Musings on the show the L Word

I first became aware of the show the L word while attending a Jazz Festival at Piedmont Park.  I was handed a card that said one of the characters that would be performing at a local event was Papi.  I looked down at the card that I accepted from the beautiful young woman handing them out and saw a beautiful young woman on the front and for a moment was confused and asked is this you, she smiled and said no and walked away.  As I looked closer at the card, I noticed that Papi would be performing at a local bookstore for gay women.  I knew about this store because one of my male friends of long ago had given me the ultimate tour of little five points and since we were both avid readers pointed out to me that this was a lesbian bookstore.  I hate to say it but this comment has kept me from the bookstore every since.  In any event as I looked at the card, I was shocked to find out that this beautiful woman was possibly a lesbian, as I was yesterday when I was looking for a hairstyle for my young son yesterday and looked up Nelly, and with no thoughts of Nelly Furtado in my-head saw her picture under the search term Nelly.  When I saw her picture, I thought is this Nellie’s new girlfriend, then up came the picture of Nelly Furtado who said that she was bisexual.  In any event the shock I felt hearing this was the same shock I felt realizing that Papi might be a lesbian.  Any way, out of site out of mind.

My next encounter with the L word was what made me actually look at it.  A cousin once told me that I looked like Pam Grier and every since i was told this I’ve accepted the compliment and and ran with it, after I looked at several Pam movies.  well for some reason i was looking up Pam Grier and came across the information that she was appearing in a drama called the L word.  I understood it was about lesbians, but still wanted to see it.   I think literally the biggest shock of the show for me was the humanistic ways lesbians were portrayed.  It was not just between the sheets scenes but actual human beings and relationships.  I looked at a couple of shows and I have to admit that I thought it was a good show.  They lost me with the transsexual love scene and when women began doing things for women which traditionally other men did.  This weirded me out so, I have decided that I will not watch the show again.  When a woman puts herself in the fifties imagines herself as a man and has a wife that behaves like June Cleaver, I ammmmm gone.

Finally what I think about often when I think of the show is the heavy stereotypes applied to minority characters.  Femme is not a word applied to African American characters in the L word.  The black soldier with the extremely soft talking girlfriend talks like a man and at times act like a man and never and I mean never combs her hair in a feminine style.   Pam Grier who is not portrayed as a lesbian on the show is the other black character on the show and plays a “drunk”.  So the only black characters on the L word are drunk or dykes, however every and I mean every white women except one is portrayed as  extremely feminine , Papi is also on there and though she is beautiful she is assigned masculine qualities.  The show is also disappointing in the fact that there are no black professionals portrayed on the show in any field portrayed on the show.  Everyone has a job, and I was impressed with the work environments  presented of the women.  Let me list who has or has had a professional job on the L word so an accurate picture is presented to you.  All of the normal white women have pretty nice careers, the old woman is a professional in the arts field, the death mute is a professional in the arts field, there is a dykey white attorney, and finally even the woman who dresses up like a man and talks like a man has a professional career, however there is not one black woman in a glam career in this show.  What black lesbians are, are drunk or in a male oriented or desperation careers such as the military.   This show does not call black women nappy headed hoes, it portrays black women as nappy headed hoes, not literally but figuratively in the dead end, full of despair careers black women are put in.

Finally to me this show is just a version of Girlfriends with a lesbian attention getter theme.   This show is not for Black Gurls!

Presidential Debate Part II

This is just a continuation of yestrdays post:

Dems and Healthcare

Universal healthcare is a good idea, but why don’t they just agree to give healthcare to everyone who is not employed or employed in low income occupations who can not pay for their on healthcare and be down with it.  People do not wish to be poor for all of their lives. As for the elderly and the sick give it to them, but don’t get rid of the incentive to create cures. 

Global Warming

There seems to be a standard answer for both parties but I honeslty don’t think anyone has given it much thought.

The Winner of the Dems

While I think that Obama and Richrdson carried the torch and won.   As a mother and a parent my personal favorite was Bill Richardson with his emphasis on education and our children, also Richardson if truth be told seems to be the most qualified candidate up ther in terms of expereince with stints in the U.N. as Governer and some other positions he mentioned I was impressed.  I was also impressed with Dennis Kacinovich he has great ideals and reminds me of how the world used to be. 

