from classmates since they persuaded her to unwittingly join her own hate club;
• The Popular Bitch, a cheerleading captain both seduced by and trapped within her clique's perceived prestige;
• The Nerd, whose differences cause students to laugh at him and his mother to needle him for not being "normal";
• The New Girl, determined to stay positive as classmates harass her for her mannerisms and target her because of her race;
• The Gamer, an underachiever in danger of not graduating, despite his intellect and his yearning to connect with other students;
• The Weird Girl, who battles discrimination and gossipy politics in school but leads a joyous life outside of it;
• The Band Geek, who is alternately branded too serious and too emo, yet annually runs for class president.

In the middle of the year, Robbins surprises her subjects with a secret challenge--experiments that force them to change how classmates see them. Robbins intertwines these narratives--often triumphant, occasionally heartbreaking, and always captivating--with essays exploring subjects like the secrets of popularity, being excluded doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, why outsiders succeed, how schools make the social scene worse--and how to fix it. The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth is not just essential reading for students, teachers, parents, and anyone who deals with teenagers, but for all of us, because at some point in our lives we've all been on the outside looking in.

If I give credence to Robbins's classifications, I don't know where I would have fit in under them when I was a teenager. When you throw being overweight in to the equation, outcomes go askew.

Also, I went to a predominantly white, all-girls boarding school that was trying to integrate its student body for the first two years of high school and a predominantly black high school for the second two years. Cultural differences played a role in my perception of high school, but I would not go back to high school for a million dollars, even if youth came with the deal, unless I could take everything I know about life now with me. I think without reading her book, I would agree with the first classification, "The Loner," a person any one of us can become if we internalize being rejected.

I may buy Robbins's book just to see if I agree with any of it based on what I've observed of teens today. It's a bestseller so apparently a lot of people are still trying to figure out what the hell happened in high school.

Obama Surprises Memphis High School Graduates

My aunt in Memphis told me about President Barack Obama surprising students at Booker T. Washington in Memphis, Tenn., on May 16, She said it made her cry. CNN posted a longer video of his surprise visit on YouTube. Obama later spoke at their graduation.

Male Student Sent to Principal for Wearing High Heels: Principal Heilmann, You Are Doing it Wrong

A male student at Riverview High School in Tampa Bay Florida was called out of class to the principal's office because he wore high heel shoes to school, reports Tampa Bay's Fox station. School principal Bob Heilmann decided it was best if the student not where the shoes and told him to take them off. See video below.

A teacher notified the school principal and said that the boy’s high heels were distracting to the classroom. ... Heilmann reports there was name calling, so he instructed the young man to remove the shoes.

“As a principal of a high school, I have to take the paternal side as well, I have to make sure he’s going to be okay,” Heilmann told Fox, adding he was worried the student would be subjected to bullying. “Anytime anyone goes out from, quote, ‘the norm,’ or anytime anyone wants to make a statement, you have to be willing to take what comes with it.”

Does Heilmann even realize what he's saying? If he has children of his own, then I feel sorry for them since his "paternal side" apparently encourages him to tell young people who are exploring sexual orientation or gender roles to "Stop that! People won't like you or be nice if you do that. Conform or die!"

In essence, Heilmann is in the namecallers' corner, empowering bullies rather than students who are bullied. He's punishing the student who wore the high heels instead of calling in the students who ostracize their peers and having a talk with them, or better yet, opting to send the bullies to some kind of counseling to explore why they believe they have the right to call another student names. It's probably too much to ask of a school in Florida also to discuss with those students societal constructs of gender and grand narratives about sexuality framed by heterosexual privilege. He missed the higher ground of this teachable moment.

A friend of the student, per the local station says the young man is "proud of who he is, but embarrassed now." Sad.

Apparently Heilmann doesn't keep up with social issues such as bullying or campaigns such as "It Gets Better." Consequently, he'll be remembered as a symptom of the disease students must "get better" from.

Props to the Tampa Bay Fox station for putting this story in context of the little boy whose mother was criticized for letting him dress up as Daphne from Scooby Doo for Halloween. That mother shared her perspective on BlogHer.com this past November.

