Medical Misogyny: A Cut Above The Rest September 28, 2010

Georgia Cattle Queen, elected by the Georgia Cattlemen's Association, talking with Democratic members of the Georgia House of Representatives in the House chambers.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that I had endured the morning without deodorant,  Chicago was boasting an unseasonable 86 degree temperature in of all times the middle of September.

I crawled from my traffic stuck Moroccan chauffeured  taxicab, and struggled past a group of anti-Bush protesters. Yes anti-Bush.

Now that Obama is president and George W.  is back in Texas,  the IMPEACH BUSH signs have insanely transformed  into INDICT BUSH signs . Tie Dyed tunics and White people with dreadlocks are always a sign of moonbats for me- I had to move fast,  running late for a medical appointment.

Once I arrived sweaty and  frazzled at my destination, I was greeted with a smile, some insurance forms and an offer of wrapped Ghirardelli chocolate squares or Nespresso coffees. Politely, I declined, the pleasantries of the peach and sage green wallpapered office failed to mask the austerity of my situation. As I pumped from the hand sanitizer on the receptionist desk, I had no idea what I would be in store for that day as a woman.

Political party affiliation aside, one ritual all women seem to share is the face grimacing and “God please let this be over” prayers whispered during a mammogram.

My first which I am describing in this post, was two weeks ago. I was a year overdue.
My gynecologist scolded me verbally “self exams are not enough,” she warned. “You are two months past 41 – time to do it annually now.”

“But…but there is no history of breast cancer in my family.” I protested. “Can’t I wait until 45. I eat lots of soy.“
“…and you want to stay breast cancer free don’t you???”

All of the preparative girl talk mammogram horror stories in the world could not describe my true feeling as the nice but relentless four foot eleven-ish medical assistant plopped my left breast on a cold metal slab like a piece of meat and I watched a closing wall and increasing digital numbers squeeeeeeeeeezeeeeee until my brown face turned blue.

“Tell me if it hurts,” she chimed. She was too damn happy for me. Smiling while inflicting pain should be illegal.

It does hurt, but let me guess,  if I told you the truth  you will keep doing it anyway, I thought.

Instead I smiled back and lied, ” No, it’s fine.”  THANK YOU MA’AM CARE TO CRANK IT UP SOME MORE???

That piercing sound the machine made when the picture was being taken – like music to my ears.

“Turn to the side dear,” she instructed. “Bend your knees some.”

Turn to left, right, gee all we needed was me holding some board with my name on it and we have a mug shot.

Every year for the rest of my life I will have to do this because I am woman.

I wondered if men have to go through something similar? Yes prostate gland checks they endure, but do men have to submit to a machine that squeezes their testicles sideways and top to bottom in a way that make them feel like pancakes?

Speaking of which, my breasts could have used a pat of butter and some whipped cream, and maple syrup by the end of the procedure. I re-gowned and slowly walked to the locker room.
“Don’t put your clothes on yet, honey,” the technician said. “The doctor will review your results and if I made a mistake you may have to have it done again.”
Great !!! More torture in the name of cancer prevention.  I bet a man invented that boob presser machine.

Take a wrench and twist my nipples off why don’t you? Saute me, make a patty melt!

Peta ad- which while it promotes kindness to animals, does not look very kind to women.

The waiting room had two more patients awaiting slaughter when I sat back down.  Each woman  had this look of dread as they flipped through the predictable periodical selections. Good Housekeeping, Parent Magazine, In Style, People, US.

Who buys this stuff?

Of course every woman wants to read the latest on Lindsey Lohan  and know exactly how to make the perfect autumn wreath made of cloves before she gets sliced and diced.

You never go to a waiting room for women and see Money magazine, Fortune, Wired or the Economist.

I just had a mammogram and damn-it I need to read a magazine to forget what just happened to me in that torture chamber they call a doctor’s office…Is there a recipe in that magazine for pressed Afrocity breast with braised leeks?

Oops my name was called, the doctor wanted to see me.  Ah, great it was a he.

“Your breasts look great!”  the doctor said with this big smile that I wanted to slap off his face. ” …No lumps, you obviously work out…” He went on about the digital technology of the photographs, and on, and on….and on.

Getting serious for a moment, I thought of my mother.  She only had one mammogram in her entire life and that was after she fell on her breast at the age of 54.  Later bloody discharge was noticed and she went for two months in fear until a neighbor took her to a free clinic.  All was well, she had just injured some tissue.  Her mammogram should no signs of cancer. She never went back again, lived to be 68- cancer free but killed by another misogynistic woman claiming disease- high blood pressure- breast cancer’s silent relative.

Explaining to the doctor that I once had a benign cyst, found by ultrasound some years ago,  I began to let go of the sarcasm and grasp the reality my good fortune.  My career allows me to have health insurance- reliable health insurance.  This doctor was of my own choosing. The medical technology is state of the art.  My hospital ranks among the best in the nation according to U.S. News and World Reports.

“No sign of any cysts now.” he assured.

Looking at the cloud like  images of  my breasts,  I could see no imperfections but I needed to be sure- really sure. “Are you positive because at the time it was rather large about 2 centimeters and they never aspirated it-”

“No you are fine,” he again assured me.” Keep doing your self exams…see you next year.”

I nodded “See you next year. Thank you.”

My soft clothes were so much more comfortable that that Japanese styled wrap gown. I had even brought my own deodorant and even though the med-tech told me they would supply me with some, I was glad to have my own.   Ah, clothes on, no more perspiration, my dignity as a woman was restored or so I thought.
My mammogram was over but the pesky anti-Bush protest was not. Patience Afrocity, your breasts just survived a medical industry made steamroller, you can do it. Moonbat screeching surrounded me. Come on Afrocity there is only about 100 of them …
“Tax the rich motherfuckers”
“IRAQ WAS A FUCKING LIE”
“INDICT BUSH, FUCK SARAH PALIN, FUCK MICHELLE BACHMAN, FUCK MEG WHITMAN”

Gee that’s a lot of fucking. For an anti-Bush rally this was shaping up to be more of an anti-conservative women rally. Bush was just a front for women bashing and many of the protesters were taking part in it… Sad.

Before I went home, the pain from the mammogram worsened.  A big contributor was the large bag of groceries I had picked up along my way.  Not a good idea Afrocity.  Wobbling down the sidewalk, two men in front of me were oblivious of my swift walking breast hurting self.  Seeing that they would not move for me, I slowed behind them and listened to their conversation.

It was about a typical male subject- women and sex.   One man was younger than the older who was about 50- something.

“I tell you,”  the older man said to the younger. “there is nothing better than a pretty woman who cannot speak English.”

My feet stopped walking, I needed a rest from the grocery bag and the sexism. No longer wanting to share aura space with someone who would make such a cruel comment, I let the two men walk a half block in front of me.

His moronic implication was simple:  A non English speaking woman is nothing.  Only there for his consumption. Just use her and like meat she would not be able to talk back in way that her needs would be understood or met.

Those words almost hurt more than my mammogram.

My arms rested, I began to carry on. The men were not  too far ahead of me. Every thought of his misogyny made me want to catch up to them even more.

