Best Posts in Forum: Race, Religion, Science and Politics

I know some folks don't like Shaun King but I had to agree with him here...


When a black family loses a loved one to some type of racial terror — be it at the hands of police, white supremacists, or another angry caucasian, they are often asked a question that you rarely see asked of anyone else in a similar position.

Last week, before her son, Philando, had even been buried, his body riddled with bullets from a Minnesota police officer, Valerie Castile was asked live on CNN if she forgave the man who shot him.

Why in the hell would you ask her that? Has that man asked to be forgiven? Has he admitted that what he did was wrong? Has he repented and accepted some form of justice? Has he been arrested or charged with a crime? Has he reached out to the family to communicate his feelings about their unimaginable loss?

This woman is still trying to wrap her mind around how and why her son's life was violently taken from this world. She doesn't even have an official police report about the incident. A jury has not yet been convened. She hasn't even been able to grieve at a funeral, and she's been asked about forgiveness?

It's an outrageous question that she should've never been cornered in to answering, but Valerie Castile minced no words in her response, "He took my son's life. I don't forgive him. Bottom line."

Do you think any family members of the slain police officers in Dallas were asked this weekend if they forgive Micah Johnson?

On 9/12 did you see reporters asking people if they forgave Osama Bin Laden?

When Syed Farook and his wife killed 14 people in San Bernardino and injured 22 others, nobody was rushing to ask people if they forgave him.

In other words, when the roles are reversed, and white people suffer any form of violence, it's just common sense that you don't ask them, particularly in the immediate aftermath, if they have forgiven their victimizer. You particularly don't see this ridiculous question being asked of white people when a person of color was responsible for the violence.

It's patently absurd. African-Americans, in essence, are expected to process and overcome their pain in a way that is both superhuman and irrational. It can take months or years, decades even, for some people to get to the point where they can sincerely say they forgive someone for how they've been wronged.

If someone cut off your son's head today, would you forgive them tomorrow? If a stranger brutally raped and maimed your daughter today, would you forgive them later tonight? How about tomorrow or the next day? Would you be ready to forgive them in front of the nation then?

Of course you wouldn't.

Yet that's exactly what the victims of white supremacist Dylann Roof were asked on live television just days after he slaughtered their loved ones in a Charleston church.

Just stop it. Don't rush our grief. And if you want forgiveness, earn it, and start providing some justice in this country.

KING: Stop asking black victims if they forgive white victimizers

 

For all my New York bros who can DEFINITELY relate to this.

Others as well in cities where gentrification is palpable.

 

Made an interesting observation today while poking around some startups' "career" page.
Top picture is : Walker & Co maker of the Bevel Shaving System
Bottom picture : New York-Based robo-financial advisor, Betterment.com




*************************

 

Agree, disagree?

 

You're Not "Conscious" If You're a Homophobe
by Anna Gibson

I’ve always considered myself “woke.” I’m an avid reader of history and because of this, I became aware of the forces that oppress black and brown people at a very young age. My parents introduced me to books like Introduction to African Civilization by John J. Jackson and From Babylon to Timbuktu by Rudolph R. Windsor when I was just ten years old. I thrived on the information I found in these books. However, at some point, I lost my way, and I can’t say that life in my teens and early 20’s was a reflection of the ideas I learned back then.


I decided to dive back into what it truly means to be conscious in the past six months. I’ve devoured books like When the World Was Black by Dr. Supreme Understanding and Maat: Guided Principles to Moral Living by KMT University Press. It’s like I’m a kid again. I can’t stop reading about my history and speaking to people of like minds who are interested in eradicating racism and all its subsequent effects on our people and our communities.

However, I was hurt by what I found in many of the major texts of the conscious community. Much of the community didn’t seem to accept me as a lesbian woman and would regulate my black womanhood to a secondary role within the movement. Many men in the “conscious” BLM community are masterful at hiding deep-seated homophobia and misogyny behind their “concern for the state of the black family,” avoidance of the “effeminization of the black man,” and protecting their “Queens” at all costs.

On the contrary, what I’ve found is that men in the BLM movement only define me as a queen when I fit into their narrow idea of femininity. They only find me respectable if I maintain a standard they can control. I’ve found myself in a number of perplexing situations. One brother practiced polygamy, but the moment one of his wives decided to get another lover she was a whore, simply for doing the same thing he did. I’ve been told I needed “correction,” as though I were a child who is disgraceful and completely out of line because I’m attracted to women. I’ve been dismissed, disregarded, and held in contempt. I’ve been judged and told I need to repent by the same individuals who claim that black and brown people need to throw off the religion of their slave masters and embrace who they truly are.

As this clip from Umar Johnson demonstrates, many of the foremost leaders of the black community would attempt to prove that we (women and the LGBTQIA community) hate the opposite sex for being who we are. Johnson often speaks about “treating” people in the LGBTQIA community as if we have a disease. He also makes hateful comments toward single black mothers, saying that they “castrate black boys and wonder why they grow into gay men.”

However, despite his rampant homophobia and misogyny he claims to love all African American people. This fear lies in the inability to understand the contributions that LGBTQIA people and black women have made to the civil rights and black power movements.

An interesting dynamic reveals the origins of misogyny and homophobia in the community. It illuminates a deep-seated fear of black men in the “conscious” community. I think Dr. Umar’s comments against single mothers and lesbians reflect a question that seems to be implied in black male anger against black women: What about me?

You see this question in many forms in the black conscious community, whether you hear about black men disparaging trans women, black men condemning lesbians, or black men hating gay men. A man is hated if he “behaves like a woman,” on one hand, but if a woman isn’t “his” it also becomes a serious problem. This is an issue of ownership and contempt, both of which serve as the foundation for misogyny, and the rejection of the LGBTQIA conscious community. This hatred is what’s REALLY meant in some of this discourse when we hear “Black women NEED black men,” and why men feel rejected enough to feel castrated when they aren’t involved.

If you need an example of this misogyny all you need to do check out articles on For Harriet’s comment threads, specifically the ones about LGBTQIA issues and love. You’ll see that while many men are completely silent about articles on the deaths of black women, they will come up at arms when conversations around LGBTQIA love and identity are centered and the discussion isn’t about them.

Dr. Umar Johnson’s misogyny and homophobia isn’t an isolated case. The issue is much bigger than him. The truth is, you can’t be concerned with the freedom of our people from oppression while excluding a large portion of our people. Black Lives Matter explicitly means that ALL black lives matter. If you throw out any portion of our people based on fear and ignorance, YOU don’t belong in the movement. For years LGBTQIA people have fought for have our freedom from the labyrinth of structural racism, and we will continue to do so because people of the Black diaspora need us.

Because of the ignorance outlined above, it’s understandable that many LGBTQIA people and women (God forbid if you’re both) may enter the Black Lives Matter movement and feel attacked on all sides. This is incredibly damaging, because quite frankly, we love our people and want to make sure they know who they are and how much of a powerful impact they can have on the world. I know how easy it is to become discouraged. You shouldn’t internalize misogyny or homophobia. Instead we should take time out to understand the common arguments against women and LGBTQIA community as well as further outline the origins of homophobia and misogyny within the movement.

People in BLM claim that the LGBTQIA conscious community are a “danger to BLM” and promote “black genocide.” On the contrary, I would posit that our unity can only be a danger the very establishment that oppresses us. The civil rights and black power movements didn’t collapse just because they gave LGBTQIA people a platform. LGBTQIA inclusion actually strengthened us. This can be proven by taking a look at some of the elders that helped place black liberation at the forefront of America’s consciousness.

Bayard Rustin was a prominent organizer that helped organize many of the events that made Dr. King’s platform possible. He was the mind behind the March on Washington and many of the sit-ins that occurred in the 1960’s civil rights movement. He wasn’t in the closet either. In an era that openly criminalized the LGBTQIA community and shunned women, he openly advocated for the rights of both. That level of fearlessness and tenacity in the face of adversity is exactly what we need in the BLM movement.

Angela Davis also strongly influenced the black power movement, and in 1995 she confirmed the rumors that she was a lesbian. To this day, she does lectures at college campuses, and has an impressive body of work that establishes her contributions to the Black Power Movement.

Some would claim that others would have come along and done the same thing if these powerful men and women didn’t, but this is a logical fallacy. We can’t deal with what could have been, since it didn’t happen. It can’t be denied that the elders I just mentioned—and many others—made extensive contributions to the movement, and we wouldn’t be where we are without their influence. If we’d rejected them on the basis of sexual orientation, identity, or gender, we would be missing out on a huge aspect of the liberation of our people.


Our ancestor Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, offers us insight into the primary insecurities that drive most “conscious men”. In his speech, “A Letter to the Revolutionary Brothers and Sisters About The Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements,” he states:
We should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion, whatever your insecurities are. I say ‘whatever your insecurities are’ because as we very well know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth, and want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit a homosexual in the mouth because we are afraid that we might be homosexual; and we want to hit the woman or shut her up because we are afraid that she might castrate us, or take the nuts that we might not have to start with. We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people. We must not use the racist attitude that the White racists use against our people because they are Black and poor.Newton was one of the few people in the Black Power Movement that openly reflected on its homophobia and misogyny. He even went as far as recognizing his own bias in the same speech and recognizing that rejecting us will do more harm than good.

In short, I would urge many members of the BLM movement to take an honest appraisal as to why they feel so threatened by the LGBTQIA and feminist communities, as Newton did. You aren’t protecting the conscious community. Instead, you’re wasting valuable time and energy rejecting a part of our people who contribute gems to black liberation and perpetuating the same cycles of oppression that holds us back as a people.

To my LGBTQIA brothers and sisters, let the track records of our elders speak for themselves and empower you to further action. You have a place in the BLM movement, even if you’re ridiculed for being who you are and loving who you love. Continue to lead our people to liberation and serve as an example to our brothers and sisters in the movement. Let it be known that unity is the key to success, and division will only lead to failure in the struggle against white supremacy.

Photo: Shutterstock

Anna Gibson is a student at Wayne State University who’s currently immersed in African Studies. You can catch up with her on Twitter @TheRealSankofa or on Facebook where she’s hiding in plain sight.

 

A Black Lives Matter activist killed himself on the steps of the Ohio Statehouse, authorities said.


MarShawn McCarrel, 23, shot himself in front of the Columbus building Monday evening, Lt. Craig Cvetan of the State Highway Patrol told the Columbus Dispatch.

“My demons won today. I'm sorry,” the activist, who recently attended the NAACP Image Awards, posted on his Facebook page about 3 p.m., just hours before his body was found near the Statehouse.

His last tweet read: “Let the record show that I pissed on the state house before I left.”

No one witnessed the shooting, Cvetan said. McCarrel was pronounced dead at the scene.

McCarrel, who had recently worked with Black Lives Matter, helped organize protests in Ohio after a Missouri cop shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in 2014.

He also founded youth mentorship program Pursuing Our Dreams, which launched Feed the Streets, a project to help Ohio's homeless.

He attended the NAACP’s Image Awards on Friday, Pursuing Our Dreams wrote on its Facebook.

The 23-year-old community organizer was named one of Radio One’s Hometown Champions, an award for community activists and volunteers, earlier this year and earned a trip to the California awards show. He took his mom to the Friday night ceremony.

"He is selfless and will give his last in order to make sure others don't go without,” read a nomination page for the Hometown Champions Award. “MarShawn has come so far in life and has inspired so many people to help others”

McCarrel was homeless for three months after he graduated from high school — an experience that inspired him to help others, according to his nomination.

“When MarShawn got back on his feet, he felt the need to give back because so many people helped him when he was down,” it read. “MarShawn stresses the importance of having conversations with the people we feed because they'll get hungry in 2 hours but a good conversation will carry them over for a lifetime.”

“All everyone needs is love,” he told 614 Columbus in 2014, referring to his work with the Feed the Streets. “That’s a human being. That’s a pulse. We’re feeding everyone, we’re sending the message — today I got you; tomorrow, I could be right there.”

 

So happy this is FINALLY getting some steam. Still doubt this point will ever make it to the main stream corporate media though. This is the primary reason I unapologetically will not vote for Hillary.
****************
From Professor Michelle Alexander, author of the New York Times bestseller, ‘The New Jim Crow’

"If anyone doubts that the mainstream media fails to tell the truth about our political system (and its true winners and losers), the spectacle of large majorities of black folks supporting Hillary Clinton in the primary races ought to be proof enough. I can't believe Hillary would be coasting into the primaries with her current margin of black support if most people knew how much damage the Clintons have done - the millions of families that were destroyed the last time they were in the White House thanks to their boastful embrace of the mass incarceration machine and their total capitulation to the right-wing narrative on race, crime, welfare and taxes. There's so much more to say on this topic and it's a shame that more people aren't saying it. I think it's time we have that conversation."

 

Sexy and intelligent....

 

It is delusional to think that "playing fair" and "abiding by the rules" will save you from feeling the wrath of the police, because of your skin color.

Blavity, one of my fav blogs posted 11 things that won't save you from being black -

What other activities do you think should be on this list.

Here's the original:
For any of you who hold dear a fictional remedy for black oppression— such as “working hard” or “playing by the rules” — here is a small, non-exhaustive list of things that won’t save you from being black.

1. BEING A VETERAN POLICE OFFICER AND A GOOD SAMARITAN AT THE SCENE OF A CAR CRASH
Police Veteran Christopher Owens witnessed a car crash and rushed over to aid the victim. When the perpetrator of the crash tried to leave the scene, Owens tackled him. But when officers arrived, they beat and arrested Owens.

2. BEING THE SON OF SAID VETERAN POLICE OFFICER
Christopher Owen’s son was also at the scene — he was beaten and arrested after his father.

3. BEING A CITY COUNCIL MEMBER
Jonathan Miller, city council member, just finished practicing a step routine with his fraternity brothers in front of his own house when police arrived to question the men about drug activity. Police say Miller was interfering with the investigation and tased him as he kneeled on the ground.

4. BEING A TENNIS PLAYER
Harvard-educated retired top-ranking tennis pro James Blake was jumped by a police officer and handcuffed by several more outside his hotel. He was mistaken for a suspect who committed credit card fraud.

5. BEING A STUDENT AT YALE UNIVERSITY
Yale University student Tahj Blow was leaving the library when a police officer drew his gun and demanded Blow get on the ground. He matched the description of a burglar.

6. BEING A BANKER WITH A BMW
After getting pulled over at a red light for not having her hands on the wheel of her BMW, Banker Kamilah Brock was detained for several hours. She was released without any charges, but when she tried to pick up her vehicle the next day, officers didn’t believe she was the owner. She was admitted into a psychiatric ward for eight days, against her will, where she was “forced to take lithium and injected with heavy sedatives.” Hospital staff tried to force her to admit she was neither a banker nor the owner of the vehicle.

7. BEING A HOMEOWNER
Ikenna Njoku was accused of forgery. A Chase bank teller believed Njoku’s cashier’s check (issued by Chase Bank) and his claim of homeownership were fraudulent. Njoku was jailed for four days. While incarcerated, his car was impounded and then auctioned. He also lost his job.

8. BEING EDUCATED
Black men with Associate’s degrees are as likely to be hired as white men with only high school diplomas.

9. BEING LAW-ABIDING
Black men with no criminal record are as likely to be called for a second interview at low-level jobs as white men just out of prison for felony convictions.

10. BEING EMPLOYED
Earl Sampson was arrested for trespassing 62 times over four years. Nearly all of these arrests took place at his own job.

11. BEING IN THE MIDDLE CLASS
Black middle-class children are more likely than their white counterparts to be poor as adults. African Americans “have experienced substantially less upward intergenerational mobility and substantially more downward intergenerational mobility than whites.”

You would be a fool not to know by now — you can do everything “right” and still be all “wrong” (i.e.black).

 

I'm not sure if this is satire or are you really being serious

Either way this meme is complete and utter bullshit.

 

See, that's the problem faced when criticizing women. You can't say you want to be treated equally, which includes being equally critiqued, then throw out adjectives like "sexist" or "misogynist" when it's convenient and a man critiques women's behavior.

 

I really thought it was Ques being Ques.

 

1000%

As long as your ass looks good, I'm for it.

 

Not just environment where they receive support, but just plain old environment. We are all socialized around certain demographics of people, so it's natural to like what you are surrounded by. People should understand that. But that affinity doesn't have to be to the exclusion of others.

 

Here's my unpopular black opinion. I don't think it's possible for a black person to truly love a white person and vice versa. There is too much of a power imbalance and misunderstanding between the two groups to make love possible. Even friendship can be problematic if the white person doesn't understand how structurally advantaged they are in American society. From my experience very few white people actually get how much white supremacy and privilege permeates aspect of life in this country, because they don't have. It's not something they have to think about. After a while it becomes tiresome even annoying to have to constantly explain it especially when incidents like Charlottesville happen. Most black people get it because we have to. It's something that's ever present. Not being aware of how the white power structure works can dangerous even deadly in some situations especially for black boys and men.

 

When people talk about Lil KIm looks dont forget the men in her life that considered her that her dark skin and African looks were ugly. They forget how bad BIGGIE Smalls treated her as a side piece and choice to marry a light skin Faith Evans over her. Biggies mother alluded to this in an interview once. Or how she was in physically and mentality abusive in relationships. One of the reason for one of here nose jobs and face job was because her ex-boyfriend severely broke her nose. Also look at how Birdman and nim copied lil kim's to make Nicki Manij. All this has to be damaging to her ego and self esteem. I really feel sorry for her.

 

I kinda have a problem with Pastors being in this position. There was a post on this board about Slavery and the black church and I believe they are making money by continuing to spread lies I call "slave faith". They preach from this book with all these rules about what is wrong and right and they can't even keep up with it but get excused because no one is perfect, yet will argue you up and down about unclean this and that and the majority of them aren't married, have already had kids and sex.

And it's annoying how folks hold these people in such high regards based on a book altered by man.

I had one guy go off on me. He was DL but a church guy and he strated quoting things his pastor had said about this but when I questioned him about his DL behavior..he basically told me I was trash, God respects him more than he does me because he goes to the church and I should just not waste God's time because I'm not trying to change my ways. He went beserk..but eh.

It was a wake up call for me about most of these church folks. I don't think anything is wrong with a pastor making money I'm more annoyed about the doctrine that keeps getting spread from generation to generation to blind folks.

 

The local elected officials are the ones who appoint police chiefs. Also DAs, prosecutors, school boards officials are elected. These have more of an impact on day to day lives like you said.

 

I'm equal complexion opportunity w my ho shyt, so I literally have 0 preference there, personally.

 

You see how gay dudes can't have an intelligent political conversation without inserting thirst or sex into it? You should be ashamed of yourself!

BUT......

I couldn't agree with you more.

Everytime I see him and those damn lips, it makes me weak as fuck. My friends wouldn't hear SHIT from me if I got with him. He's definitely got it all to me.

 

I guess the only thing good about this is a feminist has finally fessed up to what feminism is really about, destroying men and masculinity. The truly scary thing is woman is a college professor. So she gets to poison the thinking of young adults with her brand of "equality." I think this school should be called out for promoting a hostile environment for male students.

 

i dont have anything substantive to say here. i would just love to smash marc. 40 and fine. i love me an intellectual with street cred. #thirsty #myidealnigga #phillystandup

 

I partially agree but I also think that the destruction of the black family was designed through racist structures and white supremacy. Before we go blame one another we have to accept that this prognosis was designed by others as a mechanism of control.

With that being said, I am never one to simply blame white people and racism and white supremacy for all of our woes. After the 1970s there really hasn't been good modeling of families...when did it become acceptable to have children with men with no intention of marrying them and vice versa.

 

@Nick Delmacy ...NO I didn't say I didn't believe you, I said I didn't care. I think it safe to say you don't like BLM, which is fine; however I'm from the school of thought that you can have your "problems or concerns" just don't stand in the way of progress.

All movements (YES, ALL) throughout history have in-fighting or scandal, I think it foolish to think BLM would be exempt.

 

That was an amazing speech he gave. But you make a good point about him having a black wife. I always said Obama wouldn't have as much support from black women if his wife wasn't black. Just wait until Nate Parker's celebrity rises later this year. I'll just sit back and watch the slander because not many people know his wife is white. It should be fun.

 

Good point but how exactly would the conclusion be any different? It would still mean that Millennials support others personally fighting ISIS, not themselves.

 

What I don't understand is people are still following and are fans of their NFL teams, so why are be mad at musical performers performing AT the biggest game for their Fandom, let alone year? Are artistic/creative celebrities any different from athletic ones?

If black people REALLY didn't give a shit about the NFL they wouldn't be watching or going to the games or hoping Lil Peanut from their favorite Division X school gets signed.

 

On one hand, I’m all for rejection of white supremacy, especially in religion. I was influenced by Elijah Muhammad, James Cone, and others growing up, as I’ve mentioned in these parts.

I see black/African religion and spirituality as cognitive methadone, a way of weaving people off the “hard addictive stuff” of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but still just as unhealthy as “white” spirituality.

I wish more black folk would just forego the psychological thumb-sucking of ANY religion and “spirituality”—-that served us no good in the middle passage, slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow—-in favor of black humanism and rationalism. In the end, the black gods don’t intervene on behalf of Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin any more than white gods...

 

The Closets of Karl and Ken

In July of 2004, Karl Rove was concluding a trip to Palm Springs, California and heading off to manage the reelection campaign of George W. Bush. The president’s senior political advisor had settled on a strategy that he was convinced would increase turnout of the conservative Republican base as well as appeal to fundamentalist Christians in the African-American community. Rove and his lieutenant Ken Mehlman, who ran the Republican National Committee, had targeted eleven swing states as locales to play out the wedge issue of gay marriage. Although they would work closely with the GOP state operations, Rove and Mehlman denied any coordination or involvement. They were, as they often are, lying.

Rove had left a secret behind in the Southern California desert that made bizarrely cynical his decision to use gay issues to motivate GOP voters. His father, who had just died, was gay. Louis Rove had been a prolific smoker and died of lung diseases but he had loved his son and was very proud of his achievements. Although he was not Karl’s biological father, Louis was the only father he had ever known because Karl’s mother Reba had divorced very early in her son’s life. In an interview with Wayne Slater and myself after he had guided the first Bush victory, Rove emphasized that he did not consider Louis his stepfather. “I don’t call him Louis,” he explained. “He’s my father, my adopted father.”

Nonetheless, Rove was decidedly circumspect when we asked him questions about his family. Louis and Reba Rove’s marriage fell apart in 1969 during Karl’s senior year of high school in Utah. Rove told us it was somewhat of a mystery but his father came home Christmas Eve and then returned to Los Angeles where he had taken a job as a geologist with Getty Oil. The family was supposed to move to LA with Louis at the end of the year. “But for whatever reason, that didn’t happen,” Rove told us. “My mother, who was very good at explaining things without explaining them, said it was not going to happen.”

Karl seems to have inherited this particular talent from his mother. What he told us was fundamentally true; what he didn’t tell us was the most important part of the story. Louis Rove had informed his wife that he was gay and that he was coming out of the closet and wanted a divorce. After he retired from his job in LA, Louis Rove moved to Palm Springs and befriended other retired gay men. He drank and socialized at the Rainbow Cactus and the Martini Burger and became part of a group of gay men who referred to themselves as “The Old Farts Club.” According to his close friend of many years, retired insurance executive Joseph Koons, Louis Rove was one of the best people he knew and that both Louis and his son Karl were comfortable with the father’s sexual orientation. Although Karl lovingly accepted his father as a gay man and treated Louis’ gay associates with respect, Louis Rove’s death was a private matter. His friends knew nothing of a memorial service and no death notice was published in the Palm Springs newspaper.

Rove may have felt his father had a right to a private life but he clearly thinks differently about other homosexuals. This fall Rove and the GOP will once more push the idea of a federal amendment to the constitution to outlaw gay marriage, repeating their silly message that it is a threat to the institution of heterosexual marriage. As nonsensical as these assertions are, there appears to be a legion of Republican voters who believe physically mature adults wake up one morning and decide to stop being heterosexual. Their goal is to marry other individuals of the same sex and destroy the fabric of American culture. The idea that sexual orientation is a biological determination is a notion fundamentalist conservatives cannot countenance. Their God would not make such a mistake.

The zealousness with which Rove and Mehlman pursue an anti-gay agenda for political utility suggests more than just an ambition to win elections. Students of Freud might be able to artfully deconstruct their behavior but even lay analysts can see a bit of repression and self-loathing at work. Maybe Rove has a desire to get back at his father for leaving his mother when he “chose” to be gay. Or perhaps he is fighting his own homo-erotic impulses. His description of George Bush the first time they met goes a bit beyond a geek’s admiration of the cool guy quarterback:

“I can literally remember what he was wearing: an Air National Guard flight jacket, cowboy boots, complete with the - in Texas you see it a lot - one of the back pockets will have a circle worn in the pocket from where you carry your tin of snuff, your tin of tobacco. He was exuding more charisma than any one individual should be allowed to have.”

Karl has always had an eye for detail and that could explain how Bush’s early image has moved through Rove’s memory for decades.

But what about RNC chairman Ken Mehlman? His sexual orientation has been the subject of speculation by gay rights advocates for several years and has been discussed on progressive radio talk shows. Mainstream reporters have never asked Mehlman if he is gay but Eric Resnick, a journalist for a gay publication in Cleveland, chased Mehlman down at a GOP fund-raising dinner in Akron. Resnick told Mehlman that he had been outed on blogs and talk radio and he wondered how he justified being gay and pushing an anti-gay agenda. Mehlman was non-responsive. Resnick persisted and finally asked Mehlman if he was gay.

“You have asked a question no one should have to answer,” Mehlman responded.

The delicately chosen words annoyed Resnick and John Aravosis of Americablog. According to Aravosis, Mehlman, who is in his early 40s and unmarried, gave a “non-answer, answer.”

“He’s at the top of his profession in a conservative political party,” Aravosis told me last year. “If he’s not gay, why wouldn’t he react the same way every straight guy does when someone asks them if they are gay? They sort of energetically tell you hell no they’re not gay. Mehlman says nothing. Seems like he would want everyone in his party to know he’s not gay. Maybe he’s a closeted heterosexual.”

Mehlman subjected himself to such speculation after deploying a voter profiling mechanism for the 2004 election. The RNC used background data on voters such as what type of car they drive, how much they earn, marital status, the color of their skin, the neighborhood where they live, and other factors to arrive at various political conclusions about individuals and determine if they were likely GOP voters. His political critics have decided it is now fair to talk about what type of profile best fits Mehlman.

Whatever he is, Mehlman and his political consort Rove are driving an issues agenda that is making life even more difficult for millions of Americans dealing with their sexuality. They are being discriminated against for the way they were born in the same manner as were African-Americans when their rights were also disputed by conservatives. And that’s what turns the personal lives of Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman into public affairs. They promulgate policies that invade the privacy of gay and lesbian Americans while covering up their own backgrounds.

And it is time for their hypocrisy to come out of the closet.

(This information is taken from our new book, “The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power.”)
The Closets of Karl and Ken | HuffPost

 

[Dem menz is kinda cute tho ]

 

There are many reasons or factors for this; nonetheless....

 

This is a perfect example of why I despise Christianity and why I criticize black Christians. They'll knowingly get in bed with a white "conservative" who claims to be Christian and that not to long ago would've lynched them or turned a police dogs on them. This same conservative is still actively working to keep blacks as permanent under-class but since they're a Christian who believes in god, Jesus, the 10 commandments, and hates gays. That makes their anti-blackness ok.

 

Well, go figure. Another group of descendants of former slaves who think white is right. Don't get me started.

But do u think Beyonce would be 'Beyonce' if she was Kelly Rowland's complexion?

 

Somebody should have thrown a shoe at that bitch!