What if Ray Rice's Wife Were White?

The elevator video of Ray Rice assaulting his then fiance, Janay Palmer, then dragging her out of the hotel elevator by her feet like a dead animal has been viewed by just about everyone and opinions have been articulated from every side of the issue.  But I'm not concerned with rebooting any of the issues that have been discussed and over-discussed since it's all been said ad nauseum.  The one question, however, that no one ever discussed that sat in the back of my mind as CNN, Fox and MSNBC all dissected the various social issues surrounding the video was, how would all of this have played out if Mrs. Rice were a young white woman?  I mean, many black NFL players have white wives and I just couldn't help but to wonder how the media, and the general public, would have played all that controversy out.
 
Would The NFL have banned him for life or at least for more than 2 games?  Would women's groups have been out front from the beginning demanding harsher punishments? Would there have been boycott's of the Baltimore Ravens and the other players who've assaulted their wives?  Basically, would a brighter light have been cast on the violence against women from men who play this brutal, profitable, corporate sport?  Would there have been a greater compassion for Janay Rice, instead of questions from so many men asking, "what did she do, though?"  Would Ray Rice have gotten the sweet plea deal he got from the district attorney if the woman in the video had blonde hair and blue eyes?  Would he have gotten death threats after America watched over and over the footage of him knocking a young, attractive white female unconscious?  Would we hear endless comparisons to Nicole Brown Simpson?  I'm not sure how it would have all played out exactly in our "post racial" America, but I'm sure it would have been different.

A New Day in BK

There aren't many moments when I feel genuinely good about an elected official, but the new Kings County District Attorney has me very excited for the first time in a while.  For a politician anywhere that's a major feat but Ken Thompson, the new Brooklyn DA, defeated Charles Hynes last year to become the first black DA for the city's largest borough. You see, I'm not excited that Ken Thompson is the first black Brooklyn DA, I'm a little over "first black" elected officials since 2008.  What does have me excited is that he's come with his sleeves rolled up and ready to repair some of the obvious injustices of the court system. He followed through on campaign promises and entered office ready to clean up the mess left by former DA Hynes' office that was responsible for putting innocent men in prison for murders they didn't commit, some of whom spent over 20 irredeemable years of their lives in our state's correctional system.  Correcting this injustice so for has led to the reversed convictions for eight Brooklyn men and the investigation of 100 cases of wrongful conviction.  This should be normal practice in a nation that prides itself on principles of justice and protections for the rights of the individual, but in jurisdictions throughout this country many local prosecutors resist reversing convictions and releasing innocent men and women where evidence proves they were wrongfully convicted and incarcerated.

But the investigations to pursue justice hasn't stopped with these individual cases alone but into former DA Charles Hynes himself who is presently under investigation by the NY State Attorney General's Office, along with some of his former staff, for criminal charges.  In addition, the US Attorney's Office is probing a report that $200K was confiscated from criminals and used to pay his media consultant fees for his re-election campaign.  Sweet justice that the man who wielded such political power is now the subject of state and federal investigations. Note to anyone in any position of power, be careful how you use it.

One important question the public needs to ask as a result of this is, what happens to prosecutors who knowingly use false witnesses and fix cases that lead to the loss of freedom for the defendants they knew were innocent?  Do they get disbarred from practicing law or face any professional and legal consequences?  I  mean you or I can get time for lying on the witness stand (i.e. Lil' Kim), so what should happen to prosecutors who legally lie and rig a case.  They should be held to a higher standard since their work has the ability to take someone's freedom or even their life. 

But the major prosecutorial change he made that has system-wide implications is the policy to stop prosecuting arrestees for possession of marijuana. (Big Applause!!)  His argument is that it is a waste of tax payer money since most of these arrests result in a marijuana ACD (Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal), which means if they stay out of trouble for 6 months, the conviction will be dismissed and dropped off their record. This is a major victory against the vicious stop and frisk tactics (mutated into the broken windows policy) of our NYPD that targets young black and latino males and leaves them with a NYSID after contact with the criminal justice system, if not a criminal record.  People need to understand just how serious it is that our youth get targeted for crimes.  One "minor" thing on their record can be detrimental and impede them from certain jobs and limit options in their future.  This policy is also in step with the move to legalize marijuana in this country, which looks to be gaining momentum and even inevitable. 