My Son Went Crash Bang Yesterday Morning

This was my day yesterday: At 8:30 a.m., I got a call. My son, 20, had wrecked my daughter's Chevy Cobalt. He was lost, and had made a bad turn, committing a failure to yield. An SUV hit the car on the passenger's side. Thank God he was alone in it.

The Cobalt then careened into a traffic light pole on Marconi and Harrison by City Park. The Other driver, one of the city's District Attorneys, was not injured. He was on his way to work at Tulane and Broad.

Again, thank, God. After the police left and the car was towed away, my daughter and I took my son to an emergency room to have him checked out. He had to have some glass bits removed from his hand, and also suffered a few bruises, but otherwise he's fine.

Next week it's back to grad school for me, and he and his sister go back to undergrad classes. Somewhere in middle of it I'll fit in a visit with my dad's physical therapist.

If this is the opening to the new semester, I'd better eat my Wheaties.

Removing "N" Word from Huckleberry Finn is More Southern Revisionism Gone Wild Not Political Correctness

Related: Linguist John McWhorter: Sanitizing Huckleberry Finn Insults Black People

I just read about the exceptional foolishness of a misguided southern publisher. At CNN, a Mark Twain biographer, Ron Powers, calls NewSouth Books' decision to strip the word "nigger" from Mark Twain's classic Huckleberry Finn, "vapid, smiley-faced effrontery ... (that) corrodes the foundations of respect for American literature." I agree with Mr. Powers and also commentary at the Washington Post, and I report sadly that I always knew the misunderstandings about political correctness would come to this.

While PC speech has some benefits, it was inevitable that mishandling its purpose would eventually spawn idiots who butcher the works of brilliant creative writers. I say mishandling because I don't think this attack on Huck Finn is political correctness as much as I think it's another example of the South's attempt to rewrite itself.

So, to my fellow African-American Boyce Watkins, who thinks it's good to cut the word from Huck Finn's adventures, I say, "You, sir, are wrong!" Parents, even black parents, would do better to teach their children about the history and times of Mark Twain's book than to coddle them by creating the illusion that no one has ever used the word "nigger." The book teaches us something about people and America even as it supplies bittersweet moments (See PPR_Scribe's "My Nigger Story.").

Yes, I have indulged the pleas of a cute child who asked us to "ban the 'N' word," but that's as far as I go; I'll weep for a moment with a little boy while I recall the first time the "N" word was used against me and then I will stand strong. Oh, if I'd had a gun back then, I would have struggled not to pull the trigger, but it was a person who used the word and had he not known that word, then he would have used another insult. His intent was to do harm.

BTW, some folks are already trying to ban the word "Negro." How far will this go? That other "N" word story surfaced this time last year. Maybe we're now on an annual "N" word controversy schedule.

People who can't abide the word "nigger" under any circumstances regardless of context, usage or intent, who would censure literature perhaps in lieu of politicians and poor role models in everyday life or who think humans are too stupid on their own to learn how and how not to use words, are themselves boneheaded. And I say this after considering how the "N" word is used and has been used and after speaking out against racism often. And no, I do not believe that in order to stop white people from using the word as an insult, black people must not use it as well. Folks who want to hurt or misguide you with words have alternatives. (See Russell Peters Mondays jokes). Plus, black people should have the right to code switch the same way other people do, and white people should be bright enough to know that they are not us.

I wouldn't dare call a white single mother from a mobile home in Slidell, La., a slip of poor white trailer trash no matter how often I heard others define her that way or how many times she might call herself the same. If I know not to do that, then white people should know not to use the "N" word.

Furthermore, I do think when people misuse the word in the name of their own insecurities or as a racial slur against people of color (See John Mayer, some black rappers, and some whites and soldiers who indulge calling Arabs "sand niggers"), they should be confronted. I expect them to know better and think they are smart enough to know they should not speak to people or of people in a certain way. I expect them to know this the same way a man knows if he wants the female bank loan officer to look favorably at his loan application, he can't roll up to her desk saying "bitch." What we all know is that if you don't use a word when you need a favor, then you probably shouldn't use it when you don't.