Hmmm,  a bag full of groceries, painful breasts,  and two meat-heads in plain sight.   Dr. Afrocity Lecter was in the mood for a nice bottle of Chianti and some fava beans.  She walked ever so slowly and quietly…little were they aware of her cannibalistic presence. …

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Notes from the Mirror-less Fitting Room: Feminism Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide August 18, 2010

Clothes are a woman’s second skin.  For many girls, it does not matter if we are pro-life or hanging out at our local Planned Parenthood passing out the morning after pill- we like to look good.  Hillary and her sisterhood of traveling pantsuits.  Sarah Palin sporting a sassy pair of heels during her VP debate against Joe Biden (those heels looked good buried in his ass by the way).  Michelle Malkin, always the stylish conservative.  So I am told, Condi Rice has a shoe collection to die for.  And there is Michelle Obama who mixes organic arugula and J. Crew sensibility with liberal platitudes and $500 Lanvin tennis shoes.

The point I am making is that women like to shop.  Clothes are clothes right?  Vegans and environmentalists aside, you don’t have to be a stark raving libertarian to appreciate a beautiful women Bottega Veneta classic brown leather bag.

When it comes to shopping, girls check their political differences at the fitting room door.

Or so I thought.

On a recent visit to Manhattan, I made a stop at one of my favorite and most physically debilitating stores- Century 21.   I was in pursuit of  off season designer bargains.  What I got instead was a nose full of dust and pathogens- possibly from the British tourists that sneezed in my face and a bruised shoulder.

The best thing about Century 21 is its endless plethora of cool stuff from clothes, to handbags, lingerie, hats, hosiery.  The worse thing about Century 21 is its uncanny ability to demonstrate the worst behavior demonstrated by women since Seinfield’s  Elaine had a meltdown over the Today Sponge.

To see women in our most primitive state, simply walk into the Century 21 on Cortlandt Street in NYC.  The best seats in the house are on the third floor where the high end designer stuff lies in waiting to be grabbed, snagged, and bagged.

Because I have not lived in New York since 2007, I had to proceed carefully.  Not that Chicago women lack the tenacity of New York’s top shopping barracudas.  It is just that we tend not to kick a fellow woman’s  ass over a once heavily sequined Dolce and Gabanna  thong that has been tried on by hundreds of fat sweaty tourists.   Chicago women reserve their energy for deflecting random bullets from drive by shootings and grabby corrupt politicians.  After all, what good is a sequined thong in the dead of  a Midwestern winter when the coroner must peel it off your rigor mortissed ass for any evidence of sexual assault?  What a waste.   Jockey cotton thongs are more practical and mass produced just for girls like us.   Having said that, I now found my Jockey strapped butt in Century 21 after a two year absence.

Afrocity was somewhat afraid that she lost her bitchy spidey senses.  However this was put to rest once I hit some Russian speaking woman in the face with my big shopping bag with the sharp corners…by accident of course.  Somehow I just lose all sense of balance when I am standing next to a person that shoves all of the clothes on a rack to one side…WHILE I AM STILL LOOKING AT THEM.  Sounds of screeching hangers give me the willies.  I can’t be responsible for stomping my foot on the back of that white Chanel gown you meant to try on later and possibly wear tonight…Yes TONIGHT.

…So many clothes so little time and money. Speaking of money, the sound of foreign language in the store expressed one of my concerns about the declining American dollar. The Euro shoppers were clobbering us Betsy Ross dwellers.  Every time I picked up something I liked , I had to look at the price tag first, subtract it from my checking account,  and decided if I loved the item enough to starve to death until payday and use substandard non clumping cat litter.  My kitties do not dig Johnny Cat no matter how cool their owner looks in the Jil Sander blouse.   Afrocity for the sake of your cats, put the blouse down and walk away.

Within an hour, I was exhausted and walking around in circles with the same tunic and skinny jeans in my arms.  Once I determined that my time was more valuable than clawing my way though piles of clothes arranged on the floor and atop the heads of stroller bound toddlers,  my exit strategy went into effect.   Try on, pay up and get out.    However, I was about to have my hopes of an easy out dashed when the sound of quibbling stopped me dead in my tired from high heeled sandals foot tracks.

“Fuck you Bitch!”  a very tall black women yelled at an Indian woman.

The Indian woman was with a girl who was possibly her daughter.

The site of the conflict was a pair of Seven For All  Mankind jeans on sale for $10.99.

Let’s remember that the desires and motives of a fashionista goes beyond race, ethnicity or political ideology.

“You better take your hands off my fuckin’ jeans before you need a mosque up in this bitch.”

Laughter erupted from a small group of Southern tourists.  I could tell they were from the South due to their accents and proclivity to grab all of the Lily Pulitzer items they could find. The “Arizona Rocks” tee shirt one was wearing was a dead give away that they were NOT LIBERALS.   Which in New York City is a sin.

Eyes rolled at the Southern Belles.   Oh shit.  I feel a plane incoming.

I will pause from the action for a moment to mention that Century 21 is very close to Ground Zero in a number of ways in terms of both proximity and symbolically.  Some of fashions greatest “final sale wars” have been fought here.  Women have morally died on this sacred shopping ground.  Strangely once you depart the store and step outside,  Ground Zero is starring you in the face.

Century 21 store in Manhattan, near Ground Zero.

Mirroring the current debate over the building of a mosque near ground zero has nothing to do with fashion but in this case, the lust over a pair of jeans somehow was transformed into a political insult.   Before I could say Tandoori Chicken and Junior’s Cheesecake,  fuzz began to fly as the women grabbed at the jeans back and forth in a tug of war.  Where is Solomon when you need him? Threaten to cut the damn jeans in half and see who loves them more.

“Don’t bring the mosque into it,”  said a voice.  My eyes scanned the clothing racks and it was some dowdy “I am waiting for my teenage kid to try on everything in this store type” -a back to school shopping causality among the Marc Jacobs new fall arrival section.

I gave her a mean look but somehow that did not register with the brawl groupie because she continued to say stupid things.  “Who let in the Tea Party pro-life  racists  Sarah Palin’s over there?” the woman said gesturing towards the once laughing southerners.

And therein lies my problem with liberal women. The root of all evil begins and ends with Sarah Palin.  The root of all conflict begins and ends with abortion.  Make accusations and name call first, ask questions never.

Protect federal funds for education??? Can you say school vouchers?

Can someone explain to me why every so called feminist attempt to bring down Sarah Palin results in a murder-suicide for all womankind?  Liberal women shoot Sarah Palin and conservative women. Liberal women in turn make all women look stupid and catty thus murdering our potential for political strength.  Men will divide and conquer- always.  Hillary Clinton’s  race against Obama proved this.  Sure some women were mad and did not like Obama as the presidential nominee but what happened?  Katy Couric, the MSM used women against women.  Sarah Palin, the liberal deemed CUNT was used to scare women back into the arms of Obama.

As women we all have vaginae ..right? That does not mean that we always have to agree on everything.

Anyway, the southern women may have been liberals who voted Obama yet their laughter over the mosque comment and Arizona Rocks tee shirt excluded them from any inclusion in the feminists girls club.  You are like Sarah- the Mama grizzly Grinch who stole healthcare, mosques, abortion, and anything else that liberal feminists apparently stand for. Meanwhile the men stand around and watch our political cat fights.  Laughing at us, laugh fight, demean and tear down each other.