A progressive, strong and ethical leader seems to be running things across the Bklyn bridge and I'm damn happy about it so far. For the man fomer DA Hynes referred to as a "low life" in uncovered emails, he's off to an auspicious start as an elected official.  Too often we elect black leaders that don't effectuate any changes, no matter how badly needed or how able they are to enact them.  They cry that their hands are tied, that they can't do it all.  But at least I feel confident that some needed changes are coming from a real leader who is facing great opposition in the very political borough of Kings.

 

Mo'Ne Davis: And Little Black Girls Rock Too!

She's the new phenom from Philly with a 70-mile an hour pitch and she just made history at 13 years old as the first girl to lead her team close to victory in the 2014 Little League World Series.  The young lady is none other than Mo'Ne Davis who is taking the sports world by storm with her crazy pitching skills that allowed only two hits and an eight-strikeout shutout for her team at Williamsport, PA last weekend. 

She may not be the first girl to play in the LLWS, but she's the first to lead her team this close to the championship.  Her confidence, poise and calm demeanor speak to her maturity and leadership ability.  She was able to focus and deliver in a high stakes game where audience members were loudly cheering her on and media outlets reporting her every move could've taken a lesser player out of their game as real distractions.  But she is a rare gem and I hope we see more of her skill, grit and modesty in professional sports.  Some adult players that earn millions of dollars a year could learn a lot from her sportsmanship. 

I know that Jackie Robinson is smiling down on her and that team of kids from Philly, a city plagued by violence and high crime, and pondering how his barrier-breaking, history-making integration of major league baseball opened the imagingation and doors for so many.   Could he have fathomed his legacy would reach across time, cultures, races and gender as he was being taunted in baseball stadiums across this country? And while I'm looking back to the "way makers" and heroes of yesterday, I need to also give a big shoutout to the women and "sheroes" who fought for Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education and is best known for breaking down barriers in sports for women and girls. 

Farewell, Ruby Dee

 

 

Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou and now Mrs. Ruby Dee.  It has been a painful 6 months full of losses of our true queens and kings.  I was a fan of Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis all of my life.  Their presence onscreen in Pearlie Victorious, A Raisin In The Sun, Jungle Fever and Do the Right Thing have all made for rich cinematic stories that tell the lives of real people.  She had over a hundred movies to her credit with on-screen roles that date back to the 1940's.  She experienced a lot over her career on stage and screen and was still as sharp and spunky when I saw her here in Harlem about five years ago sharing her insight and wisdom about community activism.  Always dignified, poised and beautiful we were honored to have had her for so long.  My only comfort is that she is again with her lover, husband, friend, comrade, and fellow artist, Ossie Davis.   

 

 

Goodbye, Our Beloved Queen

There is a huge void in the world today with the loss of Dr. Maya Angelou.  Her sweet, gracious, loving, compassionate, understanding and wise way made it so easy for me to look at the heart of a situation and recognize that we are all human beings under construction.  That we all make mistakes and all need forgiveness.  That when we know better, we do better.  I learned to let many a friendship go because of her lesson that when people show you who they are, believe them the first time.  I learned that nothing I've been through needs to be wasted.  Every experience, every drop can serve as a personal classroom to be more.  More than what this world thinks I can be, more than what the beauty magazine says I should look like.  She made being feminine delicious because of what we hold inside our minds and hearts, not just our hip-to-waist ratio. 

Her brilliance, intellect, warmth and tenderness are so needed today in this angry, distracted, selfie society.  She was the earth mother for not just this nation, but the world over.  We knew she knew God for herself.  She made it seem easy to have a developed mind, be fluent in several languages, well travelled and maintain your dignity.  All of which were important for me as a young woman to see for emulation and some imitation. 