When it's convenient to them, white people—make that all people—know when they're leveraging racist language to impress, intimidate, or divide as can be seen in this clip of white conservatives taking another conservative to task about his racial word shenanigans. And we also know the difference between the technical definition of racism--the belief that one race is superior to another--how that belief is preserved in our institutions and the blatant racism practiced and promoted by groups like the KKK. We know the difference between the facile ignorance of people who deny they benefit from white privilege and the undiluted hatred of card-carrying, cross-burning racists. We know it all creates chaos and inflicts pain in myriad ways that surpass use of the "N" word.

Nevertheless, far more times than not there is rarely an excuse for speaking this word in mixed or even segregated professional company. And yet, there may be compelling reasons to use the "N" word in fiction or poetry and sometimes even music.

I have a huge problem with a publisher changing Mark Twain's words in the same way I would have a problem with a publisher changing the words of Zora Neale Hurston. In Jonah's Gourd Vine, a story based on her parent's courtship and marriage and that reflects accurately lifestyles of African-Americans in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Notasulga, Ala., and Eatonville, Fla., she has lines such as "... Booker T. Washington. Nigger so smart he et (ate) at de White House. Built uh great big ole school wuth uh thousand dollars, maybe mo.'"

Not only a writer but also a trained anthropologist and ethnographer, Hurston knew how to write and speak in Standard English but indulged writing in dialect, a fad during her time when writers were sometimes obsessed with reflecting regional speaking styles accurately in dialogue. A folklorist, she also believed in showing how people speak in ways that reveal heritage, culture, and social circumstance. Hurston was a product of her time as was Twain. Consequently, their writings reflect their worlds, and if we assault their works, sanitizing them for our own vanilla sensibilities, we will lose not only the flavor of the nation's old literature but also find we have tampered with perceptions of history.

I am not saying anything I haven't said or suggested before. When I heard in 2007 that New York City wanted to symbolically ban the 'N' word, I wrote the following:

How I relate to this as a writer.

As a writer, I have other feelings about using the word as addressed in my post "Speaking Out on the 'N' word." In that post I have some examples of artists/poets using the word.

Writers use a character's language to give readers insight into a character's nature, to make characters three-dimensional. For instance, if my character were a racist, would it seem odd that he never used the word "nigger"? If the character is from an environment, even a black character, that uses the word frequently, would my character seem less authentic if he and the other characters around him never used the word?

Should the writer edit dialogue to censor his character's speech, and does such editing detract from the story? Does the story suffer or benefit if the word is eliminated? I ask myself these same questions when I create characters who would naturally curse and curse often.

And so, I would not even agree with stripping the word "nigger" from a piece of fiction written today.

In addition, I think this move of a white publisher in Alabama of all places wanting to strip the word "nigger" from Huckleberry Finn seems like too disingenuous an act to be approved on face value. It reminds me of those Texans rewriting history and social studies textbooks, or Mississippi's Gov. Haley Barbour's attempt to redefine the racist Citizens Councils of his youth, and Virginia textbooks teaching that thousands of black people fought for the Confederacy because a writer was so desperate to fulfill that state's requirement to teach about the rebels in a more favorable light that she goofed. It's all an attempt to scrub history and lift up the South again to smell like roses. The motive is to distort reality and make us forget the evil things done.

Why must we go to extremes? Why can't adult humans of all races embrace the knowledge that lets them understand context and intent? Sometimes we behave as though we are incapable of comprehending language enough to know when we've heard an insult or of manipulating language in ways that either enlighten or deceive. Instead we pursue banning words to the point of censoring creativity.

And what's next, to strip from Shakespeare insults to short people or to rewrite his Merchant of Venice and forget it ever contained elements of antisemitism? Shall we edit Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels so no words in the text disdain women, obscuring the battle of the sexes, concerns about women controlling consumerism, and the fears that males would lose the power of science during his time?

I think we should speak civilly to each other. However, I also think that if our teachers aren't skilled enough to teach Huckleberry Finn as is and explain historical context and cultural influences on a period's race relations, if teachers can't illuminate the significance and meanings of difficult texts and American students are too daft to grasp shades and styles of writing, then why do we have schools at all?