Perhaps a birth control pill flavored smoothie is appropriate at this time.  Stop the fighting. Feel the love and restricted reproduction. But alas, before we could break out the blender and soy milk,  a male store manager arrived on the scene to pull the women apart.

Afrocity took one look at the line for the fitting room and sighed.  Off went her clothes right in the middle of the store.  Yep, I tried on the jeans in public.  The mirror-less fitting room.  This was my tiny contribution towards the dying sad sound of a woman’s dignity.  Cellulite beginnings  and all,  Afrocity squeezed into the 29 waist skinny jeans only to feel like a sardine marinated in patriarchal snake oil.  Fuck this.

I threw down the jeans and tunic, running down the escalator to my sanity, guarding the contents of my checking account like a momma grizzly bear.  I will not spend one conservative dime in this feminist burial ground zero.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Women and Politics: Are We Strong to the Finish? February 9, 2010

Although I am a Republican, I am African American and can relate to the significance of the election of Barack Obama. Whether I like it or not, he is the first POTUS of color and as a country we have been forever changed because of it.  I do not agree with his character or policies but as far as the collective memory of this nation, he is here to stay.

I am not a mother and I probably never will be. Sure I fantasize about it, the feedings, the PTA meetings.

Would my failings as an adult and lapses in judgment cause irrevocable damage to the quality of their life?

Is it possible to be a great mom when my own childhood was so dysfunctional?  When I was raised by a single mom who collected a monthly pay check from Uncle Sam? There was no significant male figure in my life, save for a brother living military life  in Europe most of my life.

What about politics?

Someday this child will want to go out and vote or at least I hope they would want to contribute to the political process.

I also wonder if I were a mom, what would I say to he or she about Barack Obama?

Would I take a copy of Dreams of My Father, hold it in front of my child and say “Bad Man…S O C I A L I ST” ?

Would I yell idiot at the television every time Obama’s image pops up? That would be every day.

You may be surprised at this but my answer is no.

For example if my child arrived from school with a homework assignment about Obama. They have to answer five questions about Obama’s impact on our coutry.

For argument’s sake let’s pretend that the text book is full of liberal embellishments: “Obama is a great man”, “Obama saved our country from the brink of financial Armageddon, “Obama is the greatest president since FDR.”  “Racism almost kept Obama out of the White House”…

How would I handle this situation without passing on my own prejudices against the man?   This is the first president of color we are talking about.   As any good archivist/ historian, I would teach my child to do rigorous research on it’s own.  I would say that while I did not agree with Obama’s policies and I did not vote for him, his election was a pivotal moment in history for all Americans but especially for African Americans.   If the child is very young, there is no need to discuss the motivation and behavior behind Barack Obama.

Afrocity mom would bust out the”Great  Black Politicians in  History”  flash cards which hopefully have cardboard representations Colin Powell, Condeleeza Rice,  Michael Steele,  along with Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson and other prominent black Americans.  Let’s save the Obama and Bill Ayers stories  for middle or high school.  Obama was the first black president and I will not steal that moment–the very significance of it, away from my child.   If I wrote Obama off as a simpleton, say as many liberal women  particularly feminists do Sarah Palin, what would I really be teaching my child?  I just marginalized an important historical figure at the expense of my child’s freedom to choose their own heroes.

The "Fernie Swastikas" A Canadian Women's Hockey Team. In 1923 they defeated the Vancouver Amazons. What would you say to your daughter about this picture today?

Every group or identity politic has memorable stories that endure the harshness of forgetfulness.  Stories that we reiterate to each generation over and over again.  I accept that Barack Obama will be one of them.  His legacy will be held to redefinition over the years. Historians will carefully examine his accomplishments and  spin new interpretations  on Barry-O but still he will never go away.

The same can be said for women’s history.  We can be Republicans or Democrats, Independents, Tea Partiers but we still are women.

What if Sarah Palin did win presidential election in 2012?  What would women, liberals in particular say to their daughters?   “Sarah Palin is a CUNT” ? would they hang her and Piper in effigy over the local Planned Parenthood center? Or would they say: “You know what, I do not agree with this woman’s stance on abortion or gay marriage, but her getting elected to the highest office in the nation is a pretty damn big step for all women”?

As it stands now, we have all this unfolding discourse on how qualified Sarah Palin is. She must prove herself. Over and over and over again like a broken record.   No matter how many speeches Sarah gives, she still must prove herself.

I was somewhat upset with Geraldine Ferraro during this FOX NEWS interview with Megyn Kelly.  Again with the Sarah must prove herself.

I wanted to jump into Megyn’s fancy new studio and say “Hey, Gerry…I was a kid when you ran on the DNC ticket and really I think Sarah Palin gave more interview’s and is under far more media scrutiny than you ever were.”

After a year of fumbles and corpse-men, Obamatons are still chanting “All we are saying, is give Obama a chance”

Would they do the same for Sarah?

I will close this post with one of my most memorable moments in Afrocity once watched cartoons history.  Precious and is this episode of Popeye the Sailor Man.  Olive Oyl imagines herself as being President of the United States of America.  She fights sexism and partisan politics, she has a male secretary. Please watch and I am sure you will be equally entertained and frightened that this antique film reel still captures the underpinnings of a woman’s struggle in politics today. It will take a helluva lot more than a can of spinach to get a woman in the White House sowing the seeds of legislation and real change instead of organic arugula.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Political Holiday Wish List: That Feminists Would Know What A Feminist Looks Like December 10, 2009

Vintage Cover of MS. Magazine

Growing up during the 1970′s persuaded me to swallow the huge bitter slow time released pill of feminism. Housewife bad. Career woman good. Armed with birth control pills and college degrees as women, we marched in step the women’s liberation movement. By the time I was a teenager, something shifted. A good woman could now balance everything– work and family.  Drive a Land Rover to her corporate job in New York City while making Juicy Juice popsicles for her artificially inseminated triplets.  Magazines such as Working Mother went into circulation. Nannies, the Today sponge,  Wonder Bras, Monica Lewinsky, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin…Yes Sarah Palin.

How does feminism solve a problem like Sarah Palin???  A conservative, gun toting candidate for the 2008 vice presidency. She is pro-life, Alaskan governor, five kids, former beauty queen. Has a gorgeous husband who loves her. Mother of a special needs child… What is there not for feminists to like. By all accounts, Sarah Palin is a remarkable woman, living the feminist dream.

Or so one would think…

Sarah’s view of her duties as a politician is surprisingly free of snobbery. Moreover she has the rare ability to actually blend in with her constituents in a way that makes you feel she understands your needs because she has been there.

So why did feminism throw Sarah under the bus for Barack Obama? Because she is conservative that is why.

Remember this is the same movement that took sides with Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky.

Ultimately what is most important to feminists is supporting a leftist agenda and not the true rights of women.

How can women be treated as equals among men when the very movement that claims to support us does not see Republican and conservative women as equals among women?

In the end, we all lose as women.

What is it saying about tolerance and acceptance when the only commemorative postage stamps of great women are liberals? Are we not free to think for ourselves without ridicule from those who share the same genital parts? If Afrocity can be African America and conservative, she can also be a woman and conservative. Right?  If this is true will someone please tell me why I have been given the pink slip from each group. I have been stripped of my gender membership as well as my racial membership cards.

This Christmas there will be no visit to Afrocity from the Feminist Santa. Fine!!!