The Republicans (Party Like A Rock Star, Lovable Rogues, Valentinos, Frat Boys, Players  etc.)

I can honestly say that the Repuublican debate was fun to watch.  It was especially funny  when rudy Gilliani started to speak and the lightening would flicker every time he opened his mouth.  Oh Boy was that a sign from heaven that he needed to get on his knees and atone for the way that he’s treated the women in his life in the past.  In any event I am glas that I watched this particular debate because despite all the negative that I read about Gilliani I ended up being impressed by his clear eyes, knowledge of the issues and his willingness to stand on his own feet and give his oppinions.

However as a whole the Republicans seemed to be a little too intent on trying to pull at my emotions ie.  in urban vernacular I felt as if the Republicans were trying to play me.  Abortion is imortant to me! God and Faith is important to me! Individual Rights are important to me! BUT LAWD HAVE MERCY Putin is threatening to point his missles at Europe, you’re going to have to do better than recite poetry to me.  THS ELECTION I WILL NOT BE SWAYED BY SOCIAL ISSUES.  From my point of view the Republicans did not seem too prepared.

The Issues

Universal Healthcare

The Republicans need to realize that we do need some form of guaranteed healthcare for the citizens of the United States and it can be done effectively.   I seem to remember one of the candidates talking about healthcare storage credits for workers like retirement credits, that was an interesting concept but I disagreed with it because some people ahve more oppurtunities than others. 

Abortion

I can honestly say that I was impressed with the party  answer as it related to abortion.  I have often wondered how Republicans could be against abortion in one breath, but against helping families take care of children in the next.  Obvioulsy the part has resolved this issue and has made a committment to being against abortion and making provisions for women to take care of their children. KUDOS

Global Warming

YADA YADA ! I do not support nuclear energy as a form of power.  I think it was a Republican pushing this option but it may have been a democrat. 

GAYS IN THE MILTARY

Homophobic, is that the party line now?

Faith and Values

War Mongering and GOD!  OK

Iraq

Came in late on that one! I do rememer that all of them seemed to support some sort of military action and there were no calls for withdrawal.

The Winner

Paul won in my eyes, however if elected President one wonders if one could get a good year out of him before he fell down dead.  My Personal Winner was Rudy, with Clinton many of us had to seperate his personal life from his ability to lead.  I think I can do that with Rudy also.

The Biggest Loser

Mitt Romney, Mr. Romney no one is asking you to abandon your faith but your religion in the past has been against blacks and advocated polygamy.  You have to realize that this issues should at least be worth examining as to where your head is. 

OOPs Maybe Some of the Linguists Just wanted to Start Trouble

You know the Internet and other communication entities have been buzzing about people who go around outing celebrities ie. telling everyone that they are gay. This practice I think is a disgusting and hideous practice and honestly just makes gay people look mean and vindictive. After reading a Stars and Stripes article, it’s becoming obvious to me that the situation involving the Navy linguists may have been contrived and arranged so that the don’t tell don’t ask policy could be overturned. The article states that Knight a Navy linguist, served in the Navy five years until he outed himself to his superiors, he told. The superiors then proceeded to give him an honorable discharge without mentioning his homosexuality. Recently he was asked to reenlist in the Navy and then proceeded to tell everyone that he was gay. It appeared that no-one seemed to care until he took it to the media that he was gay in the military and then he was discharged.

Personally this man seems to have psychological problems being that he was more obsessed with telling people he was gay then being a good soldier. This man exhibited disruptive behavior and was obviously looking to have someone join him in his gay adventures. I see no reason for why he would walk up to people and say hey I’m gay, unless he was looking for someone to say hey I’m gay too. The problem I’m having with gays is not that they are gay but they want everyone else to be gay too and fall in with their lifestyles. Personally I could care less if people are gay or straight and I’m not telling what I am so why can’t some folks respect the rights of others instead of making gay their mission because hey nobody cares.

Finally, I’m hearing or reading that there may have been up to 45 gay Arab linguists, I just don’t understand how this could happen, it appears obviously that the gays were discriminating against the straights and this was able to be done because of the don’t ask don’t tell policy because in the end these were white men perceived as straight recruiting others into the military who obviously shared their sexual preferences.  Honestly if I were Gay I would be glad that this underground connection existed because if there was openness with sexuality.  There would never have been up to 45 gay people in this division.  Someone should look on the bright side instead of trying to stir up trouble and subject themselves to quotas they can not control.  Botom lining it if all of these people had openly admitted they were gay the quota system would have hit them in the face and their probably would have been 5 gays instead of 45 gay linguists.  Think About it!!!!