Teens Allegedly Beat 78-Year-Old Woman To Death in Norco

The 17-year-old pictured here is Pauline Deese. Both the Times Picayune and WWL TV report that Miss Deese is one of four teens, ages 14-17, charged with allegedly beating to death a 78-year-old woman in Norco, La. St. Charles Parish authorities have not yet released the names of the other suspects.

News sources say that the teens allegedly convinced Mary N. Mulé Arico that they needed to use her phone. Once inside, they began searching her home for valuables. The Picayune says "two 16-year-old boys were booked with first degree murder and a 14-year-old girl was booked with principal to first degree murder on Sunday night," and St. Charles Parish Sheriff Greg Champagne called the crime "horrific," reports WWL. Its news division (which has posted video this evening after this post) further reports that Ms. Arico died from multiple blows and stab wounds and that the teens bragged about the murder.

"The crime was likely committed on November 8, though Arico’s body wasn’t discovered until November 26 after deputies were asked by family members to check on the woman."

The victim lived alone and kept to herself, which is why her death went unnoticed. A neighbor called police after she did not answer her door.

Deese, per reports, has been charged as an accessory to first degree murder. The sheriff's office says she helped dispose of evidence and is related to one of the 16-year-old boys who's been charged in the killing.

Norco is about 32 minutes west of New Orleans on the other side of the Louis Armstrong International Airport.

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Everytime someone asks me what do I think of the youth violence in New Orleans and surrounding areas, all I can do is shake my head. If I had a solution or any significant ideas about how to prevent it other than parenting classes and a better education system, I'd be richer than Bill Gates. This murder also causes me to ponder the dangers of living alone as we age.

Joel Burns, a Fort Worth Councilman, Tells Teens "It Gets Better"

Right now on CNN, Joel Burns, an openly-gay council member in Fort Worth, TX, is being interviewed. His emotional appeal made Tuesday night, October 12, at a city council meeting has gone viral. It's posted below the CNN video here in its entirety and was aired earlier today on the network. Burns gave the speech in response to the rash of suicides resulting from bullying in general and homophobia-driven bullying in particular.





At BlogHer last month, a staff member posted another "It gets better" video from two gay men who also addressed teens who are being bullied. View that one here. It's part of an organized project by the same name.

That School-Spying-Webcam Case Again

I heard about this case of the school spying on a student via a webcam on a school-issued computer earlier and Leslie Madsen Brooks writes about it at BlogHer, but I also saw this CNN video. Read Leslie's post and watch the legal eagles discuss the case below. Bizarre!

CNN says the FBI is investigating.



When I took my computer into Best Buy a while back, the Geek Squad guy laughed because my webcam is taped over, something I did before this case came to light. I know it seems paranoid, but as someone who had someone spy on her before, I take no chances.

Utah Teens Ticketed for Rapping Mickey D Orders

Utah police and McDonald's manager prove people over react in Utah just as they do in Cambridge, Mass., or maybe not.

Four American Fork teens are in hot water for upsetting a McDonald's restaurant manager with a hip-hop order at the drive-through, but the parents are saying their boys are getting a bad rap for their bad rap.
About 7 p.m. Tuesday, the teens -- one 18 and three-17-year-olds -- decided to emulate a popular YouTube video and rap their order at the American Fork eatery. (Salt Lake City Tribune)

Get this. The person taking the order asked them to not rap but just say their orders. They rapped again. The manager came out and say speak your order or leave. They left, but someone at the McDonalds took down their tag number and the police showed up at a high school sports event to give the boys a ticket for disorderly conduct in public.

Police Sgt. Gregg Ludlow said there's more to it than what's in the CNN video, that the boys also used foul language. While I alluded to the Henry Louis Gates incident in the first paragraph, we should recall that the Harvard Professor was arrested for disorderly conduct after objecting to how a police officer handled him in his own home. So, not quite the same thing.

But I'm going to bet that the McDonald's manager gets no kudos from MickeyD upper management and public relations department for not simply letting this go. Instead, McDonald's looks like an uptight establishment rather than the place for teens to get a burger.

To the Mgr.: Dude! Whine much?