I will not put any tampon shaped cookies and birth control pills by the fireplace for Feminist Santa on Christmas Eve.

Upon being abandoned by my race and gender, I do occasionally read what I am supposedly missing. Just yesterday, I happened upon this review by Ms. magazine of the newest Twilight film New Moon:

New Moon, Same Old Sexist Story

By Carmen D. Siering and Katherine Spillar

Sure, the film New Moon is breaking box office records, and both tween girls and their moms are swooning over pale-faced vampire Edward and hunky werewolf Jacob, who both vie for the attention of our ostensible hero, Bella. Isn’t it romantic?

Well…. with just a moment of critical analysis, feminists can’t be too happy about how the latest episode in the Twilight series, adapted from Stephanie Meyer’s popular books, represents a young woman and her place in the modern world. In fact, the New film is really just more of the same, only worse.

Where director Catherine Hardwicke, who helmed the first Twilight film, subtly tweaked the characters of Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson), creating a somewhat more equal relationship between them, New Moon director Chris Weitz seems content to let things stand as Meyer wrote them. Edward reverts to his overbearing ways, dictating the direction of the relationship—in this case, ending it—and Bella quite literally lies down and takes it.

In fact, just moments after Edward leaves her, Bella stumbles in the woods and refuses to get up, lying in the muck until a strong, bare-chested man carries her out. Later, we see her sitting in her room, staring out the window, as the months roll by. When she isn’t sitting and staring, she is in bed having nightmares. Very empowering.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, then Sarah Heath, holding the 1980-1981 Wasilla High School Girl's Cross Country Running championship trophy in Wasilla, Alaska.

Ms. give me a break. How do you expect for anyone to take you seriously about the lack of female empowerment in the Twilight series when your writers cannot accept a that a conservative woman running for the office of Vice President of the United States could possibly be empowering to young women everywhere?

Sounds like you are the ones who do not know what a feminist looks like.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

EWWW

Diversity Fatigue Friday: When It Comes To Hate Crimes, Bros Before Hoes November 13, 2009

Crickets from the mainstream media concerning Lionel McIntyre, an African American Columbia University professor of architecture who punch a female colleague in the face. I wonder why? Could it be because McIntyre’s faculty biography on his Columbia University web page reads as though he is the perfect champion of civil rights and equality?Could it be because he is African American?

“From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, Professor McIntyre worked in civil rights and labor organizing in the deep South. His international experience began with travel abroad in 1972 as co-liaison for the first “People to People Friendship Delegation” to the People’s Republic of China and conducted a subsequent study tour in 1979…”Pl

Please do explain to me how the description above translates into his actions below:

Police refuse to charge Columbia professor with hate crime after alleged attack on co-worker

Prof. Lionel Mcintyre, accused of assaulting a female at Columbia University, leaving criminal court. Photo New York Post

 

November 11, 2009

By Dave Gibson

On Monday, New York City police arrested Lionel McIntyre, 59, an architecture professor at Columbia University, for punching a woman in the face, and slapping another man. The alleged attack took place the previous Friday night at Toast bar in Harlem. The woman, Camille Davis, who also works at Columbia University was left with a heavily bruised face, after taking what witnesses described as a closed-fisted punch in the face from McIntyre.Bar employee Richie Velez told the New York Post: “The punch was so loud, the kitchen workers in the back heard it over all the noise. I was on my way over when he punched Camille and she fell on top of me.”Waiter, Rob Dalton said: “It was a real sucker punch. Camille’s a great lady, always nice to everybody, and doesn’t deserve anything like this.”McIntyre, who is black was having an angry discussion about racial issues and in particular about so-called “white privilege,” with both of his alleged victims, who are white.

 

The man who McIntyre allegedly attacked, only wishes to be identified by his first name, Shannon, told the Post: “He knocked the glasses right off my face. The punch came out of nowhere. Mac was talking to us about white privilege and what I was doing about it — apparently I wasn’t doing enough.”

McIntyre reportedly had an argument with Davis a few weeks earlier over race. He has been charged with assault and was released without bail.

McIntyre told the Post that it was “a very unfortunate event.”

Why are the actions of Dr. Mcintyre not being explored as a hate crime? The facts clearly state  that this was not his first argument with Ms. Davis. Surely he harbored some anger towards her because she was white and privileged.

Here is a video response to the crime:

In October of this year,  President Obama signed expanded hate crimes legislation into law, explaining that the provision would “strengthen the protections against crimes based on the color of your skin, the faith in your heart, or the place of your birth.”

In the United States federal law, defines a hate crime as one that is motivated by the victim’s race, color, religion or national origin….But says virtually nothing about gender..What about women?

Where are you NOW? Will someone please step up for Camille Davis.

Or does the left believe that she behaved “stupidly”?

Will Obama have a tea summit in order to mend fences between the two?

Of course Camille will have to pack on the Derma Blend in order to look presentable for his majesty.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Scary Movie: In Chicago Violence Against Women is Not A Costume November 2, 2009

Far from hindering liberal perception that Afrocity has been kidnapped by far right wing nuts and with my connection to a city that boasts abysmal murder rates, earlier this year I secured and registered a gun. On Halloween night, I watched the usual spooky movies. After watching Jamie Lee Curtis battle Mike Meyers in the closet for the thousandth time…I thought, this woman needs a gun. This phenomenal insight never transfers over to celluloid. Who walks in with the gun to save the day??? The patriarchy of course.

Men play games with guns. Women just get beat up.  I will not elaborate much on what was happening to another womea while I was sitting in front of my fireplace watching hair raising classic horror films and sipping mulled cider.  Cozy I was, as one young pregnant woman was shot while trick or treating with her three children. From the Chicago Tribune:

Pregnant mom shot while trick-or-treating with kids

November 1, 2009

A pregnant woman accompanying three children as they trick-or-treated in the Northwest Side’s Avondale neighborhood was shot Saturday night, and police believe the target of the shooting was a reputed gang member walking nearby.She remained hospitalized today, Kubiak said. Her baby did not have to be delivered prematurely and did not appear to be hurt in the incident.

The woman, eight months pregnant, was walking with her child and two nieces on Monticello Avenue near Belmont Avenue about 7 p.m. when shots rang out, said Chicago Police Officer Laura Kubiak. A bullet struck the 20-year-old mom in the back, and she was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in serious condition.

Investigators believe the man is a member of the Latin Kings street gang, and that the shots may have been meant for him in a gang-related dispute, Kubiak said. Police do not know where the gunfire originated and they do not have anyone in custody.

At the same time the woman was shot, another bullet struck an 18-year-old man in the right thigh as he walked on Belmont, police said.

There was a time when I never thought I would have a gun in my home.  My mother generally spoke against owning guns. As a teenager, I  saw enough ABC After School Specials to know that a gun in the home usually meant a child would find it and shoot their little sister. But I do not have a child and frankly I would like to be able to protect myself.  It seems that other women agree.

From CBS Channel 2 in Chicago:

Number Of Women Buying Handguns Increasing

October 27, 2009

Local gun shop owners say they’re seeing an increase in the number of women shoppers right now. The reasons, they say, are many, including the downturn in the economy and violence on the street.

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, about 48 percent of people taking their first handgun seminars this year happen to be women. CBS 2′s Pamela Jones reports on the growing trend.

