New Black Woman

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As we all know, today is the observed federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While there are Americans who have the utmost respect for Dr. King’s contribution to changing American society forever, some historians argue that his message has become “oversimplified.”
But nearly 40 years after his assassination in April 1968, after the deaths of his wife and of others who knew both the man and what he stood for, some say King is facing the same fate that has befallen many a historical figure — being frozen in a moment in time that ignores the full complexity of the man and his message (Source: CNN).

I, for one, can say that I’ve run into people who have become desensitized to what Dr. King’s contributions and his dreams were. In my experience, people have this broad definition of what Dr. King and other civil rights advocates were fighting for. People of all races, creeds, colors, religions, nationality, gender and sexual orientations all know that black people couldn’t sit at restaurant counters with whites; we all know that schools and public facilities were segregated; and we all know that black voters were physically and mentally intimidated to vote.

That’s all our society knows about the civil rights movement. We don’t hear much about the mental segregation and degradation that blacks suffered at the hands of white supremacy. We don’t hear much about the struggle for civil rights and equality in Northern, Midwestern and Western states. We don’t hear much about Dr. King’s advocacy for economic and environmental equality. We don’t hear much about Dr. King’s fight to end the war in Vietnam (in which black and poor white soldiers were being shipped to in record numbers).

What do you think? Do you think Dr. King’s message has become “oversimplified?” Do you often run into people who haven’t a clue about the broad spectrum of rights Dr. King and his followers advocated for?

What will you do today to celebrate the dream and to honor Dr. King’s legacy?

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Ronald Reagan is still dead.

The conservatives who hyperventilated about the Democrats’ explosion of identity politics seemed to forget that Mr. Romney also dragged Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. into this campaign — claiming that he “saw” his father, a civil-rights minded governor of Michigan, march with King in the 1960s. The point of Mitt Romney’s invocation of the race card was to inoculate himself against legitimate charges of racial insensitivity; he had never spoken out about his own church’s discrimination against blacks, which didn’t end until 1978. Instead, the tactic ended up backfiring. Late last month The Boston Phoenix exposed this touching anecdote as a fraud. George Romney and King never marched together.

>According to Newsweek, abortion rates have hit a 34 year low, but some experts are disagreeing on whether the decline is caused by better prevention/education or on changing attitudes.

One reason that I would have liked to see explored was the rise in oral sex among teens. A 2005 article from the San Francisco Chronicle said “more than half of American teens age 15 to 19 have engaged in oral sex, increasing to nearly 70 percent for those who are 18 and 19, according to the largest federal study of the nation’s sexual practices.”

More excerpts:

The study also found that 11 percent of women age 18 to 44 reported having at least one homosexual experience in their lifetime, up from 4 percent in the last study conducted in 1992.

Taken together, the two findings suggest a possible shift in sexual practices, in which females are using oral and gay sex “as a safer alternative than (vaginal) sex with men,” said epidemiologist William D. Mosher of the National Center for Health Statistics, the study’s lead author.

“If it is seen as a safer alternative, it is an interesting response to the campaigns to reduce teen pregnancy and to reduce sexually transmitted diseases and HIV,” he said.

Could this be a factor in the decline in abortions? Since teens are having less vaginal sex, there are (should) be less reports of pregnancies, thus dropping the number of abortions?

What do you think?

>Yes, the ACLU is arguing this:

In an effort to help Sen. Larry Craig, the American Civil Liberties Union is arguing that people who have sex in public bathrooms have an expectation of privacy. Craig, of Idaho, is asking the Minnesota Court of Appeals to let him withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct stemming from a bathroom sex sting at the Minneapolis airport. The ACLU filed a brief Tuesday supporting Craig. It cited a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling 38 years ago that found that people who have sex in closed stalls in public restrooms “have a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

That means the state cannot prove Craig was inviting an undercover officer to have sex in public, the ACLU wrote.

The Republican senator was arrested June 11 by an undercover officer who said Craig tapped his feet and swiped his hand under a stall divider in a way that signaled he wanted sex. Craig has denied that, saying his actions were misconstrued.

The ACLU argued that even if Craig was inviting the officer to have sex, his actions wouldn’t be illegal.

“The government cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Senator Craig was inviting the undercover officer to engage in anything other than sexual intimacy that would not have called attention to itself in a closed stall in the public restroom,” the ACLU wrote in its brief.

The ACLU also noted that Craig was originally charged with interference with privacy, which it said was an admission by the state that people in the bathroom stall expect privacy.

Craig at one point said he would resign but now says he will finish his term, which ends in January 2009.

Courtesy: Associated Press

Do you agree with the ACLU?

Whether or not you agree with the ACLU is not as relevant as the “why” factor. Why would anyone want to risk public embarrassment (not to mention GERMS) just to satisfy their sexual desires? If you’re that horny, just masturbate for the time being!!!

>NY Times columnist Bob Herbert makes the argument that “little attention is being paid to the toll that misogyny takes on society in general, and women and girls in particular.”

Read the column and tell me what you think.

Some excerpts:

Its forms are limitless. Hard-core pornography is a multibillion-dollar business, having spread far beyond the stereotyped raincoat crowd to anyone with a laptop and a password. Crowds of crazed photographers risk life and limb to get shots of Paris Hilton or Britney Spears without their underwear. At New York Jets home games, men regularly gather at Gate D to urge female fans to expose themselves.

It just so happens that the Democratic presidential candidates are campaigning this week in the misogyny capital of America: Nevada. It’s a perfect place to bring up the way women are viewed and treated in this society, but don’t hold your breath. Presidential wannabes are hardly in the habit of insulting the locals.

If you don’t think this is an issue worthy of a presidential campaign, consider the scandalous way that women are treated in the military and the fact that the winner of this election will become the commander in chief.

Should misogyny be discussed more in the presidential race? Is it just as important as other “more pressing” issues?