Poem on the Gang Rape of a 15-Year-Old Girl

At my side blog, The Urban Mother's Book of Prayers, I post news stories about crime, youth violence, and other stories that concern mothers/parents. In particular, I post poetry and prayers. This morning I added a poem about the Richmond, Ca., homecoming dance gang rape. You can read it and additional commentary at this link: "Daughter, Our Daughter."

Homecoming Gang Rape Sparks Outrage on BlogHer and Beyond

The story of the 15-year-old girl in Richmond, Ca., gang-raped for more than 2 hours in a darkened part of her high-school's campus during the homecoming dance while a crowd watched really ripped me up. I wrote about this troubling story yesterday after hearing the news, and perhaps this gang rape is one more heinous crime that screams youth violence is out of control. It's rising to the level where we're afraid to watch the news.

I'm not alone in my outrage, horror, grief, and disgust at this rape. At the time of this writing, a post at BlogHer.com on the rape has passed 4500 views and accumulates comments reflecting everything from despair to calls for proactive action. The comments rack up as well at The Moderate Voice, and at The Grio. At Huffington Post, comments have surpassed 500.

Throughout the nation, people wonder how a crowd watches anything so horrible.? Psychologists have a name for it, Genovese Syndrome, but it's something our minds refuse to grasp.

"She (the 15-year-old) was raped, beaten, robbed and dehumanized by several suspects who were obviously OK enough with it to behave that way in each other's presence," Lt. Mark Gagan said. "What makes it even more disturbing is the presence of others. People came by, saw what was happening and failed to report it."

Police sources told CBS Affiliate CBS 5 that some of the bystanders laughed as the attack unfolded while others took photos with their cell phones. (from CBS News)

People are asking why can't charges be filed not only against the perpetrators, but the watchers as well; however, California has no law that requires bystanders to call the police if they witness a crime nor any penalty for watching, failing to stop the crime, or cheering on the violence.

Outrage is the word of the day and anger at the rapists, but prayers and concern also go out to the victim of this heinous act. At BlogHer, Lara Colvin from Notions of Identity responded to another commenter, Liz Henry, who suggested readers find a way to help the victim, with the following.

I agree w/Liz Henry: let's help the victim to make sure she has access to resources that will help her get counseling and good healthcare and anything else she needs to deal with this atrocity.

I've emailed the Police of Chief at Richmond, VA [sic, means California not Virginia] Police Dept to see if there is currently a fund for her or if he has suggestions on other ways to help, and I've sent a similar email to the school principal and counseling staff. I'll update when I receive a response. Hopefully, I will. In the meantime, let's keep sending the young woman our collective warm and loving energy in the hopes that it reaches her as she heads down the path of trying to heal this horrific wound. (Laracolvin)

Five people have been arrested, reports CNN. "Police say 3 juveniles, 2 adults are in custody in connection with the crime," per the network, and while the story has been widely reported and documented, for legal reasons it's still called an alleged rape. In addition and as usual in rape cases, some people who are uneducated about the crime of rape, such as some of the 15-year-old's classmates, blame the victim. Even the attitude and language by school administrators early in this story seemed insensitive.

The following video from CNN includes an interview with law enforcement about arrest in the case and information on how the school district is addressing this crime with students and the community.



Finally, perhaps as we expect after news of abominable deeds surface, extremely irate citizens in comments at various blogs and on news reports call for the death penalty for those teens who participated, while others demand that such a deed be classified as a hate crime.

Related:

• Update on the Marriott rape case in which the corporation's insurance company blamed a rape victim for her own attack.
• Laura L. Rahman's film, Broken Social Contracts, the problem of sexual assault on HBCU campuses.

Time for that Vibrator Talk with Your Teen Daughter

Stephany who blogs at Crooked House is not having an easy time of it. She's a couch potato by her own description, tired and dragging through her days, and ready to give Oprah expert Dr. Laura Berman the thumbs up for telling moms to tell their daughters about masturbation, maybe even given them vibrators for Christmas. It's understandable. Stephany is pregnant and says tongue in cheek, "If only I'd had a vibrator seven months ago, I wouldn't be stuck on this couch right now."