“It’s very dangerous out there. I mean, there’s people getting robbed here and there,” said Josie Santiago. “It’s just for protection.”

Santiago says she’s always thinking about the danger lurking on the streets of the Chicago area. It’s a big reason why she visited Illinois Gun Works in Elmwood Park.

Not only did she shop for a new weapon, but she also wanted to find out about taking firearms training from the pros.

Sarah Palin demostrating that she has what it takes to be top gun.

On September 30th, 2009. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to McDonald v. Chicago, a case where petitioners are asking to overturn a handgun ban, and other aspects of gun registration regulations affecting rifles and shotguns in Chicago.

I would like to know your thoughts on the matter. Let’s just say that Afrocity is rooting for the guy who had great fries.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Are You There God? It’s Me Afrocity: Being A Pro-Choice Republican Without Illusions August 31, 2009

More than any other device, the image is the surest way to transcend all barriers.  Achieving a certain notoriety for fascinating the voyeuristic side in all of us, the image is not exclusively  male or female because the common vantage point is that we all have eyes.

When I look at pro-life and pro choice “propaganda”, a term I resisted granted truthfully, that is what it is propaganda or something that persuades and appeals to emotions, I see that the abortion debate is handled in such a way that there is really no middle ground. The accusations are inescapable. Either you believe in murdering babies or you don’t. You are either for women’s rights or you’re not.

In a video interview I taped earlier this month, I described how my political location is life was racially constructed. How does this apply translate to my opinion on abortion? Is it racially constructed as well?

The sexual education between my mother and I was for the most part one without words. Pregnancy was the worse thing that could happen to a black girl. Books open, legs shut was the mantra. Abstinence is the best policy. Did she tell me what sex actually was? No.

It was not until I watched soft porn with my sound asleep uncle that I realized that babies are not made by a woman and a man “lying close together in bed”.

My uncle had the Spectrum cable channel- which was one of the first along with HBO and Showtime. He did not pay for it but somehow we received the signal in his bedroom.  In my need for a masculine figure of authority in my life, I would watch movies in his room as I did my homework. His drunken raucous laughter was somehow calming. Unlike his sister/my mother, he drank heavily and was not always sad. I accepted his Hiram Walker and Sons manufactured mirth over my mother’s growing despondency. Uncle and I would begin by watching action movies or comedies. Being a night owl by nature, I would stay up well past my uncle’s bedtime.

When the adult movies began at 1am, did Afrocity turn off the TV set?

Not on your life. I stayed and watched. Curiosity killed the young PUMA cat.

The abortion dress is said to be the most ripped off image on the internet.

At 13 years of age, I  was perceptive enough to determine that these movies were created by men for men. In many films, the women were initially raped but later appear as if they actually enjoyed the attack. Others engaged in lesbian behavior yet there were no representations of men sleeping with men while women watched for pleasure and enjoyment. Then there were the insatiable nymphomaniacs. The woman who can’t seem to get enough.

Through my delicate pre-teen lens  I was the the willing voyeur, watching these forbidden movies which embodied masculine principals of patriarchy and submission. Women were not in a position of power in most of the films, save for several films featuring porn star Marilyn Chambers. Even so, it seemed that Marilyn  thought she was in complete control although I am not sure if walking home with a limp is considered power no matter how much you enjoyed it.

Abortion and rape figured prominently in several films I watched but here again, it was the male who determined whether or not the woman would be “allowed” to end the life of her unborn child.

It was “her fault” that she got pregnant and she would need “his money” to fix it.

To solidify this argument, one film featured a woman who was a naughty housewife. She was of course a nymphomaniac that her husband, while charming could not satiate. She attends a blindfolded only orgy and has sex with a kosher dill pickle, three women and several men. Later when she discovers that her sexual escapade has rendered her pregnant, she cannot afford the abortion with her monthly allowance from dear sweet protective hubby.

To make matters worse hubby was wounded in Vietnam and cannot father a child. As the movie progresses, the feminine antagonist is screwed both literally and figuratively. Her power karma dwindles as she has to prostitute herself for money in order to pay for the abortion.  At the sobering conclusion of the film, our wing clipped heroine is robbed of her abortion kitty by her final customer. But all is not lost. A member of the dominant gender,an abortionist  enters her life and gives her an abortion in return for a sexual encounter.

The erosion of this female character’s strength was what remained with me the most. It was not the gratuitous penis shots, or kinky sex (though that was a pretty big cumber pickle), what stayed with me was her total lack of control.

Roe v. Wade gave us the right to choose but this pornographic film stripped that right away by placing the financing of the abortion, back in the hands of the patriarchy.  Perhaps this was the day I became  pro-choice but I also became pro-women’s empowerment.  Pregnancy is exclusively female along with menstruation. Women should have the right to control what happens to their bodies. I will never change that opinion despite being a Republican.

Not being a mother, I am of course more familiar with the latter bodily function- menstruation.  Now this is the part where I may risk some readers but here goes…

Such imagery only angers and widens the gap between pro-life and pro-choice.

Sunday mine began, as it has since I was 13.  I am also taking antibiotics for a sinus infection which in turn caused me to develop a yeast infection.  Strolling down the Walgreen ailse basket in hand, my mouth drops open at the price of sanitary napkins. $7.99 for a 28 count package of Stayfree maxipads without wings.

The tension between my monthly flow and my cash flow has always been an issue.

I asked myself a rather trivial question. During my lifetime, how much have I spent on feminine products? If I only knew.

While growing up, I never ever saw my mother buy feminine products. We had no money.

You could not buy them with foodstamps.

My guess is that she used discarded old towels we had.

I assume this because she attempted to coax me into a similar practice when we were without money. Our discourse exchange on the matter was burdened by the 31 year gap in our ages. With my first period, I insisted to be taken to the store for pads. Thanks to sexual education in school, I knew they existed. Tampon usage was shunned by most in my class including the teachers. The awful myth circulating was that any girl who uses a tampon is automatically NOT a virgin and will perish a horrendous death of toxic shock syndrome.

Succumbing to her thoroughly modern daughter, mother purchased the old beltless bulky pads for me and did not know how to put them on me. When I ran ou of thoset, I went to the school nurse  pretending my period had caught me off guard. After doing this ten times or so, the nurse caught on and gave me a box of pads once a month.

“I have too many and would only throw them out, ” she said.

I was thankful that they had sticky stuff on the bottom and did not have to use safety pins. That nurse fed me the self esteem needed by a maturing young woman. Thank God for school nurses and sex education. The nurse was a woman helping a girl. I could trust her and she knew what it was like to be me. Now what if it were more than just pads that I needed? Should my mother know about it? I thought of the woman in the porn movie. What if I needed an abortion? Take into consideration this article which appeared on Townhall.com by Star Parker, a wonderful conservative that happens to be African American like me:

Monday, August 31, 2009

Star Parker :: Townhall.com Columnist

A time for truth on abortion
by Star Parker

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin missed a great opportunity to personally kick off an issue of enormous importance to her state and to the nation.

She was scheduled to appear with me at an Alaska Family Council event in Anchorage to launch Alaska’s Parental Involvement Initiative, which will require parental notification of teenage girls under age 18 before they can get an abortion. But, the schedules of we mortals cannot retard the imperatives of history, so, despite Mrs. Palin’s absence, we’ve gone to war with the army we have.