Gay Linguists Discriminated Against In Discharges “Don’t Tell Don’t Ask Not Honored”

In a recent Time magazine article , it became pretty obvious that the military violated their own policy of don’t ask don’t tell. Former Navy Officer Stephen Benjamin became the subject of an investigation of soldiers who were using the internet to send private emails and along with other soldiers was caught sending explicit emails to loved ones. However his loved one was a man. The military immediately adopted the policy that this violated the don’t tell don’t ask policy. However from my perspective this violated the don’t ask policy. The military should have given him the same treatment of the other soldiers who wrote explicit letters to heterosexuals and been done with it. Under the Don’t tell don’t tell policy, he should not have been asked about his emails just meted out the punishment of others. Under the policy we can not speculate on what his words meant or why they were said. This is one case that is an obvious case of discrimination and should be heard in court. Give the linguists their day in court.

Reflecting on the Presidential Debates (both of them)

As I watched the two most recent debates I was amazed at what a good ol face to face vetting of the candidates could reveal and make me feel. Surprisingly by the end of both evenings I came out liking some and disliking others. By the end of the Republican presidential debate I even began to understand and relike some of the democratic candidates and step back from who I thought my alt Republican candidate would be.

The Dems (High Brow Elitist Nerds)

What has been amazing about this race is that each party has set up a platform that everyone must and has to agree with. The Democrats have set up amazing stances which from where I’m standing or sitting don’t seem to be terribly realistic.

The Dems and Iraq

One of these stances is the pullout from Iraq. Though I did not support the Bush War to have access to the second largest oil reserve in the world; and believe that the death and carnage in Iraq has not benefited American democracy or the American cause one bit; the very thought of an all out bring our troops pullout from Iraq is disgusting and unfair. The point the democrats need to realize is that the damage has been done. We have invaded Iraq. We have torn down their peace andtheir infrastructure. Though Saddam was a dictator, he could keep PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST a lot better than George Bush could or can. The point being, the United States has left nothing but blood and carnage for the Iraqi people and until the United States can restore to Iraq what they had prior to the United States Invasion, in terms of peace and resources. There is no honest way to pull out of Iraq. I wish one democrat would realize this (just one)

Lies Lies Lies (Some Dems hace concocted an unintelligible lie for why they Voted for the Iraq War)

There is one democratic candidate who said something to the effect that they voted for the Iraq war, and that was not so bad because the people have democracy now. Excuse me but after the world trade center was bombed (OK an airplane crashed into it) our bill of rights were wiped off the map. What kind of democracy is going on in a country in the midst of a civil war. What I don’t understand is why none of these people can just say, I was mislead, after the world trade center carnage we did not want to do anything that could jeopardize the safety of the American people and President Bush was simply insistent that Saddam was a threat to the United States and their allies. (SIMPLE BLAME IT ON PRESIDENT BUSH) If Condi can say she missed the warning about the world trade center because their war just so many warning regarding terrorists acts it was hard to discern what was true. The Dems sure can say President Bush mislead us. Simple, even a ol state college graduate like me can understand that! OOPS oh a state graduate did pick up on that JOHN EDWARDS! Thank you John, and of course Barack Obama he hawed his mantra I was always against the war. Yes, Barack you were never for the war and neither was almost every black person I spoke with prior to the war. It’s a Black thing to be against any sort of perceived imperialism. Even so I do believe that Barack Obama or John Edwards mya have won the debate. I loved Hillary’s makeup though and as a woman just putting on makeup and looking hip made me most likely to vote for her, as well-as her courage and determination to make it thus far in this obvious world of men. Though I heard the words of others my vote is leaning heavily towards the woman because I am a woman and a man through greed and avarice has messed up the UNited States. In the final analysis I do believe that men are alike regardless of race and do stick together. Women need to stick together too, I think .