Ahh, but there's a disclaimer:

I'm kidding. (I mean it, Mom, I'm really kidding! I never heard about vibrators until yesterday! Honest!) But I'm not kidding about how informative this particular Oprah show was on a difficult parenting issue. (Crooked House)

She's funny, but her words strike truth: Most parents don't want to think about their little darlings knowing anything more about sex than the male penis is like your car cigarette lighter and a woman's vagina is like the hole into which the lighter goes.

I've never used that analogy with a child, but that is what my ex-husband told our son when the boy was about 10. The ex, who was not yet the ex, was reluctant to tell him that much. I had to lobby him to speak to our son, but I had already given the child a book that explained sex in plain English, including masturbation, for boys in his age-range. My work was done!

If my mother were still living, I may have had to tell her what Stephany said to hers at the end of her blog, and this after I've birthed two children in marriage, am nearing 50, and am single again. If you're a mother and think it would be easy to talk to your daughter about how to use a vibrator, then I'll bet you're a highly unique mommy.

My daughter's 28, and while I can mention vibrators in passing, I cannot see myself sitting down and telling her about the pleasures of masturbation, not now and probably not when she was 14. I've been patting myself on the back for being brave enough to find the juiciest condom I could and then telling her how to put it on an erect penis.

Nevertheless, I think there's value in Dr. Berman's advice, and mothers across the web are talking. Dr. Berman's advises teaching your daughter about the joy of masturbation so she will feel in charge of her own body and not have sex with the first boy that makes her hips gyrate and legs turn to Jello while giving her a hickey.

So, did you see the show? Have you talked it over with friends, read blog posts, um, approached your teen to have "the talk"? Watch selected video and read summaries at Oprah.com. It's too much to cover here. The talk-show host did two episodes on "How to talk to your children about sex." The first one went from toddler to tween. The second focused on teens.

I thought when I looked for bloggers talking about these shows that I'd find only outrage because Oprah's audience looked like they all needed Valium when Dr. Berman suggested they give their daughters vibrators and talk to them about clitoral stimulation. Oprah's BFF Gayle, as Stephany says in her post, looked like "she needed smelling salts." That was during the first show. During the next show when Dr. Berman talked to a 14-year-old girlfriend and boyfriend, Courtney and Pierce, who wanted to have sex, I thought Gayle would have a stroke.

Gayle seemed to believe that too much would be interpreted as approval of teens having sex just because they think they're in love. Interestingly, however, after Dr. Berman finished talking to the teen couple, the girl's eyes opened. Courtney realized that she thought she and her boyfriend would be together forever or at least a few years because to her that's what long-term relationship means. Pierce, however, figured six-months to a year tops should do. After their talk with the doctor, Courtney wasn't quite so hot to go for it, but they've already done everything but have intercourse.

Do Pierce and Courtney understand sexually transmitted diseases? Courtney says they've had presentations in school about them. "Quite a few times, from sixth grade till now," Pierce says.

Dr. Berman says that's good news. "For the past eight years at least, most schools—if they do have sex education—it's abstinence-only education," she says. "They teach you about sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, but they don't necessarily teach you about prevention." (Oprah.com)

Jen will not go the abstinence-only right with her child, I concluded after reading Serenity Now! According to Jen, her daughter is about "2-3 years" away from needing the first "talk," probably the one about the mechanics of sex. But of vibrators, she's not buying it, "... for the part where the Dr. suggests that as a parent, you offer your 15 year old daughter the possibility of a vibrator. Um, sorry no- prudesaywhat?" she writes.

But she's not as uptight as that sounds:

At any rate, I've always tried to create an environment where my kids are not ashamed of their bodies. We call their "stuff" by its real name and when my kids are um, "exploring" I usually turn a blind eye.

The other day, Jack was in the bathtub and Megan and I were in the bathroom with him talking about other things, not really paying attention to him. I could hear him chattering away to himself but I didn't pay much attention until he called out something that sounded like, "penis control".

Megan started to giggle and I looked over at Jack who was sprawled out on his back in the tub and clearly had a handle on his, uh...appendage. (Serenity Now!)

I remember those days.