Currently 35 states have laws that require either parental consent or notification in order for a teenage girl to receive an abortion. Alaska passed one in 1997.

However, after ten years on the books, in 2007 the Alaska Supreme Court, arguing that sharing this information with parents violated the privacy of their teenage daughters, found the law unconstitutional. So now a 13 year old can get an abortion without the knowledge of her parents.

A large percentage of these abortions are paid for with state Medicaid funds, but no one seems to think that parents’ privacy is being violated using their tax funds to pay for these.

Research shows the remedial benefits of parental involvement when a pregnant teenager considers abortion.

And research shows the profound psychological damage caused by teenage abortion. But, perhaps we should be wondering who we are today that we need to gather data to address an issue as intuitively obvious as whether a teenage girl may abort her child without her parents knowing.

Of course there are exceptional considerations, like abusive parents. But the Alaska initiative deals with this, as did a similar initiative in California, which was defeated last November.

No, this is not about being reasonable. It is about ideology. And what we have are opposing worldviews that cannot be reconciled. It’s about choosing one or the other.

Yes, I am pro-choice and Republican but even I have my limits. Whether in the name of privacy or under the guise of women’s rights, I do not believe that it is fair for pro-choice advocates to exclude parental consent when it comes to a 13 year old girl, not a woman but a girl, having an abortion. A 13 year  parents should be involved in that decision or at the very least be aware that their child is sexually active.

My decision to be pro-choice is based upon a woman’s right to privacy.

Speaking of privacy over twenty years later, I am no longer the girl in the school nurse’s office. Here I am a full grown woman, standing in a Walgreens drugstore aisle with a problem. The yeast infection medication I need is behind a locked Plexiglas cabinet along with pregnancy tests and ovulation detectors.  Great, now my purchase of this embarrassing product entails my announcing to the Walgreens powers that be that I need something to stop croissant production. Of course with my luck, the only person available to open the security case for me is an Asian man of about 30.

“Which item do you want?” he asked timidly. This poor man did not want to help me and the feeling was mutual. But there we were.

I pointed to the yeast infection treatment that was on sale for $9.95 down from $18.95. Seems my timing was not so bad after all- yeast must be in season. I noted that the store clerk did not look me in the eye. With a quick “thanks”, I took my yeast killers and maxi pads to the cashier who was also a male. I placed my feminine items on the counter along with a bag of 5 flavored Life Savers roll candy. The male cashier flirted with me until he saw the guilty products, Life Savers roll candy and Vagistat, I must be a real winner.

“Do you want me to double bag this?” he asked. His face was red. He was wearing lots of liberal flair. An Obama button (ick) along with another pin that read “Green is the new black”.

Why the red face? Being a liberal, he must understand my plight as a woman.Surely he is a feminist and cares about my monthly cell slouthing activites.

Shaking my head, I said “No, why should anymore trees have to die because I have a yeast infection…I will pay by debit card.”

Yes, with one swipe of rectangular plastic, I do have the power.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Misogyny Alert: MILF Toast Served From The Patriarch’s Den August 19, 2009

If you are a woman over 35 years of age you are a cougar whether you like it or not. The proliferation of single women in their late 30′s and 40′s have sparked a new smear campaign brought to you by the patriarchy.

Cougar women are the latest installment of a revived misogynistic sensation since Obama was elected.

Because after all every woman over 35 wants to get laid by a sexually immature 25 year old guy that will give us money for a cab ride home from his dorm room or mother’s basement.  I find the “cougar” phenomenon particularly cruel because it targets two kinds of women. Those who have every right to pursue happiness by getting on with their lives after a losing a spouse to death or divorce, or women who have spent a great deal of their 20′s cultivating a professional career.

Using the cougar as a metaphor, to describe old women on the prowl, hunting for fresh (young) meat is not only offensive but it is also contradictory to modern day treatment of older men who “hunt” younger women in search of a “shopping spree” at H&M in exchange for her un-cellulited buttocks and dim bulb adoration.  What comes out of this male constructed sexual vocabulary of cougar, MILF (mom’s I would like to fuck), Demi-chicks- is an assault on women born in the 60′s and 70′s.  It negates the female constructed positive images of women in their 40′s such as Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek, Halle Berry and others who stunningly prove that 40 is the new 30.  Women please do not embrace this cougar meme. It is not empowering.

Definition of COUGAR according to Urban Dictionary or “dick-a-pedia” in this case:

1. Cougar

An older woman who frequents clubs in order to score with a much younger man. The cougar can be anyone from an overly surgically altered wind tunnel victim, to an absolute sad and bloated old horn-meister, to a real hottie or milf. Cougars are gaining in popularity — particularly the true hotties — as young men find not only a sexual high, but many times a chick with her shit together.

“That cougar I met last night, showed me shit I didn’t know existed, I’m goin back for more.”

2.     Cougar

(see also hunt, prowl, corner, pounce). Noun. A 35+ year old female who is on the “hunt” for a much younger, energetic, willing-to-do-anything male. The cougar can frequently be seen in a padded bra, cleavage exposed, propped up against a swanky bar in San Francisco (or other cities)waiting, watching, calculating; gearing up to sink her claws into an innocent young and strapping buck who happens to cross her path. “Man is cougar’s number one prey”

Millions of them. More famously, Demi and Ashton, Naomi Watts and Heath Ledger, Joan Collins and her hubby, Cameron and Justin, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins.

3. Cougar

A Cougar is a female, usually between thirty and fifty years-old, who enjoys the sexual company of younger men.

Cougars are only usually interested in men under the age of twenty-five. Also, Cougars are non-committal, choosing to move from mate to mate without ever settling down. It is not uncommon for the same Cougar to attack (sleep with) many different men in the same group of friends. Furthermore, Cougars are older and more practiced in the ways of snaring a mate so they will rarely broadcast their intentions to sleep with you until you are already in her Jetta, headed for the condo she just bought. It is this elusive behavior that earns her the name “Cougar.”

“Hey Jerry, I’m about to go buy this girl a drink, want to come along? I think she has a friend next to her”

“Naw, theres a cougar in the corner that seems to be stalking me, I’m going to hold out for her”

If you are dating in your 30′s, 40′s, 50′s and beyond, establish yourself as women with standards, who share a common desire for QUALITY companionship now matter what the prospect’s age.  Your 30′s and 40′s often signal the height of your careers, personal freedom and confidence. Do not let men shape the way you feel about yourselves, especially young keg floating men who you can bet your Prada thong will never call themselves cougars once they turn 35 year old summer intern skirt chasers.

The patriarchy will do anything to keep the self-esteem of a woman down.  Since the 1980′s women have become more assertive and independent when juxtaposed by the obvious decline of the male hairline, bank account and ego, you can expect that MILF and Cougar are the verbal assault tools of an oppressive and envious comb over patriarcy and possibly a generation of younger women who unfortunately take feminism ten steps back.

They voted in overwhelming amounts for Barack Obama, remember. They wore tee shirts claiming  that “Sarah Palin Is A CUNT”.

