Black Men Take Off The Dress

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Black Men Take Off The Dress

http://www.womanist-musings.com/2008/12/black-men-take-off-dress.html

Reading the commentary on the article I wrote about Medea another issue reared its ugly head. What is up with the black male fascination of playing black women? We are told that this is done in homage to our great strength.  In actuality these women are ridiculous caricatures of black women. 

                             

                                                      

These women are always purposefully obtuse even though we are meant to believe that they are sharing pearls of wisdom with the world.  Our first response is to laugh, because after all this meant to be comedy, righteous satire.  When black women are routinely portrayed as obese, coarse buffoons it ceases to be comedy and instead stands for a reflection of the ways in which we are understood by black males.   What can be positive about the above display?

I would bet money that these same men, who love to wear frocks for comedy would absolutely loose their mind to see a white man dressed in black face.  They would deem that racist and therefore demeaning, but what is their performance  but a genderized minstrel show?  When one group is routinely the butt of the joke, they are being laughed at and not laughed with. 

Black men often view the world through a lens of race and class because these are the factors that work to stigmatize them.  What they routinely fail to see are the ways in which they can be the oppressor by engaging in sexism.  The shared race between black women and black men is used to justify this kind of genderized minstrel show.

The behaviour of black men in the genderized minstrel show legitimizes the work of Charles Knipp, who performs Shirley Q Liquor.  Kripp takes the diminishment of black women to new heights with his portrayal of Liquor and her 19 chiren.   It is offensive on many levels.  There is no difference between the the shows Kripp performs and the crass stereotypes acted out by Perry et al.  They are all meant to show the world that black women are of little value and therefore can function as comedy. 

Perry has repeatedly said that Medea is a tribute to the black women in his life. If this is meant to be honour; a woman that shoots guns at people, cannot control her temper, and is constantly in trouble with the law, what would be considered a debasement?  Black men cannot continue to engage in such purposeful character assassination and then expect black women to stand beside them in solidarity.

The genderized minstrel show is the perfect example of the ways in which race and gender intersect.  It is the visible representation of the oppressed becoming the oppressor.  What black men who perform the minstrel show fail to understand is that the same power that allows them to demean women in this manner is what allows whiteness to perform racist acts.  One ism supports and maintains  another   If black men wish to be seen as whole beings,  worthy of respect they need to begin by supporting and respecting black women.

http://www.womanist-musings.com/2008/12/black-men-take-off-dress.html

NYC homeowners warned of impostor city employees

 NYC homeowners warned of impostor city employees

January 9, 2009

NEW YORK – New York City officials are warning homeowners to beware of impostors pretending to work for the city and claiming to need to check their house pipes, fix meters or collect cash from unpaid water bills.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection said in an advisory that impersonators acting as employees or contractors with the agency have asked homeowners to pay for services or unpaid bills in cash.

They said customers can verify the identity of the agency’s employees by calling 718-595-7000.
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 The Net:

Department of Environmental Protection: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/

TRACES & PLACES

TRACES & PLACES: CELEBRATE DUKE ELLINGTON’S HARLEM, a tour of cultural sites, sponsored by Harlem One Stop, meeting Friday and Saturday at 11 a.m. in front of Straight Out of Harlem Craft Shop (SOH), St. Nicholas Avenue and 145th Street. Reservations: (212) 939-9201; harlemonestop.org. $15.  CELEBRATE DUKE ELLINGTON’S HARLEM, a tour of cultural sites, sponsored by Harlem One Stop, meeting Friday and Saturday at 11 a.m. in front of Straight Out of Harlem Craft Shop (SOH), St. Nicholas Avenue and 145th Street. Reservations: (212) 939-9201; harlemonestop.org. $15.

Merck Pushes Gardasil for Boys in Further Effort to Profit off Your Children!

ManhattanKids: Merck Pushes Gardasil for Boys in Further Effort to Profit off Your Children!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Merck Pushes Gardasil for Boys in Further Effort to Profit off Your Children!