Another aspect of talking to our children about sex is to talk about emotions, how being in love or thinking we're in love feels, and according to a join-study by Oprah Magazine and Seventeen Magazine, parents fail to do that. We're focused on making sure nobody pops up pregnant. Find more about that study here.

Other bloggers discussing Oprah's show on talking to children about sex:

• Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting
• Oprah Wrong About Approach to Teen Sexuality
• Buy Your Teen Daughter a Vibrator, Says Oprah Expert
• Why I Will Not Be Watching Oprah Ever Again
• OMG! Controversial Dr. Laura Berman Touts Vibrators for Teens
  

Big Update! Resources from the Show

The focus of this Blogher post is teens and the suggestion that mothers should talk over masturbation, including vibrators, but I'm adding information for the mothers of younger children and the parents of teens who may be starting this discussion later than Dr. Berman suggests as a resource for the interested.

At Oprah.com, you may watch video here of a mother talking to her 10-year-old daughter about sex with Dr. Berman's help.

Also, you may download Dr. Berman's handbook, The SexEd Guide For Parents also at Oprah.com as well as additional visual aids.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE and the New Orleans Literature Examiner for Examiner.com. She has two personal blogs, WSATA and UMBOP. This post is cross-posted at BlogHer.

Bodies Found, Calyisse Perkins and Fitzgerald Phillips, SUNO Students, Kidnapping Victims Murdered

Poem-prayer for Calyisse and Fitzgerald at Urban Mother's Book of Prayers.

A local television stations reports that the two black teenagers who were kidnapped early Sunday morning have been found dead in an abandoned house near Fig and Broadway in Gert Town, a section of New Orleans Louisiana. Just this morning, Calyisse Perkins's mother, Sheila Reneau, was on television weeping and pleading for the return of her daughter who was abducted with her boyfriend, Fitzgerald Phillips. I posted the story earlier and you can read that post here.

This news means the ransom message sent to the parents was most likely a fake, I suppose. Previously news sources reported that the teens were students at Southeastern Louisiana University. Today one of the same sources say they attended Southern University of New Orleans, SUNO.

Police found the teens' bodies nearly four miles from where they discovered Phillips's abandoned car, which was in the Treme section of NOLA, outside a house on Barracks St. As previously reported, yesterday officers found in that house six adults and three children with no running water or electricity.
One of the men at the house, Kenneth Barnes, 22, has been arrested, and the police are searching for the other suspect. WWL-TV said authorities describe Barnes as a career criminal, and so far it seems the motivation for the murders was robbery.

What kind of criminals go into a house and force two teens, both 19, to leave their location and drive them elsewhere and then kill them for their belongings? Monsters. No need to play around with political correctness here. The men who committed this crime are monsters.

NOLA.com has posted an update to this story that says "the killers used Phillips' cell phone to demand a $10,000 ransom," and Barnes has claimed to police that he and Barnes sold marijuana together.

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Bizarre Kidnapping of NOLA Black Teens

Update, 2:00 PM, Monday: SUNO students bodies found. Link.

According to a NOLA.com/Times Picayune blog, police have ruled out a drug connection in the kidnapping of Calysse Perkins and her boyfriend Fitzgerald Phillips, both 19 and students at Southeastern Louisiana University (News sources have updated to say the teens were students at SUNO). Two men broke into Perkins's home in the wee hours Sunday morning on New Orleans's West Bank aka Algiers and abducted the teens.

This kidnapping strikes me as highly bizarre.

WDSU TV reports via investigators:

... a ransom demand was called from Phillips' cell phone to a family member at about 2:30 a.m.

A witness told police Phillips was inside Perkins' apartment when two unknown men entered the apartment and ransacked it.

The assailants forced the two victims out of the apartment and into Phillips' vehicle, police said. They then forced the victims to drive to Phillips' residence, where the kidnappers stole some items and fled the scene with Phillips and Perkins in tow.

Police described Phillips as a 19-year-old black man, about 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighing 215 pounds. Perkins was described as a 19-year-old black woman, about 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighing about 140 pounds. (WDSU)

Since then, police have located Phillips's car, "a black Nissan Maxima at a home near Esplanade and Broad" at 2526 Barracks St., which is the other side of the river, a distance of 7.4 miles away from the kidnapping scene.