Violence against women has been on the rise as well as open verbal criticism concerning our parenting decisions, intelligence and sexual identities.  Respond to derogatory labeling with negative feedback. During every decade, there is a moment of testing that we all must endure as feminists. Recently many of us have failed that test. Leave it to the patriarchy to crystallize our every wrinkle in time, unless we chip away piece by piece, we will never be free to be the girls who just want to have fun.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Feminism Today: Crouching Paper Tiger, Hidden Dragon Lady July 18, 2009

Thirty some years ago, I remember walking down the aisle of the grocery store with my mother, holding on to the side of the shopping cart.

“Stay with me,” she would warn.

Of course I did not listen and just when she was thumping watermelons in the produce aisle, I would dart off to two places: the Brachs candy stand where I would fill my pockets with orange slices and caramels (without putting a penny in the sample box) and next I was off to the magazine stand.  I loved to read magazines but the only place I could was at the library or the supermarket.   Occasionally, I would grab a child appropriate magazine like Highlights or Jack N’ Jill.  But mostly I would go for the magazines that my mother referred to as “white folks mags”, Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies Home Journal.  I loved the recipes that my mother would never make and pictures of homes that I would never live in.

After browsing through those ,  next I would look at the “black folks mags” like Ebony, Jet, and Essence to catch up on the latest in black hair care, the 100 most influential black people, and to learn what I could do as a woman to please my black man.  Flipping through the pages, I found insightful renderings on why black women should stop nagging their “good black men” and be more supportive. Now if only my mother had a good black man and I had a father,  we would be all set to go.

Speaking of go,  I would leave the magazine section to make a check on the parental figure at this point. Like a good mom she had made her way to the breakfast cereals. Good thing I had caught up to her just in time to give my valuable input.

“Boo Berry cereal,” I said pointing at the box with the purple ghost and filled with colored marshmallows and 16 essential fortified vitamins.

Mom give me a cross look. “I told you not to wonder off. Now stay by me, I don’t want to have to go looking for you before I check out.”

“Okay”

Slam, bam phooey. As soon as she picked up a can of Jolly Green Giant veggies, I was back in the zine aisle, readily situated on a milk crate with Cosmopolitan.  My perception of the “Cosmo woman” was someone who was sexy, in control of her life and armed with an IUD or diaphragm.  Loved those pictures of voluptuous breasts I would never grow because I was destined to be an “A” cup.  Loved the article explaining how to be a bitch in the workplace, juxtaposed with a Halston suit clad woman, reading the Wall Street Journal while holding a man’s head between her quivering thighs. I bet she smelled like that Enjolie perfume too.

My final periodical selection was Ms. Magazine.  An aspiring feminist such as myself needed to keep in touch with the current buzz in women’s movement.

And God created Sarah Palin. Women have come so far today, that we are placed side by side with great men such as Michelangelo

Pre-teen Afrocity was down with feminism. Raised on grape juice drink wishes and government cheese dreams,  my completed my feminist tutelage under the best liberal black mom on food stamps in the entire world.

I knew my pre-feminist commandments:

1. I am woman, the other gender does not come before me.

2.Thou shalt not grow up and carve yourself into any image of a housewife.

3. Thou shalt not bow down before man.

4. Honor thy mother and grandmother, and personal shopper.

5. Thou shalt not be pro-life.

6. Remember to keep a safety pin in your purse,  in case garments get “holy”

7. Thou shalt not bear arms, even against thy peeping Tom neighbor.

8.  Thou shalt not kill, unless it is with kindness.

9. Thou shalt not commit adultery, unless he does first.

10. Thou shalt not take the name of your political affiliation, the DNC in vain, for the liberals will not hold her guiltless who belongs to the Republican Party.

Condi Rice will make cornbread in vaginal and melanin hell. How dare she be a Republican and an African American woman?

Fast forward to 2009…Afrocity faltered and is going to vaginal hell. Clean up on feminist commandment aisle 10.  Before switching parties, I was a good feminist. Now liberals are throwing holy Kool Aid water on my face. ARGH, it burns.  Who resides here in vaginal hell with Afrocity? Hi, Tammy Bruce, Greta Van Susteren. Geeze is that…Why it is!!! Anita Bryant.  Hello Ann Coulter, love the hair, still blond and shiny in all of this liberal heat and humility. And of course Sarah Palin working mom, GOP Governor of Alaska,pro-life yep you deserve to be here- nothing about you speaks to the advancement of women’s rights. What’s up  Bristol…Piper are you down here too? What was that? You hate J. Crew clothing for girls. For shame.

Trying to make sense of feminism today is like watching the launch of a space shuttle that blows up in mid-air. Unfortunately, I watched that in the 80′s with the space shuttle Challenger and I am watching it again with the feminist movement of present.

Sarah Palin as you know could never be feminist, and  according to Newsweek writer Eleanor Clift,  Palin has also “let women down”.

Newsweek

“Palin’s Long Run”

As a runner, Sarah Palin has shown she has endurance. What will she do with that?

By Eleanor Cliff

Jul 17, 2009

I didn’t feel compelled to weigh in on Sarah Palin, at least not in print, until I saw her featured in Runner’s World, the holy grail for anybody who’s laced up a pair of running shoes. I don’t know how I missed that piece of her biography, but I learned that she’s been running for 35 years, since she was a child and her parents caught the running craze in the mid-’70s.

That’s when I caught it too, and suddenly I felt simpatico with Palin, an odd feeling since her political inclinations are so different from mine. She grew up doing family run runs, her parents were marathoners, and her dad ran Boston a couple times, another holy grail. “I feel so crappy if I go more than a few days without running,” she says. Now that’s my kind of woman.

Running is what they call a positive addiction. I once had a stress fracture in my foot, which I ignored as best I could lest it interfere with my run. I didn’t come to my senses until my husband asked how long it would take me to hop four miles. Palin faults the McCain staff for failing to carve out time for her to run during the campaign. She’d issue an ultimatum that she needed to run, and too often it never happened. Just think what a different campaign we might have seen if Palin had been given the time to generate those exercise-induced endorphins and maybe even order her thoughts. She might have saved herself from becoming a laughingstock with that disastrous interview with Katie Couric.

Wow, before the article’s author Ms. Clift  picked up Runner’s World, magazine she never felt compelled to write about Palin of course until now. That’s a stretch (excuse pun). It is so odd that she felt “simpatico” with Palin because you know as a conservative dragon lady, Sarah Palin does not do normal people stuff like eating wasabi peas, taking a daily shit, or running.

The rest of the article can serve as starting points for a discussion on what is wrong with journalism today.

I have sympathy with Palin as a woman and a mother. She wanted her life back. I get that. But I don’t think that walking away from the governor’s office is compatible with attaining the presidency, and her excuse, that she was sparing the state of Alaska the expense of a lame-duck governorship, was laughable. The detail that jumped out at me from a front-page piece in The New York Times was how Palin’s hair was thinning at such an alarming rate due to stress that her beautician staged an intervention. The governor was clearly having trouble coping and instead of backing away and deflecting the criticism, she engaged with every attack, however petty.

Much of the criticism leveled against Palin is justified. She has the makings of a dangerous political figure, a populist in the tradition of Pat Buchanan, whipping up resentment among “real Americans,” the term she used in the campaign and which applies mostly to white, rural pockets of the country. Now that Buchanan has mellowed into the role of television pundit, we forget that he prosecuted the culture wars of the 1990s with his opposition to affirmative action, immigration, gay rights, and abortion, and that he won the New Hampshire primary in 1996, vowing, “The peasants are coming with pitchforks.”