Multi-billion dollar multi-national Big Drug company Merck — who foisted Vioxx and other known failed drugs on the unsuspecting, gullible, naive, and generally television addicted American public — has now asked the Federal Drug Administration to approve Gardasil — Gardasil! — for boys.

You did read that correctly, for boys. If you thought parenting boys meant you were off the hook on having to decide whether or not to go with the Gardasil shot, listen up.

Gardasil, the so-called HPV prevention shot [HPV stands for Help Pay for Vioxx] aimed at girls ages 9 to 26 [girls aged 9!], has been submitted to the FDA by drug kingpin Merck for consideration as a vaccine for boys [for boys!]

Obviously, even Merck could not convice the FDA to prevent cervical cancers in boys. (Even the FDA would probably eventually figure out that boys do not have cervixes, at least by Round 3 of the clinical trials.]

But, conveniently, a Merck-funded study tracked 4,000 boys ages 16 to 26 who were given Gardasil and found it prevented 90% of cases of penile cancer and genital warts caused by the 4 common virus strains targeted by the vaccine.

Of course, the study only lasted 5 years so those same boys are now aged 21 to 31, and penile cancer does not normally present until a person reaches age 50, but don’t look at that man behind the curtain, just focus on this miracle drug that we want to put inside your child’s body.

Anyway, penile cancer is so extremely rare at only 1 in 100,000 men that worrying about preventing it is like worrying about preventing being attacked by a swarm of locusts.

Merck’s proposal calls for the vaccine to be approved for boys in the same age group as that already approved for girls – 9 to 26 – and all reports indicate it would come at a similar huge $360.00 cost to you as a parent and taxpayer and similar huge profit to Merck as a multi-billion dollar corporation.

But don’t worry, once Obama passes national health care the government will pay for it, so we have nothing to worry about and everything will be fine. [What? We have to pay for national health care with our tax dollars? Says who. . .]

The 3-series Gardasil shot has drawn controversy for its $360.00 pricetag in the past [which by the way is pure profit for Merck at this point because their investment in development has already been made, and getting it approved for boys is just gravy to pad their profit margins].

Parents have had mixed reactions to the drug vaccine, some driving over in their cars to have it painfully injected into their children’s bodies via a long sharp needle by an inexperinced an untrained “nurse’s assistant” just to be on the safe side [these parents are also known as sheep]. Other parents [also known as the good parents] say Gardasil has caused paralysis in their daughters [which Merck admits to in their discussion of side effects, but don't bother to read these pamphlets that they hand out in the doctor's office. The print is so small and their is a new copy of People magazine available to pass the time in the waiting room.]

Another strategy for preventing your 9-year old daughter from getting human papilloma virus or for your 9-year old son getting genital warts is to actually be engaged in your children’s lives, monitor their activities and friends, and teach them — yes, you teach your children — that they should not have sexual intercourse when they are 9 years old.

But if that sounds too tough — and there is a good game on television that you want to watch instead — then just hand your kids over to the Merck Corporation and let Merck shoot them up with drugs. I’m sure Merck’s drugs are perfectly safe (Vioxx, Cordaptive, Singulair, Fosamax).

courtesy of [MANHATTANKIDS]

Snowboarding Comes to the East River

Snowboarding in Manhattan? Whatever! It’s really happening though (it’s actually happened before), thanks to the caffeine-pushers at Red Bull who will debut their “Snowscrapers” on the banks of the East RIver next month.

While the athletes, who will compete on one big urban jump (for a $100K “purse”), include Olympian Shaun White—the musical guest may be the real sirens of the event. That’s right, Anthrax will lull you out of your warm apartments and to the winter wonderland on the waterfront. This all goes down at East River Park on February 5th.

The organizers tell us: “Weather will not be a concern as state-of-the-art snow making equipment will produce 200 tons of snow right on site” (this will include both shaved ice and snowmaking with liquid nitrogen). Another fun fact: the snowscraper is 90-feet high. More info on the event’s website, and you can watch the prep for it all in this video.

http://gothamist.com/2009/01/08/east_river_snowboarding.php