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And this is where the story gets weirder. In the house on Barracks St, where police discovered Phillips's car parked, were six adults, four men and two women, and also three children--a "set of 2-year-old twins and a 1 year old." (NOLA.com)

The house had no running water or electricity and authorities described it as "unfit for children." The adults have been taken into custody for questioning and the children into child protective services custody.

Story links:

• NOLA.com
• WDSU TV
• WWL=TV, man arrested

Rihanna, Chris Brown, Teen Views, and Victim Blaming

Feministe has a post discussing a new poll that indicates many Boston teens think Rihanna is at fault for Chris Brown beating her. Read Feministe here. The Boston Globe article on the poll is at this link. Below is my comment about why I think teens may find Rihanna at fault, and why some judges might do the same. The same comment at Feministe awaits moderation.

I watched and blogged on Robin Givens’ Larry King Live appearance about Rihanna. On the show was psychologist Stan Katz who had the following distinction to make between Rihanna’s behavior and Chris Brown’s behavior.

BEHAR: Let me start with you, Dr. Katz. You say there is a difference between female aggression and male abusiveness. Can you explain?

DR. STAN KATZ, PSYCHOLOGIST: Everyone was throwing this around, like there was violence in the car and she may have hit him or provoked him. Let’s make a distinction right away. Women can be aggressive with men, but they’re not abusive. Here is the difference, abuse contains intimidation, control and coercion.

BEHAR: It’s a power thing.

KATZ: A woman gets into a guy’s face. She may even spit at him. She may even stand right there with him. But it’s the power and control and coercion that really classifies as abuse. We have to make a distinction. Everybody can be aggressive. Lots of aggression in couples, intimate aggression. There’s a difference between aggression and abuse. We must clarify it.

Another guest, a domestic violence prosecutor and a woman, pretty much silenced him saying she didn’t want to hear any discussion. If anybody hits anyone it’s assault.

JEANNINE PIRRO, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PROSECUTION EXPERT: Put them in jail. Stop this hogwash about treatment and intervention and getting everybody together. You don’t get the victim together with the abuser. To what? To try to –

(CROSS TALK)

PIRRO: It’s not a situation. It’s a crime. The sooner we recognize that, whether we talk about abuse or aggression, it doesn’t matter. It’s against the law. You hit someone, you go to jail.

I have personal experience with this mentality in the court room. Victims of domestic violence are told to not fight back because if they do, the judge will call it a fight and not an instance of wife abuse or partner abuse. Yes, I’ve been told that women should let men beat them to a pulp if they hope to win a domestic violence case.

I think teens approach the Brown/Rihanna situation the same way, remembering rules from their parents who, like the prosecutor, have a primary motivation of enforcing law and order/peace and quiet. So what do they say, “Nobody touch anybody.” And then they assign blame for the fighting based on who hit whom first.

If we can’t open up to a more intelligent discussion on domestic violence and stop looking for the most simplistic ways of addressing it, then we’ll keep seeing this disconnect on the topic, the inability to see that something’s wrong with someone beating the hell out of someone else who’s not nearly as strong as he is simply because “she hit me first” or worse, “she disrespected my manhood by mouthing off at me”

Perhaps we should explain it in terms of why a teen would be considered a coward for beating up a 4-year-old that kicked him or her in the shins. It’s a power issue and while we need to address the 4-year-old’s aggressive behavior, nothing excuses the teen for pounding the 4-year-old.

Analogies only go so far. I can already hear someone objecting that I’ve put women in the category of 4-year-olds, which I have not.

I think some men are happy to use the feminist movement as the reason it’s okay for them to beat up a woman who threw a shoe at them or punched them on the arm, whatever. It’s another twisting of reality such as claims that Affirmative Action is reverse discrimination. Simplistic views of society.

Here's a link to the CNN transcript I quoted: link.

FunnyExam.com Is Freaking Hilarious

I've laughed my arse off looking at these students' exam answers and their teachers' comments in response. It's FunnyExam.com.

Immoral Matriarch told me about this site via Twitter. Click the image to visit the site.