White bodies in Black graves
Golly, I am almost tongue-tied by the racist ground that Ibram X. Kendi had to cover to deliver this masterpiece on white supremacist appropriation of Martin Luther King, Jr. I literally screamed when he recounted how shit-for-brains and Republican candidate for Senate Josh Mandel tweeted at Bernice King, “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” when she told him that he was misrepresenting her father’s words. He went on to accuse her of perverting King’s legacy.
Nothing quite takes the mediocre-white-man cake like the putrid slice served up by Mandel with his “I know your daddy better than you do, girl.” One for the #youcantmakethisshitup Hall of Fame, people.
Make no mistake. Kendi isn’t just hollerin’ about how white folks love to dip into the Cliff Notes version of the I Have A Dream speech when it suits their shit-stained ends. I didn’t call this essay a masterpiece for nothing. It’s a clip-n-save to lay on the belt every time one of them has King’s name in their mouths – a detailed indictment with all the evidence of the crime for which, hell yes, they will pay. They want a dead Black man to love and worship as their own savior, but Kendi shoves them into the graves of their own digging.
Read, share, clip, save, wield. Shove those fuckers in.
Bring your whole self to the dance
Good news via the Washington Post that the MacArthur Foundation named choreographer and dance entrepreneur Jawole Willa Jo Zollar “a genius.” At 70 years old, she’s the oldest of the 25 total recipients to be granted the award. Because of her work with Urban Bush Women, Zollar joins 11 other Black geniuses – among them, the aforementioned writer-historian Ibram X. Kendi – with work that is definitely #blackexcellence. It’s $625,000 over five years for each winner. Dance! Celebrate!
“Unconscionable,” “inexcusable,” and “insane.”
If you are not following ProPublica on Twitter or subscribed to ProPublica’s RSS feed, go ahead and trust me enough to do both right now. I’ll wait.
Done?
Okay, so you if you looked through their tweets or posts, you probably caught ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio’s exposé of the Tennessee juvenile court judge Donna Scott Davenport, who has been responsible for arresting a staggering number of Black children, largely on trumped-up charges.
The judge was proud of what she had helped build, despite some alarming numbers buried in state reports.
Among cases referred to juvenile court, the statewide average for how often children were locked up was 5%.
In Rutherford County, it was 48%. [emphasis mine]
Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge, ProPublica
Many elected officials, advocacy groups, and random citizens have weighed in since the publication of the piece. But if you have been waiting for Josh “I love Martin!!!” Mandel to remind this judge to focus on the content of these kids’ characters rather than their skin color, you’ll continue to wait for a very long time.
But here’s Bernice King, ready to get to work.
Read the whole article and share in your networks: https://www.propublica.org/article/black-children-were-jailed-for-a-crime-that-doesnt-exist.
Crispy not fried? Oh, cluck me!
And now for something wholly different.
For the Boy and me, Wednesdays are for wings and wedges. Sure, I can wean myself off the potato wedges, when the carb creep and weight gain nags. But nothing can pry me from a pile of chicken wings, which I regard as perfect as they-came-first eggs.
So there we were with our wings on plates in our laps when we pulled up Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken (2107) on the TV.
We may be four years late to the praise but, yes, Morgan Spurlock’s documentary is worth seeing, and certainly for how it skewers the role of marketing in fleecing consumers who are desperate for “healthy” alternatives. It excels, however, in focusing on the harm of industry, specifically how the average U.S. chicken farmer has no chance against “Big Chicken” companies like Perdue and Tyson.
We laughed. We gasped. We washed down our chicken wings with water, not beer. Because healthy.
Speaking of chickens (or, P.S. to Meg): The case for eating small eggs may not be as clear cut as the BBC’s Orlando Murrin’s Facebook share suggests. These are based on the claims of a UK chicken advocacy group, which, while well-meaning and gaining media traction with their campaign, have more anecdotes than science behind them. Interestingly, in my search for the science of this claim, I came across a Canadian government agriculture site that stated “Any factor that limits feed consumption, for example crowding, heat stress or inadequate water supply, will reduce egg size.” Not sure if we want more of the worst conditions for hens that cause small eggs to avoid the harm to hens caused by larger eggs. Regardless, choosing medium-sized eggs sounds like a fine compromise.
The poison of the pen
On Thursday, October 14, Ars published this story on organized online disinformation, a topic of pressing concern. The firm at the center of the story operated in America, with American and international help, to create an untraceable ring of sites. These sites would reinforce the firm’s profitable mix of health “news,” pseudo-science, outrageous political opinion, pro-Trump ravings, and straight-up disinformation. This toxic sludge got a boost from Robert Willis, who had operated as a so-called “ethical hacker” in the past but had no qualms about being a far-less-ethical hacker for money and the chance to sink Hillary Clinton.
Willis eventually left the firm behind. His work there was profiled in a book by former White House CIO Theresa Payton, though Willis was only named as “Hacker X.” Several years after the book, Willis decided to add his name to the story.
– Update, Ars Technica
I love reading tech news site Ars Technica. And while I appreciated this report on Hacker X, I wasn’t the only one stunned by the “ethical hacker” assertion they were willing to let stand in the report. Are we living in the upside down?
Like WHOA. YIKES. and FUCK THAT!
Read the rest of the updates. While the image shows Trump’s head, it’s really democracy under the guillotine.