Dems and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (Gays in the Military)

I am perplexed why everyone has to know. I just don’t know why we have to keep revisiting this issue. The same reason we have to revisit this issue is because the same folks advocating for being openly gay in the military are the same people who will be trying to hump your husbands ass in the fox hole. This may seem crude and rude but we all know that their are several different gay personalities which if we pay attention to Barbara Walters or some show that did a segment on gays is just how they are or how they act we know that some gays and straights have exhuburant personalities as it relates to sexuality and when you are trying to win any war there is no place for this. Does anyone ever consider that if we do have people who are openly gay, we may have to build separate facilities for these individuals. I have a friend who moved to a California city with twenty dolalrs and ended up in a homeless shelter by design, in any event she told me that they put the transsexuals with the women, unfortunately she noticed one of those transexuals would get an erection when he got around a certain woman. The nextweek she was walking down the street and this little transsexual had turned into a man. (HA HA) I say this to say just the logistics of gays in the military is hard to deal with. Don’t ask don’t tell is a reasonable solution. If a military man lives with another man, don’t ask. If a woman shaves her head off and has a tattoo of female female on her arm, don’t ask, . DON’T ASK DON’T TELL. Finally I have also lived in San Francisco and dated pretty extensively there because the men are hot there. I never asked but ended up with the following results, boy I saw you kiss him— I never thought I would see him with a woman, well he was with me. Upon enquiring of a San Francisco native about someones sexuality because I wanted to date this guy. I was given the cold shoulder until I had to figure out for myself that UNLESS YOU ARE IN CASTRO, It’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Well I do like to write but I’ve been up all night doing other things and have to make the rest of this post PART II

Y’all know I have a little editing problem so I will have to edit this later also.

Giuliani Was Married to his 2nd COUSIN and after 14 Years of Marraige Requested an Annulment based on the fact the he had married his COUSIN

Giuliani Was Married to his 2nd COUSIN and after 14 Years of Marraige Requested an Annulment based on the fact the he had married his COUSIN.  Did he have any children with this woman?  This man is hideous. 

The Function of Blogging

I often contemplate one commenter’s words that they felt really strange while watching an episode of Mind of Mencia that was pretty derogatory towards African Americans.  I was grateful for that comment that they had shared some of the same feelings had while watching.  This lead me to the thought that as individuals we almost have an obligation to blog some of our feelings so we can compare notes on our feelings, our experiences and our world views.  I will try to be pretty open with my feelings even if it hurts sometimes.  I ask that readers if they stumble on my comments and agree or disagree with me, let me know. 

Giuliani Where We Don’t Want to Go

In a recent Washington Post article entitled Democrats seek a Diverse array of Advisers.  The Washington Post examined how diverse front runner campaigns were.  Hillary Clinton came in number one as it related to range and breadth of diversity with Obama coming in second.    One must also question what role these advisers played in the campaign, Hillary Clinton placed women and minorities in very high level positions. 

While it was not too much of a shock that Republican candidates did not have many minority staff members.  It was surprising that Rudolph Giuliani did not have any especially being from New York City where there are a diversity of qualified individuals of all backgrounds.  When questioned by the Washington Post as to why this was?  A Giuliani spokesperson said the following:

“We’re focused on hiring the best-qualified staff and proud to have such an accomplished and talented team,” Maria Cornella

Based on this statement one can assume that there are no qualified Asian, African and African American, Hispanic,  or Indian minorities in if not New York, the whole of the United States. Clearly Giulaini has no plans to represent the whole of U.S. society and if one can go by the above quote has no problem with representing himself in this manner.   Callousness of this sort “for me” brings into question whether he could have possibly played a role in 911.  SORRY IT JUST DOES!

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Nappy Headed “ho’s” “Whores” Revisited in the Mind of Mencia

Everyone knows about the former Don Imus Show and his comment regarding the winning
New Jersey basketball team. I personally thought the issue had been put to rest until I viewed the Mind of Mencia show early this morning. I was shocked and frankly appalled by his overtly racist and offensive comments towards African Americans. While I realize that Mencia is a comic, the voracity by which he attacked blacks was totally unacceptable to me and over ride any harsh feelings I ever had towards Don Imus. I will be writing his sponsors and asking how they can support these comments. First of all I would like to address the overall context of the words Nappy Headed Ho. I am going to be extremely politically incorrect about the word ho and say that there are women in the public eye everyday who exhibit the characteristics of the word:whore
(hôr, hōr) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. A prostitute.
2. A person considered sexually promiscuous.
3. A person considered as having compromised principles for personal gain.

Most recently in the news we are all aware of or should be aware of the D.C. madam who pimped out college educated women to politicians allegedly for sex. This Madame is claiming that there are men- buyers in high level positions and sellers former prostitutes in high level positions who have sold their bodies for jobs and money. So far I have not heard these women referred to as hos, sluts, whores, or any other words that obviously apply to them. Not as recent we had the death of Anna Nicole who had at least five men claim to be the father of her baby, not one peep as to slut or ho as far as I know. Oh yeah there was one peep from Anne Coulter, who defended Imus’s right to freedom of speech but wondered why Anna Nicole Smith had never been referred to in that manner. Meanwhile we have half of non-black Hollywood engaging in extramarital affairs and everyone turns their heads and not one mention of anyone being a HO. As far as Mencia goes he said some pretty raw and wrong things about blacks which I will get to later but when I was watching the Wall Street Journal Report I often wondered why I had to watch Maria Bartolomow wearing dresses and shirts with cleavage not to her chest but all the down to her navel. I often wondered is this what it took to get an interview with Warren Buffet and the others, the promise to look down Maria dress and not one mention of the HO word from anyone. Meanwhile we have black women attempting to get a college education honestly, engaging in honest competition where no one has to question did you win because you slept with someone and they get called Ho’s . The only problem I see here is that black women are not ho’s and have never been known as ho’s. Black people are the ones you can depend on to represent their companies and their country without ending up creating some sort of embarrassment or scandal for the most part. I often think people are envious of just how straitlaced black women can be. As for dancers in hip hop videos they show just as equal too or just like or maybe even cover up more than belly dancers, hoola dancers, ballet dancers, and a host of all other types of dancers out there. Now I would just like to address Mencia’s comment’. The first one that was very disturbing to me was something to the effect that “white people must have built a great country because when slavery was over blacks did not go back to
Africa. The first thing I would like to inform Mr. Mencia of is that
Africa is not a country. It is a continent. African Americans were not allowed to retain languages, native customs, or even retention of what” country” they were from so they would never have been able to go back to where they came from. Second of all as many historians of various nationalities will tell you African American’s along with others participated in building this country. If you ever make it to the white house or the capital Mr. Mencia, you should make note of the fact that African Americans built those buildings – refer tot he texts of Randall Robinson. If you ever make it to Charleston or even read about Charleston you should know that many of the old building and houses were built by African American Artisans skilled in building and metallurgical work; some of it brought over from what ever country they were brought from. If you think about the cultivation of cotton and rice in South Carolina thank an African slave for it because they taught Caucasian Americans how to cultivate these crops in
South Carolina. Finally Mr. Mencia the next time you talk to a dark skinned white person you may want to consider that they very well could have a black ancestor that they have lost out on because their family passed them into being white to avoid oppression. In addition Mr. Mencia African Americans are not “Africans” they are African Americans, if you are not sure what that is, consider this;

Howard
University has a project called the DNA project. In this DNA project an African American can pay to have the African country their slave ancestors are from identified. Unfortunately, this DNA project is not working out for many African Americans because their DNA is not pointing them to African countries, but European ones. This is what an African American is. There are many many comments that you made towards African Americans that were extremely offensive, not only were they offensive but they were historically inaccurate. *****not edited

Posts Regarding What drove Cho

I am finding so many comments regarding this Cho issue. some of them state that teasing was a problem and they felt that if people could have been kinder to Cho this would have never happened. I subscribe to this to a point, but the bottom line is the Guiding Light is always the authority figure and the buffer zone. One of the reasons Cho never had an incident in High School was probably because of the buffer of his parents and the teachers and adminstrators around him. However when teachers and administrators join in with the unkind voices there is no place to go. I wrote the above after reading the following post which made me cry:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=108717944&blogID=255996017

Here is another post that I just read that examines how Cho could have been treatedon that campus: http://fortheloveofpeace.blogspot.com/2007/04/virginia-tech-killer-cho-seung-hui.html

This blog lead me to question what type of place this campus was? I definitely don’t think this young man belonged there, “not he did not belong” but he did not belong there.