My heart is so heavy right now as I type these thoughts, but I'm so blessed to have lived in a time when this Queen reigned. Thank you for your strength, will, "thrival" and beauty. You have been a deep inspiration, teacher and a steady bright light in the darkness.

Watch This Video On How To Deal With The Police

 I just found this great video as follow-up to the content of the last blog post and it is a must see to view with young people. This is brave and powerful information about how to interact with law enforcement on the street. Stay empowered and know your rights as you move through these streets. 

"Am I Being Detained Or Am I Free To Leave?"

A few weekends ago I donated some time to raise awareness in my neighborhood about the status of the stop and frisk policies of the NYPD.  As we transition to warmer weather when we're all outdoors more, I felt it necessary to write this post to inform readers about how to handle situations where you may be stopped by the police and the current status of NYPD's stop and frisk policy that U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled to be unconstitutional.

First, one should carry a current photo ID at all times while in public.  By the age of 13, young people (especially males)should not be without ID on their person.  Parents and care providers need to take them to DMV to make sure they have proper state ID if they're not issued one by their school.  Stay mindful that people often misjudge the actual age of black youth.  Cops will judge a child who says he's 12 or 13 years  old to be 16.  There's an assumption that black youth are street smart and more mature and consequently they're adultified in a situation when they should be treated as a child. 

If police officers stop you, they may say something about you fitting a profile and request to see your ID.  Be sure to to tell them you're taking it out of your front hip pocket or wherever it may be.  If you're being asked a number of questions and it seems like they want to go into your pockets or check your car, you should ask "Am I being detained or am I free to go?"  Once you've asked this question, they need to state why you're being detained and they need to offer a just cause why you are in fact being detained or you should be let go and free to leave.  If they decide to arrest you, by all means don't become belligerent with cursing and yelling.  Just stay calm and go through the process.  I realize it's easier said than done in the situation but you'll make it easier for yourself and your lawyer when your case goes before the juddge.  It's shocking when you read a criminal complaint and see what someone is quoted as saying to the officer, and do know that judges and district attorneys will consider anything you've been quoted to say, even though it isn't proven and is still just an accusation. You should never sign anything and if you can finesse it with your phone, try to record any interaction with the police.  Any documentation to support your claim will matter later.

If you are a youth and you're arrested, when your parent or careprovider comes to the precinct they should ask to speak with the "youth officer". Most precincts have one and it can make a difference.  Also, precincts issue Desk Appearance Tickets (DAT's) to arrestees so that they don't have to spend the night in jail.  They get finger printed at the precinct, then are issued a DAT with a date for them to appear in court.  It's a courtesy they can do for low-level arrestees and extend to celebrities, ie. smoking marijuana in public and Alec Baldwin. 

Please make sure you have NO open warrants.  I've seen trivial summonses people received for being in the park after hours, walking from subway car to subway car while the train is in motion, or drinking alcohol in public lead to arrests because the summons was discarded and subsequently turned into a bench warrant.  Now when the police stop a person (often without a just reason), they can do a quick check and see they have an outstanding warrant and now arrest them for something they could've paid a $20 fine for months (sometimes years) earlier.  Understand this---once a person is arrested and fingerprinted they receive a NYSID number, that's a NYS ID number which tracks you through the state's criminal justice system.  So using aliases for each arrest will always lead them right back to you because they have your unique one-of-a-kind fingerprint. So effectively, once you're fingerprinted you are now in the system and that's the aim of much of the stop and frisk policy--to ensure that black and Latino males are in the system and can be tracked easily by law enforcement.  They know and are fully aware that most of the arrests will not result in any conviction and most of these "crimes" end up being for marijuana possession.  This unfair policy is also a tool of social control so that men of color become accustomed to being harrassed by police at will.  One of it's goals is to normalize police abuse. 

 

As for our current Mayor Bill DiBlasio who ran a campagin to end stop and frisk, his actions appear to be more likely called "bait and switch" as I like to refer to his policies with only a few months in office.  Mayor DiBlasio recruited the architect of stop and frisk, Bill Bratton from the early years of the Giuliani administration, to become the new police commissioner.  One has to seriously question his committment and desire for dismantling a police tactic that entangles many of our youth into a system that they're never meant to get out of. While the number of arrests have dropped somewhat, the arrests for quality of life crimes have risen.  So here in Harlem people are being ticketed for jaywalking in a city where jaywalking is the norm across the 5 boroughs.  Disorderly conduct summonses are issued to the homeless.  The stop and frisk arrests decrease while NYPD has increased their attention on jaywalkers and the homeless to keep their numbers up. 

In a city that is ever evolving and growing vertically, I view this hyper-focus by the police on our black and latino youth as a systemic consequence of the aggressive gentrification that is raging a silent war in black and Latino neighborhoods. The re-taking of America's cities is what is driving this over-aggressive posture by law enforcement to control the coveted land that our inner cities have now become.  NYC, as fly as it is can only accomodate so many bodies and the world is here vying for a piece of all this flyness.  So while there's only so much land for all of us to live and thrive on, the land that was once forgotten and disparaged by sociologists with terms like "slums" and  "inner city" four decades ago, strategies were being created to re-invigorate these communities that are centrally located and replace its inhabitants. Those same old slums get re-named and called "Gotham North" and "metropolis" to cater to a new resident that'd prefer a more trendy hipster name for "their" new nieghborhood.  The near 9 million residents are competing for land, services and resources across the five boroughs in a city with a gross shortage of available, affordable housing everywhere. So arresting and making sure all the possible little chain snatchers and turnstile jumpers stay in their place while the long abandoned lot next door gets turned into condominiums seems to function as our police department's plan to "serve and protect".

The former three-term Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, made sure that shelters were more restrictive and ignored the needs of NYC's poor and working class. Now neighborhoods that have been neglected for decades are viewed as prime real estate. During a time when crime rates have been comparatively low, these neighborhoods have been over-policed while stop and frisk policies continue in spite of a recent state court ruling to strike it down.  This court ruling that he fought forcefully against, even willing to finance the fight against it even after his term in office ended.  Our former mayor became a rabid zealot during his last few months in office to maintain a stop and frisk policy that obviously promotes blanket racial profiling because it is so central to creating the vanilla latte city that was his vision for the future of NY.

In the end, we all need to be aware of the policing that goes on in our community daily and be vigilant about educating our youth of how to interact with police on the streets, especially during the summer as contact with law enforcement increases. 

Staying Motivated at 6am and Jennifer Hudson

Jennifer Hudson on GMA
 

Her success has been such an inspiration for so many different reasons.  First, she turned rejection on American Idol all the way around and blew us away with her vocal power in Dreamgirls, for which she snatched an Oscar in her very first acting role.  Then with success came tremendous pain as she lost her mom, brother and nephew to a senseless act of murder at her sister's husband's hands.  That kind of loss and devastation could leave anyone in a catatonic state for 6 months, but she became reborn as she found love and gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.  Then amazingly lost 80 pounds after childbirth and has kept if off for nearly 4 years.  She looks stunning and keeps growing as an artist and a woman.  It's a pity she's never named as one of our true beauties.  That's sadly and rountinely reserved for Halle Berry and Beyonce.  Her flawless skin, almond eyes and full lips are never heralded in our community as emblematic of black beauty. 


As I try to get a "do-over" on the weight I gained over the last few months from emotional eating to cope with a hard personal loss and overindulging in holiday eating, I think about what losing most of your immediate family could do to one's mental state and how you just have to overcome.  Somehow her personality and background make her seem accessible.  Like, she's the sister-girl next door and if she can do that, then damn it so can I.  Never mind she has access to trainers and chefs to keep her body in red-carpet ready condition.  I still know it's hard for anyone to get up while it's dark outside and push oneself to do burpees or lift weights.  I workout most days of the week and I feel encouraged by sisters like her who've faced tragedy and all of life's ups and downs and still get on the treadmill at 6am, eat that spinach salad and pray to handle all of the stuff we all go through whether we're rich and famous or not. 

My Super Bowl Sunday As A Cheerleader

You know I really don't follow football as a sport.  I watched the Super Bowl in 2007 when the Giants waxed the Patriots in a surprise victory over a team that had zero losses their whole season. That was just historic and I'm glad I can say I watched that game. So I really had no skin in the game when I heard Seattle was going against Denver in the big game until I saw all the hate and racism spewed against Richard Sherman after a well publicized rant after his victory in a decisive game. 

The young man was in a tight game for a place in the Super Bowl where he produced in a clutch moment. He was unarguably amped and hyped to the max in a post game interview with a white female reporter who seemed afraid of him.  Let's get it straight- he's in an aggressive contact sport where men always trash talk. Period.  I happened to watch it as it aired and his interviewer acted as if she was put off by his passionate demeanor, loud voice and braggadocio.  Maybe she shouldn't be on the field interviewing men at the height of their aggression.  Or was it the unbridled black male masculinity that bothered her?  His conduct shouldn't surprise anyone, yet even a fellow black footballer tweeted a comment saying he was setting the race back ten years. Who the hell made him the arbiter of black conduct, especially the conduct of someone in a violent sport.  I mean the brother couldn't get a break.  He was called every manner of disrespectful racial diatribe on twitter, and a loudmouth and a thug by the press for the unpardonable offense of being ramped up or "passionate".  

Everyone seemed to forget he graduated from Stanford University with honors and started a master's program there as well.  A native of Compton, CA and a renaissance man as an athlete and a scholar he was reduced in a moment to a "thug".  Meanwhile just two days later, a US Congressman (appropriately named Grimm representing Staten Island, NY) threatens to throw a reporter over a balcony and no one in the media calls him a thug or even anything derogatory at all.  

So for a chick that ain't really into football or Super Bowl Sunday, I'm right in front of my tv cheering for the top cornerback in the sport. Tonite as I type, they're going into half-time with the Seahawks at 22, Denver 0.  That just warms my heart and I hope that Sherman makes stunning, re-defining plays all nite long.  I want them to embarrass Peyton Manning and Denver. Maybe I'm just an eternal cheerleader for the underdog, maybe a fan of passionate athletes who aren't shy about proclaiming their supreme prowess, maybe I'm expressing racial pride and love for a brother who no matter what he's accomplished and overcome is diminished and reduced to a racial stereotype in a moment's passion. Spectator sports in America have always had the subtext of race all over it. Jackie Robinson in baseball, hell the move of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles was about race. Whatever, I hope Seattle gets them a ring and a talented, dark skinned, dread locked, smart, fearless brother from Compton makes this a night to remember.

Oooooooh Ms. Oprah!!

I just want to offer a big birthday shout out to a phenomenal woman, our Oprah Winfrey.  She's a shining example of humanitarianism, re-invention, savvy and survival.  She's among this nation's business elite as a self-made billionaress and seems to never get comfortable with her current level of success.  In fact, she's helped us to redefine success and encouraged us to live amazing, honorable lives.  I could go on, but I won't.  Weekdays at 4pm are just not the same without her daytime talk show.  I get home early or may be home on a holiday and look forward to the four o'clock hour and realize there really ain't nothing on worth my time.  Can't believe there's still a programming void 3 years later.  But happy birthday to our sister girl who has done something with her 60 years on this earth.

He's Baaaaaack!!!!

He's back and missed so much.  I love the re-mix of the Arsenio Hall Show.  He's current, topical, a great interviewer and brings the love to late nite.  It's been a wash of white males since he left the scene twenty years ago except for George Lopez and no woman of any color has been able to make a dent in the elite boys club, but I hope his success brings more diversity back to late night tv as America's demographics in major and small markets continue to shift. The days when he was the only show that would invite rappers and R&B artists to have a platform that wasn't offered on major network shows are over as these artists are mainstream today, but there's still a large void that needs to be filled and I hope we keep him tuned in so he can continue to push the envelope and represent.

Alice Smith - "Dreams"

I discovered this artist on "Black Girls Rock" and I thank them for giving this fresh voice some spotlight.  I won't write another word and let you hit play and listen for yourselves.