Buchanan is an unabashed admirer of Palin’s, and no wonder. She’s as good as he is at fanning the resentment of Americans who feel left out and left behind in a world that’s changing too fast for them.

I countered this with my "Pro- Black People- Anti-Obama- McCain/Palin 2008" bumper sticker

Clift’s article succeeds beautifully in clinging to every Sarah Palin stereotype sold in the mainstream media market. Quoting the New York Times as a credible unbiased news source reflects fair and balanced reporting. Finding Pat Buchanan in the Palin family tree is also a nice touch. You said Pat and Sarah are pretty much good as conservative blood related cousins because he supports her, correct? Do you think there is any incest going on?  Resentful Americans who feel left behind like me want to know. Hey Ms. Clift, there actually might be a story in that for you.  Also you are so right, the criticism of Sarah Palin is so justified. Let’s embrace those who were brave enough to wear the “Sarah Palin is a CUNT” tee shirts. The criticism was justifiable.

Finally, as was the case with most liberal journalists, Clift gives a compelling reason as to explain why Sarah Palin is a disappointment to all womankind:

…Nixon was easy to hate in a pure, unadulterated way. The emotions Palin arouses in the electorate are far more complicated. Women were drawn to her initially, but she let them down. Her positions were too far to the right and her knowledge too provincial. She wasn’t ready to be president. Those attitudes have hardened with time. In the latest CBS poll, only 33 percent of Republicans say she’d make an effective president; that number was 71 percent last fall. Still, I can’t think of another vice presidential candidate on a failed ticket who remained newsworthy a year later. Nobody cared what Dan Quayle had to say after the Bush-Quayle ticket lost in ’92, and he’s the closest analog to Palin, chosen for the youth and good looks he could bring to a charisma-challenged elder statesman.

On behalf of conservative women everywhere let me grab a bucket and puke.

The CBS poll is most likely biased, most conservatives do not identify as Republicans. I have seen other polls that give Sarah Palin advantages over Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, at as much as 75%.  The claim that “women were drawn to Palin initially”  is a strange one in light of Clift’s confession that she never felt compelled to give Palin as single keystroke until she read the Runner’s World piece.   I am never initially drawn to anything that I don’t stay permanently drawn to.  I was never initially drawn to Michelle Obama or her husband.  I was never initially drawn to Nancy Pelosi. I was never initially drawn to Donna Brazille, even when Bill Clinton was president.  I will always remain drawn to Hillary Clinton despite some reservations about her role in the Obama administration.  You can denounce Sarah Palin as a provincial conservative, for her pro-life beliefs. Yes liberal feminists, I know that Sarah Palin should endure a thousand menstrual cramps for denouncing gay marriage. She will never be a feminist.

In the aftermath of the 2008 election where busloads of young women stumped for Barack Obama while rear ending Sarah Palin, I get there are no feminists on the  right, but look at what you are doing and saying to our young women? Are there really any feminists left?

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Say It Ain’t So Jane Roe July 14, 2009

I have always believed that one of the most unfortunate and weakest chapters in the pro-choice movement is Jane Roe.  Yes, Jane Roe, that Roe…the “Roe” in the 1973 landmark U.S.  Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade.  Jane Roe aka. Norma Leah McCorvey, is now in her sixties,  and a pro-life church going lesbian living in Texas.  In her biography, I Am Roe: My Life, Roe v. Wade, and Freedom of Choice, McCorvey claims she was manipulated by her lawyers Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington during the 1970′s trials. She also admitted that she lied about her pregnancy being the result of a rape.

Clinging to her pro-life stance and religion, she was arrested yesterday during Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing.

The Washington Post

‘Jane Roe’ Arrested at Supreme Court Hearing

By Paul Kane
Monday, July 13, 2009

The woman at the center of the Supreme Court’s landmark abortion rights ruling was arrested today at the confirmation hearing for Sonia Sotomayor among a wave of anti-abortion protesters who lined the sidewalks outside the Senate office buildings and several of whom made it into the hearing room and disrupted in an attempt to disrupt the proceedings.

Norma McCorvey, 61, of Texas, better known as “Jane Roe” in the famous Roe v. Wade case from January 1973, was arrested after she and another protester started yelling during the opening statement of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), according to Capitol Police. McCorvey, whose pursuit of the right to access to abortion in the early 1970s led to the ruling that has been a pivotal part of every Supreme Court nomination process since, eventually become a notable opponent of the procedure.

Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the Capitol Police said McCorvey and Francis Mahoney, 68, of Florida were charged with unlawful conduct for disrupting Congress, the third and fourth such arrests the police made during the more than five-hour proceedings. McCorvey was part of the group of protesters outside the Hart Senate Office Building throughout the day, a gathering led by Randall Terry, the former head of Operation Rescue, an organization dedicated to ending abortion.

McCorvey, who used Roe as an alias in her court filings for fear of retribution, remained an abortion-rights supporter until the mid-1990s. Working at a women’s clinic in Dallas, she befriended some Operation Rescue protesters. In 1995, she was baptized and has been an anti-abortion activist ever since.

The last two rows of the hearing room were reserved today for about 50 members of the public, who rotated into the hearings for short intervals and then were escorted out to allow others to view the proceedings. McCorvey and Mahoney were part of a group headed out as Franken was praising the service of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a staunch supporter of the Roe decision. Kennedy left the Judiciary Committee earlier this year, making this the first Supreme Court confirmation fight without his presence since 1965.

When McCorvey and Mahoney started shouting, they were quickly removed from the room. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Judiciary Committee chairman, banged the gavel on the crowd for the third time today.

“Officers, please remove whoever is causing the disturbance,” Leahy said. “Again, as Senator Sessions and I have said, this is a meeting of the United States Senate. We’ll show respect to everybody who is here, we will show respect to everybody, including to Judge Sotomayor, to the Senators on both sides of the aisle, and we will have order in this room.”

An Example of Pro-Life Propaganda

In exploring the pro-choice versus pro-life positions, I remained pro-choice despite my new identification as a conservative.  The days of coat hangers and drinking turpentine are thankfully over and it should remain that way.  Norma McCorvey is free to change her mind as much as she wants. What I do take issue with is her openly fighting the right to choose  for other women.  The hypocrisy is a bit astonishing.  Even if I was once pro-choice and I did convert to pro-life as a personal choice, which I have by the way, I would not advocate and deny that choice for other women.  Whether she likes it or not, McCorvey’s alter ego “Roe”  left a distinguishing mark in American History. She is the ultimate “herstory”  and I embrace her right to protest. However, I feel that she would be more effective as an pro-life advocate if she allowed her story to fruitfully serve as focus point for provative discussions on abortion.  In a sense, McCorvey is a living relic of history, a historical actor.  She should speak about her motivations in 1971 as juxtaposed with those during the 1990′s which led her to convert to pro-life.  All puns aside,  Norma McCorvey should find more effective ways to be productive for the pro-life movement. Getting yourself arrested at protests is actually quite liberal and in the end nothing but a bunch of noise and court hearings.

There I said it.

When I was a liberal, I was never into that.

Perhaps if Ms. McCorvey told her story in a less progressive fashion, she could actually influence teenagers such as Bristol Palin to choose abstinence. It worked for Afrocity and yes I am pro-choice but I will always feel that abstinence is best for teenagers.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY