9 Black Female Interracial Marriage: Pondering . . . .

Pondering: When Will BW Learn--RECIPROCITY?

Two Years After Sean Taylor's Death, His Mother Faces a Wall of Hardship

Donna Junor fears she will lose her home.
By Amy Shipley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 30, 2009

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Donna Junor sported a flowing print dress, bejeweled flip-flops and manicured orange nails when she answered the door last week at the three-bedroom townhouse she fears she will lose to foreclosure.
This Story

    *
      Two Years After Sean Taylor's Death, His Mother Faces a Wall of Hardship
    *
Her sporty but aging Mercedes-Benz, the one with the "Sean 21" tag, was parked just outside the door. The living room featured plush red furniture and a brightly colored area rug. In the dining room, just below the airbrushed portrait of her son -- the late Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor -- sat a neatly set dining table with cloth napkins.

When she could afford it, Junor, 49, lived a nice, comfortable life. Her son made sure of that, handing out massive checks, even gift bags filled with tens of thousands of dollars, to family members. Now, those days are long gone.

When Taylor died without a will on Nov. 27, 2007, the bulk of his $5.8 million estate went to his daughter, Jackie Taylor, now 3, who lives with her mother, Taylor's high school sweetheart, Jackie Garcia, in Coral Gables, Fla. Taylor's mother did not get a penny. Nor did his grandmother, great-grandmother, two of his half-siblings or any of the cousins or relatives who had grown accustomed to his largesse. .  .  .

REST of the ARTICLE

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Thank you PVW for sending me this link.  I don't usually write about stories in the news of this type because there are so many of them. However, I decided to tackle this one because of the connection between AA women's resources (time, energy, support, etc.) that they give to AA men (sons, lovers, brothers, neighbors, etc.) and others, and the way so many AA women end up EMPTYHANDED. The mother in this case is a typical AA woman from a certain segment of AAs.  She is not typical of ALL AA women, but she definitely represents a certain segment--the BLING segment--and the writer of the article certainly brought that into full focus.

This is a prime example of the fact that without the RUCOSS (reasonably uplifting culture of some sort), African Americans will continue to sink. I'm just documenting this sink--for the history books, from the perspective of one AA woman. ME.

These days, It's not about poverty AT ALL and  racism only causes minimal problems.  These days, it's about the lack of a RUCOSS and the commonsense surviving & thriving mindset that goes along with it. That's why I continue to beat that drum.

We will see from now on how non-bw will position themselves to be grabbed by any AA man who gets any money, influence, power, etc. and I don't blame those women AT ALL because as my grandmother  used to say: "A fool and his money will soon be parted." LOL!  Some bw will read this article and be angry at the Hispanic woman who got most of his assets, but let's face it y'all--if she hadn't been Hispanic, she would have been another woman who looked a lot like her. We all know the type that so many AA men crave. These women can't help the way they look and they can't help that these bm crave them. DO NOT BE ANGRY AT THE OTHER WOMAN!

Another way of looking at this situation is that these non-bw are dealing with the bm's boatloads of ISSUES and  for that, they need to be paid. From reading about his background: 'handing out bags of money' spells insecurity, impulsivity, no money sense, poor judgment, lack of common sense, and a bunch of other issues that would have tripped him up and slammed him and any woman with him sooner, rather than later.  His need to "show off" brought on his early death. I know I'd have to be paid WELL to deal with his issues because I would know that the bottom is going to drop out, like real fast.

These males are carrying their ISSUES to these other women. These males don't drop their issues outside the door. So do you really want a man like this to "stay at home?" Think about it. Yeah, he had money, but money doesn't compensate you when you're dealing with an insecure, impulse-ridden man who has poor judgment, no money sense, and lacks common sense. Yeah, he may have had good judgment on the football field, but does that make him a quality man?  Just because a man has money does NOT mean he's a Quality man.  Let me repeat: MONEY ALONE does not = Quality.

Also, in my view, there's absolutely nothing stopping many, many AA/bw from positioning themselves to mingle with and marry men of quality, the type who will use his emotional, mental, intellectual and financial resources to be good providers and protectors--except for the AA woman's own self-limiting mindset in many cases. Way too many AA bw have been dumbed-down to the max by other self-limiting, hateful AAs. SOME bw (who could easily marry out) hunt and peck for things that she doesn't like about non-bm while AA/bm  hunt and peck for all of the things they DO like about non-bw. Way too many AA/bw STILL haven't caught a clue. By the time some of them DO catch the clue, LOTS of opportunities to mate with quality men are gone.  I believe, however, that MOST people can change their thoughts, IF they really want to do so. And when they change their thoughts, they change your behavior. Yes, it's hard, but they can do it and they should work 24-7 to do so because the alternative is to suffer unnecessarily and to pass on this suffering for generations.

Remember that the ONLY person you can actually change is YOU.

The BIG lesson to be learned from this is that when a bw helps an AA black male these days in any kind of way, she is in all probability subsidizing the life of a non-bw.  At least in this case, some of his relatives got "some of his assets." It's unfortunate what's happening to his mother, but why didn't she see this coming?

Why are so many AA women perpetually surprised, caught off guard, and left emptyhanded?

If you are an AA woman who has a son who is an NFL player or in any professional sport and he's making some sizable bucks or even if he's even looks like he's going to move on up to the big bucks league in ANY profession or in ANY way, you had better get a lawyer and secure your rights to some of his assets NOW.  It's about RECIPROCITY. YOU gave to him when he was a helpless, defenseless infant. He's supposed to give to you. You make sure YOU are his beneficiary (or something similar) to a portion of his assets TOO. Make sure it is in writing.

And if my wealthy son refused to do what he could to secure my financial future (if I were in need), he would never eat at my table again or even set foot in my house again. It's about RECIPROCITY!  Of course, he has a right and a responsibility to have his family and secure them financially, and I would expect him to do that, BUT he had better also be fair to me because I'm the one who carried him, fed him, wiped his butt, and protected him. 

We constantly read about all of the rich AA folks who end up broke--with their money in other folks' bank accounts.  I'm sure somebody out there is getting a big laugh about this. Even the article highlights all of the stupidity in this situation.

LESSON: Bw--IF you don't know how to handle your business in any area of your life, HIRE an advisor! 

And STOP helping and defending these males who you KNOW are going to run as fast as they can to give--what you've helped them to get away--to women who don't look like you or your daughters.

And if you're one of these bw who's just going to scorch the earth to be there to help and defend these white/light-skin craving skin shade racist black male Negroes, then STOP acting surprised when the light/white skinned woman ends up with the money and you end up emptyhanded with your face plastered in the newspaper. Come on!  Enough already!!!!

Pondering: Is the 'Family' Heading Towards Extinction?

Another provocative article, KR. Thanks for it.  I especially want bw to look down below at the connection between income and marriage vs 'shacking up.'  This inidicates that a man must be preparing (if a very young man) or must be already prepared to handle both the emotional and the largest share of the financial responsibilities for the family. 

_______________________________________

 

IS THE FAMILY BECOMING EXTINCT?
Thomas Sowell
Thursday, July 26, 2001

 

TO the intelligentsia, the family -- or "the traditional family," as they say nowadays -- is just one lifestyle among many. Moreover, they periodically announce its decline, with no sign whatever of regret. Sometimes with just a touch of smugness.

 

The latest census data show that the traditional family -- a married couple and their children -- constitute just a little less than one-fourth of all households. On the other hand, such families constituted just a little more than one-fourth of all families a decade ago. Any reports of the demise of the traditional family are greatly exaggerated.

 

Snapshot statistics can be very misleading when you realize that people go through different stages of their lives. Even the most traditional families -- including Ozzie and Harriet themselves -- never permanently consisted of married couples and their children. Kids grow up and move out. People who get married do not start having children immediately. If every single person in the country got married and had children, married-couple families with children would still not constitute 100 percent of households at any given time.

 

With rising per capita incomes, more individuals can afford to have their own households. These include young unmarried adults, widows and widowers, and others who often lived with relatives in earlier times. When more such households are created, traditional family households automatically become a smaller percentage of all households.

 

Incidentally, the growth of households containing one person -- about 25 percent of all households today -- is the reason why average household incomes are rising very little, even though per capita incomes have been rising very substantially. Gloom and doomers love to cite household income statistics, in order to claim that Americans' incomes are stagnating, when in fact there has been an unprecedented and sustained rise in prosperity, among women and men, blacks and whites, and virtually everybody else.

Marriage does occur later today than in the past and more people don't get married at all. But 53 percent of all households still contain married couples, with or without children currently living with them, while some of the other households contain widows and widowers whose marriages were ended only by death.

 

Despite attempts to equate married couples with people who are living together as "domestic partners," married couples are in fact better off than people who are not married, by almost any standard you can think of. Married couples have higher incomes, longer lives, better health, less violence, less alcohol and less poverty.

 

As Casey Stengel used to say, "You can look it up." One place to look it up is in the book "The Case for Marriage" by Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher. But this is just one place among many. You don't usually hear these kinds of facts because they are not considered to be "politically correct" when the media, politicians, academia and the courts are busy trying to make all kinds of living arrangements seem equal.

 

The latest census report on "America's Families and Living Arrangements" contains all sorts of statistics but avoids showing the most basic statistics on the average income of married-couple families compared with "other family households" or with "non-family households."

 

The Census Bureau apparently does not want to be politically incorrect.. If you dig through the census' numbers, however, you will discover some revealing clues. While both "unmarried partners" and "married spouses" are spread up and down the income scale, the bracket with the largest number of men who are unmarried partners is the bracket between $30,000 and $40,000. The bracket with the largest number of husbands is between $50,000 and $75,000. Among married-couple households, the bracket with the largest number of households is $75,000 and over. Among "other family groups," the bracket with the largest number of households is that under $10,000.

 

Women who are shacking up are four times as likely as wives to become victims of violence, and their children are 40 times as likely to be abused by live-in boyfriends as by their own parents.

 

Despite all this, it remains dogma among those who set the ideological fashions that marriage is just another lifestyle, no better or worse than any other. Even the Census Bureau seems unwilling to publish statistical data that would go against this vision and rile up the anointed.

PONDERING: Dark Skin Shade Rejection or COLORISM

SURPRISE-SURPRISE!  Colorism is alive and well among AAs.  LOL!  Lawdy, Lawdy.  KR, thanks for this piece.  I'm not exactly sure why AAs keep studying dark skin rejection because they never DISCUSS it on high level black media shows like "The Black State of the Union." 

_____________________________________________________

Black Students Still Favor Lighter Skin, Study Finds
By Kai Beasley

Black College Wire

 A majority of African American students polled at a Midwestern university say lighter complexions are more attractive than darker ones, according to a study conducted by researchers from two Louisiana schools.
The results, taken from a sample of 100 students, indicated that 96 percent of the men preferred a medium to light complexion in women while 70 percent of women found light skin of value in men.
 
This latest analysis of mating preferences explored a number of probable causes, all of which were rooted in the "colorism" prevalent from slavery through the 1960s, where lighter skin typically meant more privilege. The results were published in 2006 in the journal Race, Gender and Class.
 
Ashraf Esmail, a sociology and criminal justice professor at Delgado Community College in New Orleans, and Jas M. Sullivan, an assistant professor of political science and African American Studies at Louisiana State University, conducted the study.
 
According to Sullivan, its purpose was to test whether the color line continues to be a problem for the African American community.
 
"We know that there has been a preference for lighter skin in the past as a result of racism," said Sullivan, "but we really wanted to know whether or not that preference still exists in the 21st century."
The researchers asked 50 African American men and 50 African American women, all students at a large Midwestern university, to participate in semi-structured interviews. The university was not named in the study and Sullivan declined to provide the name for this story.
 
The students were all between 18 and 19 years old with complexions ranging from light to dark. Each subject was shown pictures of light, medium and dark-skinned men or women from fashion magazines and asked to rate the images based on attractiveness. In addition, each respondent was asked questions about their mating preferences in terms of skin color and about the value of skin color in the African American community.
 
One reason for the difference in answers between African American men and African American women, according to the authors, is that women tended to take more characteristics into account, such as lips, hair, eyes, height and style of dress, when determining a man's attractiveness.
 
The interviews pointed to slavery and a social stigma attached to darker skin.
"I think that people are valued for their light skin," said one student. "You can take this theory way back to the house slave mentality. I think a lot of people, because that was valued, were taught to value light skin. I think it is still an ongoing type of thing, and society really has not lost that altogether."
 
Both men and women cited media as a driving force in the preference for lighter skin.
"When you talk to a guy, he thinks that he wants a perfect girl he sees on the videos. Usually, the women portrayed in the videos are light-skinned and have long hair," said one respondent.
 
Still, another participant argued that African Americans don't divide themselves based on light and dark complexions. Rather, the greater issue is color prejudice in the United States as a whole.
"Black people just see all black people as black no matter if they are light or dark. If you have any black in you, the black community considers you black."
 
Analysis for the Esmail-Sullivan study took place in 2000. Though it is the most recent on the subject, its results differ dramatically from an earlier study of African American college students conducted in 1997.
Louie E. Ross, then associate professor of sociology at Fayetteville State University in Fayetteville, N.C., interviewed 149 African American men and 236 African American women for his study, "Mate Selection Preferences among African American College Students." His research was conducted on the campuses of two historically black institutions in the Southeast; one public and one private.
 
The Ross study indicated that only 16.4 percent of women would prefer to date a person of a lighter complexion and 16.8 percent of women would want to marry a person with light skin. The study showed that 33.3 percent of men preferred to date a person of a lighter complexion and 38.3 would prefer lighter skin in a marriage partner.
Taken together, the research by Esmail and Sullivan and the earlier research by Ross indicate that colorism does have some impact on the African American community.
 
Esmail and Sullivan concluded that, "Further research in this area is needed. Clearly, colorism continues to plague the African-American community and we must first accept that claim and begin to find solutions that would ameliorate the superiority of light skin color to dark skin color."
 
Sullivan said there were plans to expand the research to other schools and to include historically black colleges. One of the issues he and Esmail plan to address is that colorism isn't unique to the African American community, he said.
 
The New York Times reported on May 30 that the most popular cosmetic products among modern Indian women are those that lighten the skin. Didier Villanueva, country manager for L'Oreal India, said in the article that "fairness creams" account for half of India's skin care market.
 
In the 2005 book "Fair Women, Dark Men: The Forgotten Roots of Color Prejudice," Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost reports that lighter women were preferred in medieval Japan, Aztec Mexico and Moorish Spain, even before there was significant contact with Western ideology.
 
Sullivan said, "What we sought to uncover in this study is whether or not the preference for lighter skin still exists" in the African American community. "Clearly you could make the connection between the preference for lighter skin and the past, but the deeper question, the question that needs much more observation is the why. Why does the black community self-select? Is this preference a dormant trait, is it something psychological, or is it just that light skin is all we see in the media and that affects our choices? These are the questions that still need answering."
Other studies published by Esmail and Sullivan include: "Black Candidates in Search of Electoral Support: Is Success Dependent on Residential Integration and Social Interaction?" (2003), "Interaction Patterns between Black and White College Students: For Better or Worse?" (2002), and "From Racial Uplift to Personal Economic Security: Declining Idealism in Black Education" (2002).
 
Kai Beasley is a May graduate of Emory University.

 
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IMDiversity and THE BLACK COLLEGIAN are committed to presenting diverse points of view. However, the viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at IMDiversity, Inc.

 
source: http://www.black-collegian.com/news/bcwire/bcwire_colorism_0607.htm
 

PONDERING: Exposee on more cases of Black Women & Domestic Violence

THANKS, LORRAINE for this exposee on all of these cases of DV against bw.  I know there are many others, but bw who are dating ex-cons or married to them must really read this and ask themselves: Could this happen to me?  And if the answer is "NO," then they should be able to explain CONVINCINGLY why it can't happen to them.

You said:

"We don't want to admit that a 5th grader can form "intent" but look a 12 year-old  (in Maryland) killed his mom and little brother and all he will get is juvenile detention until he is 18.  He stabbed and beat them both to death --- a 12 year-old bully who was destined to have a rap sheet a mile long and lengthy prison stays.  He was the neighborhood bully and the adults and kids steered clear of him."

 

And I agree with you totally when you said:

 

  "So many excons have killed their wives or girlfriends already  in the past year!  It is heartbreaking that women won't see what is painfully obvious to the reasonable, logical thinking person.  Yes white, latino and asian men kill too, but bm commit the majority of crimes against black women, and we'll (b/c) defend them until the needle goes in the arm or as their life sentence is being read.  Shame! shame! Shame!

 

.  .   .these examples, but they just go to show proof of the mentality of many ex-cons.  We need to steer way clear of them.  I got most of these from DV Watch.  http://dvwatch.blogspot.com/  But there are several like sites.  .    .    . people need to see what DV is."

 

lorraine

 

________________________________________________

 

This case is a little older, but some of the comments whose sympathy lay with the killer are disturbing! 

http://dvwatch.blogspot.com/2007/11/diana-wright-boisround.html

 

This one is a true excon pattern - kills wife  http://dvwatch.blogspot.com/2007/11/lesley-justice.html  The victim's last name is Justice.

 

This is a teenager whose life was taken by her teenage dbr boyfriend about 3 weeks ago.

 

http://dvwatch.blogspot.com/2009/01/brittney-wells.html

 

A young black Muslima

Monday, May 28, 2007

Shukura Akilah Abdullah Aleem

Murdered May 28, 2007

~Age 21
~Hometown: No fixed address

Police approached Jerry Levon Banks, 28, at a Middle River, MD shopping center the morning of May 28, 2007 because he had blood on his hands and shirt. Banks told police he thought he had killed his girlfriend. He then led them to the basement of a nearby house where they found the body of 21-year-old Shukura Akilah Abdullah Aleem. It appeared she had been strangled following an argument. Banks had cuts on his wrists, believed to be self-inflicted.

The couple had no fixed address. They were staying the night at the house in Middle River at the invitation of the home's owners, who did not hear the argument and were unaware of the murder until police arrived.

Banks, whose previous record includes one theft arrest from 2005, was charged with Aleem's murder. Denied bail, he is being held at a local hospital pending commitment to a state psychiatric facility.

Sources
Baltimore Co. Police news release, May 29, 2007
Baltimore Sun, May 29, 2007
WBAL Radio News, May 30, 2007
The Examiner, May 30, 3007

~Posted June 3, 2007

 

Another tragic case

 

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Tarneshia Jones

Murdered January 6, 2009

~Age 19
~Hometown: Milledgeville, GA

Tarneshia Jones, 19, had a son while still in high school but, nevertheless, graduated in 2008 and was pursing a college degree when her life was cut short. On January 6, 2009, police say, Darian Napier, Jones' former boyfriend and the father or her son, shot Jones in her Milledgeville, GA home and then turned the gun on himself. Both died at the scene.

Daquavious Napier, the couple's 2-year-old son, was at daycare at the time of the incident. He is now in the care of Jones' family.

Jones and Napier - high school sweethearts who recently broke up - had a tumultuous relationship according to news reports. Napier was on probation for simple battery stemming from a November 2008 incident in which he grabbed the wheel of a car Jones was driving causing it to crash. Jones' father said he didn't think the relationship involved physical violence, but a cousin described Napier as obsessed with Jones. Napier reportedly once said if he couldn't have Jones then no one could.

Friends say Napier had recently been depressed. The local sheriff believes this played a role in the murder-suicide.

Napier, who went by the nickname D-Nate, had been an all-region basketball player in high school. He was employed by Chik-fil-A. In addition to the child he had with Jones, he leaves another son.

Jones, known to friends as MuMu, was a freshman at Georgia Military College where she hoped to obtain a degree in nursing. She also was employed by Office Max.


Tarneshia Jones*, Darian Napier
*Picture from her Facebook page

Sources
The Baldwin Bulletin, Jan 6, 2008
Macon.com/The Telegraph, Jan 6, 2009
Macon.com/The Telegraph, Jan 7, 2009
WMAZ-TV, Jan 7, 2009
Union-Recorder, Jan 8 2009 [obit-hers]
Union-Recorder, Jan 9, 2009 [obit-his]

~Posted January 17, 2009

---

A fund has been established for Jones and Napier's son. Donations to the Daquavious O. Napier Trust Fund can be made at Exchange Bank in Milledgeville, GA. [Source/Obit]

Older African Immigrant woman killed by her husband

 

Monday, January 5, 2009

Yoranda Ntahomvukiye

Murdered January 5, 2009

~Age 56
~Hometown: Nashville, TN

Five months after Yoranda Ntahomvukiye, 56, and her husband Pascal Gahungu, 63, immigrated to the US from Africa, she was dead and he was incarcerated for her murder. Police say Gahungu stabbed his wife to death in their Nashville, TN apartment on January 5, 2009 following an argument.

Two of the couple's adult children and a 7-year-old granddaughter were home at the time. The couple's 20-year-old son attempted to intervene and was almost stabbed himself in the process.

A language barrier initially complicated the situation for police. After locating a translator, however, police reportedly extracted a confession from Gahungu. Charged with criminal homicide and attempted criminal homicide, he remains held on $1.25 million bond.

Originally from Burundi, the couple fled that country in the 1970s, living in Rwanda and Tanzania before their recent arrival in Nashville. Six of their nine children live in the US.


Yoranda Ntahomvukiye; Pascal Gahungu

Sources
Nashville Police media report, Jan 6, 2009
WTVF-News Channel 5, Jan 6, 2009
WSMV TV News, Jan 6, 2009

~Posted January 20, 2009

 

Another older woman killed by her older husband

 

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Darlene Sloan

~Murdered December 25, 2008

~Age 50
~Hometown: Forest Park, GA

In the wee hours of December 25, 2008 Bobby Sloan, 60, and his wife Darlene Brown Sloan, 50, were returning from a nightclub when they got into an argument. It was then, police say, that Mr. Sloan pulled out a handgun and shot Mrs. Sloan in the head. She died at the scene.

The Sloans, from Forest Park, GA, were visiting her relatives in South Carolina at the time of the incident. The shooting occurred in Charleston, SC. Mrs. Sloan attended high school in nearby Walterboro, where her mother still lives.

Mr. Sloan is being held in Charleston on charges of murder and possession of a firearm during commission of a crime.

Mrs. Sloan worked as a manager at McDonald's. She leaves one son (presumably from a previous relationship) and two grandchildren.


Bobby Sloan

Sources
WCBD-TV, Dec 25, 2008
Post and Courier, Dec 25, 2008
Post and Courier, Dec 26, 2008
Post and Courier, Dec 27, 2008
Community Times Dispatch, Jan 1, 2009 [obit-cached]

~Posted January 18, 2009

Yet another case

 

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Veronica Williams

Murdered November 20, 2008

~Age 28
~Hometown: Baltimore, MD

As Veronica Elizabeth (Graves) Williams, 28, was leaving a Baltimore, MD courthouse on November 17, 2008, a just-obtained temporary restraining order against her estranged husband in hand, she was stabbed repeatedly by the very man the order was to protect her against, Cleaven 'CJ' Williams, 33. An off-duty officer witnessed the attack and tried to stop it, first by tasing Mr. Williams and, when that didn't work, shooting him. Both Mr. and Mrs. Williams were rushed to the hospital. He survived. She did not.

Mrs. Williams' Jehovah's Witness faith precluded treatment with blood transfusions, though it is not clear it would have saved her anyway given the extent of her injuries. After several days in a drug-induced coma, during which she suffered a stroke and a miscarriage, Mrs. Williams died on November 20th.

The Williams met in 1998 when both attended Hagerstown Junior College. They married in 1999 and opened a barbershop together shortly thereafter. The 3 children that followed were home schooled by Mrs. Williams, who also assisted her husband in the barbershop.

Looking back, Mrs. Williams' family members say Mr. Williams seemed overly possessive from the start, but problems in the couple's relationship were not apparent until January 2005. That was when Mr. Williams choked, beat and pistol whipped his wife, and also shot a bullet at the floor near her feet. He pled guilty to second degree assault for the incident and received a 3-year suspended sentence and probation. (The couple's barbershop burned to the ground the day after the beating. The fire was deemed arson, but no one was ever charged.)

Although Mrs. Williams left the state for awhile afterwards, fearing for her safety, the couple eventually reconciled. By October 2008, however, Mrs. Williams decided she wanted to leave her husband. When she told him, he reportedly pinned her down and cut off all the hair on the back of her head. He then ordered her to leave their house, subsequently destroying some of her property. Mrs. Williams cited this behavior when requesting a restraining order in November, although she did not live long enough to reap any benefit from the order.

Mr. Williams was a barber by trade, although not regularly employed when his wife was killed. At that time he was serving as president of the Greater Greenmount Community Association in East Baltimore. Ironically the organization has a focus on stopping violence.

Mr. Williams is now incarcerated pending a trial in the murder of his wife. At a January 2009 arraignment he entered a not guilty plea on the first degree murder and deadly weapons violations charges against him.

Mrs. Williams, who was affectionately called 'V,' worked as a hair stylist. Comments left on the online guestbook accompanying her obituary described her as beautiful inside and out, loving, peaceful, warm, family oriented, and a devoted mother.

The couple's three children, Isis, Malik and Asia, ages 8, 7 and 5 respectively, are in the custody of Mrs. Williams' cousin.


Veronica Williams; Cleaven WIlliams

Sources
WBAL-TV, Nov 18, 2008
WJZ-TV, Nov 22, 2008
Baltimore Sun, Nov 19, 2009
Baltimore Sun, Nov 22, 2008
The Herald-Mail, Nov 25, 2008
Fayetteville Observer, Nov 30, 2008 [obit]
Baltimore Sun, Dec 14, 2008
Baltimore Sun, Jan 16, 2009
YouTube tribute video

A fund has been established for the Williams' three children. Donations can be made to the "Children of Veronica Williams Assistance Fund" at any Bank of America branch. [Source 1, 2]

 

Tragic case http://www.kplctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7457089

Promising young intellectual South African immigrant victim to her dbr boyfriend.

Boitumelo 'Tumi' McCallum

Murdered August 2, 2007

~Age 20
~Hometown: New York, NY

"He didn't want her to be her. He wanted her to be his," said a friend about Boitumelo 'Tumi' Arabella McCallum's sometime boyfriend Michael Cordero. It appears this desire was behind the death of McCallum, 20, in her mother's Greenwich Village apartment on August 2, 2007. Cordero, 23, has been charged with second-degree murder in the killing.

Although he has since pled not guilty, at the time of his arrest Cordero reportedly confessed he showed up uninvited at the apartment and strangled, punched and suffocated McCallum after an argument. Her body was found several days later, after neighbors reported a foul smell. McCallum's mother, a New York University professor and South African activist, was in South Africa at the time.

McCallum herself was born and spent her childhood in South Africa before moving with her family to New York City in 1999. She met McCallum, a New York City native, through mutual friends about 5 years prior to her death. Their friendship evolved into an on-and-off romantic relationship after a few years. Letters the couple exchanged suggest Cordero required frequent confirmation of McCallum's feelings for him.

When McCallum left to attend Mills College in Oakland, CA, the two remained in contact. It appears Cordero spent spring 2007 living with McCallum in California, but returned to New York in May with McCallum following sometime later when summer break started.

Cordero's family says he was trying to get his life together, but was struggling. Cordero grew up in the projects and dropped out of high school. He has several arrests on his record for misdemeanor offences and has spent time in drug rehab. Spurred on by McCallum's educational successes, however, Cordero obtained his GED. He most recently worked as a store security guard.

Described as outgoing and smart, McCallum excelled at dancing, art and writing. Volunteering as a prison advocate with Justice Now may have revealed her true calling, though. She reportedly had a passion for social justice, possibly stemming from growing up the child of a white father and black mother under South African apartheid. In the wake of McCallum' death a Justice Now spokesperson said, "Her sharp political insights, her intense commitment to social justice, her quiet assuredness, and her generous spirit are a great loss to all of us."


Michael Cordero with Tumi McCallum

Sources
New York Times, Aug 7, 2007
NY Daily News, Aug 7, 2007
New York Times, Aug 8, 2007
NY Daily News, Aug 8, 2007
NY Daily News, Aug 8, 2007
NY Daily News, Aug 10, 2007
NY Daily News, Aug 10, 2007
Visions to Peace Project [blog], Aug 10, 2007
The Weekly (Mills College paper), Sept 4, 2007

~Posted December 9, 2007

EXCON kills wife

Aisha Hendricks

Murdered July 8, 2007

~Age 35
~Hometown: Oakland, CA

Police were called to the Oakland, CA apartment Jesus Jihad, 55, shared with his wife, Aisha Hendricks, 35, the afternoon of July 8, 2007 because the two were arguing. Officers did not speak with Hendricks because she left before they arrived. They spoke with Jihad and, according to reports, followed up with family members later and were told the argument had been resolved. That evening, however, the couple got into another argument. It ended with Hendricks dead from 10 stab wounds and Jihad under arrest on suspicion of her murder.

Jihad is also accused of attempted murder in the stabbings of Hendricks' sister, Emma Bowers, 25, and son, DeAnthony, 15. (One report gives the teen's age as 17 and refers to him as Bowers' son.) DeAnthony was reportedly stabbed in the face when coming to the aid of his mother. Jihad's motive for stabbing Bowers, who lived downstairs from the couple, was not reported. He stabbed her several times in her apartment after first stabbing Hendricks in his apartment. He then returned to his apartment and stabbed Hendricks additional times when she yelled at him to stop stabbing Bowers. Both DeAnthony and Bowers are expected to recover.

Jihad and Hendricks met about three years ago. They had been married for two years.

Jihad 's criminal record includes convictions for a 1973 murder and a 1993 rape. He was sentenced to life for the murder, but paroled after 17 years. He served 10 years of a 17-year sentence on the rape charge, which required him to register as a sex offender. Hendricks is said to have known of the murder conviction, but she may have been unaware of the rape conviction. Because of the previous murder conviction, the current charges against Jihad are considered to be with 'special circumstances,' which means the state can seek the death penalty against him.

Jihad legally changed his name from Jesse R. Crisp at some point after his murder conviction. News reports indicate that the stabbings occurred on his 55th birthday and that his family offered to get a cake to celebrate, but he declined.

Sources
The Oakland Tribune, Jul 9, 2007
CBS-5 TV, Jul 10, 2007
The Oakland Tribune, Jul 10, 2007

~Posted July 10, 2007

 

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11684817

 

bm excon executed for killing bw http://cbs11tv.com/local/bathtub.killer.arlington.2.930675.html 

sympathizer website.  http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4417246#post4417246

 

excon kills wife http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stories/wwl111807tpjpshoot.17ee8608.html

 

bm on ww crime http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku7Ttfmft9I&NR=1

 

DV teen kills girlfriend Atlanta. http://www.wsbtv.com/video/18498852/index.html

DV man kills girlfriend Milledgeville, GA  http://www.13wmaz.com/article/20090107/NEWS01/90107031

DV man shoots and kills girlfriend Lake Chalres, LA  http://www.kplctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7457089

DV man kills girlfriend http://media.www.thecampanil.com/media/storage/paper936/news/2007/09/04/Memorial/Family.Remembers.Boitumelo.Mccallums.brief.But.Energetic.Life-2969329.shtml

Pondering: MANY Bw-Wm relationships are "Intra"racial says DNA Record

THANKS, KR for this video. It's an important part of OUR story as AA women. So I'm including it as a document.

As much as SOME folks seem to hate the idea of white men dating, openly loving and MARRYING black women these days, the fact is that many wm, in general, have always been attracted to and had sexual relations with black women in the USA. This means that bw have always been appealing, desirable women to a certain percentage of white men.  The fact is that it's obvious that sexual desire is a MUCH stronger drive than racial hatred.  When heterosexual males are placed in proximity with females, no amount of legislation, warfare, implanted hatred, politics, or even the threat of death is going to succeed for long in keeping the males away from the females.  This is why I KNOW that bm are not going to "come back home" and wm are not going to ever ignore the desirability of bw.

The sexual history of bw-wm sexual relations, though coerced by wm in MOST cases, nonetheless still occurred. Considering that wm did NOT marry bw in those days due to various highly documented reasons, it does make me wonder why some black (mainly AA) folks have such a huge problem with white men openly loving, marrying, and raising families with bw these days.  

An aside about wm and bw marrying:---No matter how it's sliced, the typical wm I've encountered, heard about, read about--of whatever age--is MUCH more marriage-oriented than his AA male counterpart. Therefore,  if an AA woman VETS a typical Quality wm properly and enters a serious relationship with him,  it's simply a matter of a higher probability that the relationship will result in marriage.  I'm sure we've all heard of AA women who've lived with AA males for years and done all the things for him that a wife could possibly do, yet these males still refuse to marry these women!  Many AAs would obviously prefer for an AA woman to forgo marriage with a loving and lovable Quality wm and simply "lay up" with a typical AA man or be his babymama.  Many/most AA women desire MARRIAGE.  The record clearly shows that many AA males are the ones who keep down the rates of AA marriage because they are eager to sex AA women, will impregnate them but refuse to marry their babymamas--which is the EXACT practice of white men during slavery and Jim Crow. Yet many among AAs claim to hate wm for doing this, will PRESSURE (directly and indirectly) bw to ONLY mate with a "good" bm (who is about as available  as hen's teeth) but will give these DBR-AA males a pass for doing what these racist wm did,  and will instead blame 'babymama-ism" all on the bw!  That to me, is about as twisted as people can get in their thinking. This is why I urge AA women to flee the bc--totally and completely.

So we can expect lots more of the same pandemic of social chaos in the so-called "black community" UNTIL large numbers of AA women can buy a clue and EITHER mate out, not mate at all, or not have children at all with AA men from "typical" AA dysfunctional backgrounds (no father in home, no positive male role model, etc.)--because the probability of a typical bw MARRYING (not just sexing) one of these "good" bm--that black women have been indoctrinated to mate with despite his dysfunctionalism--is extremely low. 

There are SOME "AA" men who are NOT from  a ***typical*** AA male background, though they identify as AAs or are identified as such (Pres. Obama, black men who have been raised in homes where the father/mother was a foreign national and was present in the boy's life, AA males who reject the AA male script or were raised apart from it, etc.) who I consider to be "exceptions" to the usual AA male. Keep in mind that I look at things from the bw's point of view, however some of the AA males in this category are strong marriage material. It goes without saying that these males represent a small minority of AA males.  They are EXCEPTIONS and I'll focus on them more, in the future. These males can usually be clearly identified after mingling with them for a brief time or sometimes, even from a short conversation where you can see that what they say matches what they do or have done. I've been calling this category of AA males--AA Evolved Males: AAEM. 

 The probability of the 'typical' AA male father FULLY remaining in the lives of these children--emotionally and financially is low.  Notice I didn't say it never happens; I said the probability is LOW. We have seen this time and time again--no matter what type/race/group of woman these males have as mates. Just look the stats.  AA males continue to deny, deny, and deny their horrible track record on providing for and protecting AA women and children by various groups of women and will actually pounce on anyone (Bill Cosby, President Obama, etc) who sheds light on their record. They continue to lie about it and will point the finger at everyone else but themselves--as a group as being responsible. EXPECT this to continue since people continue to defend them and excuse this behavior.

Anwyay, this video and other accounts are why I can't understand that so many AA women THESE DAYS can't believe that wm are attracted to bw. LOL!! This is why I know that as more AA women give wm the "green light," more of them will be stepping up to date, love and MARRY bw--BECAUSE this attraction of wm to bw is nothing new! However, it seems to me that lots of AA women have caught a serious case of amnesia about this aspect of American history.  Or is it that these women don't know their history?

I grew up down south and maybe this is why I've never doubted that a certain percentage of wm were/are attracted to me. Also, when you listen to some of the accounts of older relatives down south  and such, sex between wm and bw was just a custom down there and you can clearly see the offspring of those sexual encounters. The number of white-skinned black folks in my environment when I was growing up also made this clear to me. Many of these folks could have passed for white, and obviously some did.  The DNA record also shows that many whites these days have so-called "black" blood.

Years ago, when I told my southern bm cousin (an older man in his 50s) that I was going to marry Darren, he said: "Well, it's about time that white men started marrying black women; they've been sleeping with y'all long enough!"

So, folks do need to ponder this one. Bw-wm relationships are NOT actually interracial at all as you pointed out. Aside from the fact that all humans came from the same ancestor, most AAs can look at their family members and see right away that we are not "full-blooded" Africans (whatever that means). Most Africans that I encountered in Africa and here looked at me and right away knew I wasn't a "full-blooded" African. They considered me "mixed," which initially surprised me since "mixed" in this country means that you're "biracial." When I pointed this out to Africans, they couldn't understand why I was splitting hairs. LOL!! They can't understand why so many AAs get into debates about whether we're 50% mixed with whites and/or Indians vs 33% vs 11% or 2%. They absolutely can't understand that and neither can many AAs deal with their need to split hairs about  their undeniable bloodline.

As long as no one tries to trumpet the superiority of one bloodline over the other, I totally support anyone acknowledging ALL of their ancestry. There is no superior bloodline; there are NO superior GROUPS of people; there are simply large groups of people who have adopted ways that have enabled them to survive and thrive better or compete for vital resources better than others. We can ALL do this, as I constantly point out and urge bw to do.

Another thing is that we all know that if any AA person points out that they're mixed with white or even Indian, other AAs almost always ridicule them and accuse them of denying their African heritage. I had a girlfriend once who said she wanted to know more about her Scottish ancestry and black folks called her all kinds of foul names. SMH She didn't let them stop her though.

Of course, many continental Africans think we're insane about denying our white, Indian, and Asian heritage, especially when it's so apparent. LOL! This denial is a type of mental issue that many AAs have not dealt with successfully because many AAs are in denial about it and are therefore still unable to even talk about it rationally OR are prevented from talking about it openly by other AAs who can't talk about it themselves. I think that denial of any portion of heritage indicates something profoundly sad in that person's soul--a major wound. AAs need to just deal with this once and for all. But we know that many AAs are not able to talk openly about LOTS of internal issues.  They magically think these issues will just go away or that whites will deal with these issues, or now they're pinning their hopes on President Obama.

However, I am not a magical thinker. I know that I, as an individual endowed by my Creator with free will AND much freedom (these days), am primarily responsible for resolving my issues. I can talk about any issue that I may have or even think I have because I want to resolve it and I know that refusing to talk about it--and deal with it--is harming me and most likely my children too.

Anyway, when I lived in Nigeria, the typical Nigerian assumed from my appearance that I was a Fulani and sometimes referred to me as the "Fulani" woman. Here's something I pulled from a site about the Fulani:

The origins of the Fulani people are highly disputed, some believe that they are of North African or Arabic origin, characterized by the lighter skin and straighter hair. Some Africans even refer to them as "white people". However, recent studies show that they descend from nomads from both North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. The Fulani were the first group of people in West Africa to convert to Islam through jihads, or holy wars, and were able to take over much of West Africa and establish themselves not only as a religious group but also as a political and economical force.

My maternal grandmother is from SC and she was a very light-skinned woman with freckles and light eyes. I carry some of her skin shade, especially in the winter time--though I'm not nearly as light as she was. Whereas I've always known my family tree on my father's side for several generations back, I'm actually now engaged in finding my mother's family tree in SC, so I'll be digging through the records this year. This is another reason why I'm scaling down on my time on the site here.

Also, KR, thanks for this second video link re AA mixture with Native Americans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy11DC37u1Y

Pondering: Marriage's Financial Benefits--But Not for MANY AA Women

How Will Declining Rates of Marriage Reshape Eligibility for Social Security?
http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/pbriefs/pb33.pdf

But since the 1960s, the frequency and length of marriages has dropped notably. Many demographers suggest that marriage will remain nearly universal for whites and Hispanics, but much less so for blacks. For example, Goldstein and Kenney (2001) project that among women born between 1960 and 1964, 93 percent of whites, but only 64 percent of blacks, will ever marry. Moreover, people do not stay married as long as they used to. Divorce rates rose steadily through the 1960s and 1970s, and then stabilized in the mid 1980s (Ruggles 1997; Goldstein 1999). Since 1988, the average span between first marriage and first divorce has been less than 10 years (Schoen and Weinick 1993). In fact, the tendency to divorce now peaks in the fourth year of both first marriages and remarriages (Goldstein 1999).

Our own examination of U.S. Census data shows a pronounced decline in marriage by age groups over time for both whites and blacks (U.S. Bureau of Census 1973 a, b; 1984 a, b; 1992; 1993; 2000). In 1970, among women age 25-34, 86 percent of whites and 74 percent of blacks were married. By 2000, 62 percent of whites and only 31 percent of blacks were married. In 1970, among women age 35-44, 87 percent of whites and 76 percent of blacks were married. By 2000, 70 percent of whites and only 41 percent of blacks were married. The difference by race is dramatic. During the 1970s, black women age 25 and up were between 84 to 87 percent as likely as whites to be married; by 2000 they were just 50 to 59 percent as likely.

Figure 5 shows that the proportion of black women born in the 1940s through the 1960s who will reach old age with a marriage that qualifies them for spouse and widow benefits will drop substantially. A comparison of Figures 2 and 5 shows just how sharp a drop is expected. Among those born in the 1920s, nearly 90 percent of black women reached old age with a marriage that qualified them for Social Security spouse and widow benefits. Among those born in the 1930s, about 84 percent qualified. Yet among those born in the 1940s, only about 67 percent will reach old age with a 10-year marriage, and among those born in the 1950s, just 58 percent will qualify. For those born in the 1960s, we expect only 50 percent of black women to reach old age having had a marriage that qualifies them for spouse or widow benefits.

Figure 6 shows that while there was some decline for Hispanic women, the proportion who will reach old age with a marriage that qualifies them for spouse and widow benefits will stabilize for those born in the 1940s through the 1960s. Among Hispanic women born in the 1920s, just under 80 percent reached old age with a qualifying marriage, and among those born in the 1930s, it was nearly 87 percent. We project that among those born in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, about 85 percent will qualify. White and Hispanic women will continue to have fairly high levels of eligibility for Social Security spouse and widow benefits, but black women will not.

Those who do not qualify for spouse and widow benefits either because they never married or divorced before meeting the 10-year requirement are most likely to be poor in old age (Butrica and Iams 2000, 2003). Black women may be not only the least likely to be able to make claims as wives or widows, but may also continue to have the lowest average worker benefits and private pensions. Thus, the safety net provided by non-contributory benefits may become increasingly irrelevant, and therefore ineffective, for the group that needs it most: unmarried black women.

Some might suggest that lack of access to a spouse and widow benefit might not be as problematic for black women because the gender gap in wages is smaller. Indeed, black women earn 83 percent of what black men earn, while white women earn just 69 Harrington Meyer, Wolf, and Himes 13 percent of what white men earn (Padavic and Reskin 2002). But black women currently have the lowest average working wages and the lowest average retired worker benefits (Padavic and Reskin 2002; SSA 2006). They are also less likely than white women to have private pension income, asset income, or their own homes (Butrica and Iams 2003). Thus, they are particularly economically vulnerable in old age. While retirement benefits for workers may increase somewhat for future cohorts, these benefits are not likely to increase enough to equal the benefits they might have received as widows.

Given the growing race gap in eligibility for Social Security spouse and widow benefits, why keep these benefits at all? Some policy analysts in the past have suggested that spouse and widow benefits serve as a form of delayed or de facto wages for unpaid domestic labor performed by many women throughout their lives (Myers 1982; Holden 1979; Flowers 1979). However, the eligibility rules are unrelated to the performance of domestic labor; they reward marital status rather than unpaid labor. Furthermore, women married to high earners receive a much larger benefit than women married to low earners, regardless of the quantity and difficulty of their unpaid labors (Harrington Meyer 1996).

AND another article:

http://ideas.repec.org/p/max/cprpbr/33.html

For most older people in the United States, Social Security is the major source of income: nine out of ten people age 65 or older receive benefits, which represent an average of 41 percent of their income. Largely as a result of Social Security, poverty rates for the elderly are at an all-time low, just 10 percent. But pockets of poverty persist: older unmarried persons, blacks, and Hispanics experience poverty rates in excess of 20 percent, and over 40 percent of all older single black women live in poverty. People quality for Social Security based either on their work record or their marital status. Most older women receive noncontributory Social Security spouse of widow benefits on the basis of their marital history. For these women, marital status is more important than employment status in shaping old-age financial security. However, the trend to marry and stay married has declined over time in the United States, particularly among black women. This, we hypothesize, means that fewer women will qualify for spouse and widow benefits in coming decades. As a result, Social Security benefits will shrink among the very population that currently reports higher poverty rates, older single women, particularly black women. In this policy brief, we ask: Compared to earlier cohorts, what proportion of white, black, and Hispanic women born in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s will enter old age without a marriage that qualifies them for Social Security spouse and widow benefits? We find that the proportion who will reach age 62 without a qualifying marriage, and thus be ineligible for Social Security spouse and widow benefits, is increasing modestly for whites and Hispanics but dramatically for African Americans. Most of these women will be eligible for retired worker benefits under Social Security, but those benefits are not likely to be as large as the benefits they would have received as spouses and widows, had they been eligible. We then discuss a range of policy alternatives, including the possibility of a minimum benefit.

______________________________________

Thank you, Felicia for these articles.  It's crucial that AA women know what to expect in their future financially speaking if they continue to believe those in the bc and others who soothe them by telling them that "There's no point in rushing to get married," (even when they're 35) or  "Everybody's not cut out for marriage," or that "Marriage is for white people."  If they listen, these bw are simply going to end up old, poor, sick, alone, and at the mercy of leeches, predators, and strangers.

And yes, it is just as important to marry WELL. That is VERY important. It is so difficult to get this across to AA women--some of whom will argue all day and all night that a man who can give a good "foot rub" is just as good or better than a man who has means. LOL!  Apparently, many AA women find it hard to believe that a man can have means AND can give a good "foot rub."  Also, when the social security allotment is being calculated, I don't know how a good "foot rub" can be put into that calculation.

 HOWEVER, even if they don't get married, they need to hang onto their money NOW and find other ways to secure their financial future. However, so many AA women are so busy shelling out money ***helping*** this one and that one, until they don't keep their money or learn to make it benefit them now and in the future.  Needless to say, these folks they're helping won't be there for them when they need them the most.

And at the same time, the economy is sinking. I don't want to scare anyone, but the economy is worse than is being reported.  Take heed.

It's really CRIMINAL AND EVIL that the information in the above reports is not blasting from black radio stations and leaping off the pages of black-owned print media.

 

 

Pondering: But Can Obama Raise the Rate of AA Marriages?

This article concludes that the low marriage rates among AAs is the major culprit for the sinking Titanic that best describes AA life in 2009.  But what can President Obama actually do about this?  The low rate of AA marriages can be laid at the doorstep of many self-serving  AA males and the low Quality of the mate material that many AA women see when they view many AA males as well as the indoctrinated AA women's stubborn resistance to dating and mating other more Quality males from other groups. 

 THANKS, FELICIA FOR THIS PIECE.  I'm just documenting history so that when it's all over, future historians will know what happened and why from the viewpoint of a segment of AA women who think the way we do.

Readers:  Please check out the COMMON Sense  and CRITICAL THINKING sections of this EZINE for  articles (posted recently), along with my comments.

_______________________________________

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/racial-challenge-for-new-president/2008/12/08/1228584738163.html

Racial challenge for new president

• Kay Hymowitz
  December 9, 2008

Page 1 of 2 

 

In the nearly half-century in which the United States has gone from George Wallace to Barack Obama it has another, less hopeful story to tell about racial progress, one that may be harder to reverse.

In 1965 a young assistant secretary of labour named Daniel Patrick Moynihan stumbled upon data that showed a rise in the number of black single mothers, which coincided with a decline in black male unemployment. Strangely, black men were joining the labor force more, but were marrying - and fathering - less.

There were other puzzling facts. In 1950, at the height of the Jim Crow era and despite the shattering legacy of slavery, the great majority of black children - an estimated 85 per cent - were born to their two married parents. Just 15 years later legal barriers to equality were falling. The black middle class had grown substantially, and the first five years of the 1960s had produced 7 million new jobs. Yet 24 per cent of black mothers were then bypassing marriage. Moynihan wrote later that he, like everyone else in the policy business, had assumed that "economic conditions determine social conditions". Now it seemed "what everyone knew was evidently not so".

President Lyndon Johnson was deeply shaken by Moynihan's findings. Neither man was driven by sentimentality or religious conviction, but both believed that fatherlessness undermined the "basic socialising unit". Johnson declared: "When the family collapses, it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale, the community itself is crippled."

Unfortunately, those warnings were as prescient as they were reviled. Civil rights leaders, worried about reviving racist myths about black promiscuity, objected to what they viewed as blaming the victim. Feminists were inclined to look on the "strong black women" raising their children without men as a symbol of female autonomy. The Moynihan report and the subject disappeared.

But the silent treatment was the wrong medicine. Since then the black family has unravelled in ways that have little parallel in human cultures. By 1980 black fatherlessness had doubled; 56 per cent of black births were to single mothers. In inner-city neighbourhoods the number was closer to 66 per cent. By the 1990s, even as the overall fertility of US women, including African Americans, was falling, the majority of black women who bore children were unmarried. Today 70 per cent of black children are born to single mothers.

What has this meant for racial progress? Fifty years after Jim Crow, black households have the lowest median income of any racial or ethnic group. Close to a third of black children are poor, and their chances of moving out of poverty are considerably lower than those of their white peers. The fractured black family is not the sole explanation for these gaps, but it is central. While half of all black children born to single mothers are poor, that is the case for only 12 per cent of those born to married parents.

Black married couples make a median household income of $62,000, which is more than 80 per cent of what white households earn and represents a gain of 13 percentage points since the 1960s. Yet overall, black household median income is only 62 per cent that of white households, a mere six-point increase over the same period.

Merely walking down the aisle cannot explain these differences. Rather, the institution of marriage appears to promote ideals of stability, order and fidelity that benefit children and adults alike. Those who pin their hopes for black progress on education tend to forget this. Numerous studies, when controlled for income and race, show that on average children growing up with single mothers are less likely to graduate from high school and go to college.

And Moynihan's discovery of a negligible relationship between "economic conditions and social conditions" suggests that even increases in black male employment are not a certain cure.

Through the power of his own example, Obama presents a chance to revive what Lyndon Johnson called "the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights". Obama's memoir, Dreams From My Father, conveys the economic, emotional and existential toll of growing up fatherless, and he has spoken movingly of his determination to ensure for his own children a different life. Yet tackling this issue will not be easy. When Obama gave a Father's Day speech lamenting "fathers … missing from too many lives and too many homes", Jesse Jackson was so incensed that he said he wanted to castrate Obama. Still, painful as the subject is, the alternative is far worse: racial inequality as far as the eye can see.

Kay Hymowitz is author of Marriage And Caste In America.

The Washington Post

Murder Among Black Male Youths on the Rise

Wow! This continues among young AA males.  Along with drug-trafficking related deaths, so many of them would rather die than be "dissed" over some sort of foolishness.  They don't have MALE role models to teach them what a "real"  man SHOULD ignore and what is truly worth dying for--like providing for and protecting the women and children of your group.  As the article says, this is not happening among AA women and white women, or only on a miniscule level. Maybe some of those young women are instead trying to get more education.  Yet, lately I've seen comments where black men are criticizing young bw for getting more education. SMH 

According to Julianne Malveaux, economist author and  president of Bennett College, "There has been an almost 800% increase of blacks in prison, and many of these inmates are incarcerated by virtue of their association with a felon. This is particularly true of black women."  Black women: Pull out all the stops to keep your daughters and other bw you care about away from bm who are felons.  This is yet another reason why you must FLEE from these black residential areas.  They are HUMAN TRAPS!

______________________________________

By LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes, Associated Press Writer – Mon Dec 29, 7:14 am ET

  – Murder rates on the rise?

WASHINGTON – The number of young black men and teenagers who either killed or were killed in shootings has risen at an alarming rate since 2000, a new study shows.

The study, to be released Monday by criminologists at Northeastern University in Boston, comes as FBI data is showing that murders have leveled off nationwide.

Not so for black teens, the youngest of whom saw dramatic increases in shooting deaths, the Northeastern report concluded.

Last year, for example, 426 black males between the ages of 14 and 17 were killed in gun crimes, the study shows. That marked a 40 percent increase from 2000.

Similarly, an estimated 964 in the same age group committed fatal shootings in 2007 — a 38 percent increase from seven years earlier. The number of offenders is estimated because not all crimes are reported, said Northeastern criminologist James Alan Fox, who co-authored the study.

"Although the overall rate of homicide in the United States remains relatively low, the landscape is quite different for countless Americans living, and some dying, in violence-infested neighborhoods," Fox said.

Seizing on President-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration as an opportunity for more funding, Fox added: "There is an urgency for reinvestment in children and families. In essence, we need a bailout for kids at risk."

Obama will be the nation's first black president.

The study partly blamed Bush administration grant cuts to local police and juvenile crime prevention programs for the surge in crimes by young black men and teens. Incoming Vice President Joe Biden has promised funding to put 50,000 new police officers on the street to help bring violent crime rates back to a decade-long annual decline that began in the mid-1990s, after then-President Bill Clinton provided local officials with money to hire 100,000 new cops.

Nationwide, the number of murders and violent crimes overall dropped last year after increasing in 2005 and 2006, according to annual data compiled by the FBI. Overall, however, murders have risen by about 8 percent between 2000 and 2007.

The FBI reported 10,067 arrests in murder and non-negligent manslaughter cases in 2007. Half of the people arrested — 5,078 — were black. Almost 10 percent of black people arrested for murder were under age 18, the FBI data show.

The number of young white men who committed gun-related homicides also rose over the same period, the Northeastern study showed, but not as dramatically. In 2007, an estimated 384 white males age 14 to 17 shot someone to death, up from 368 in 2000.

The numbers of homicides committed by women and teenage girls — whether black or white — were relatively few, the Northeastern study found.

PONDERING: THE OASIS--A Place where BW and their Daughters are Safe

A Place Where Women Rule

All-Female Village in Kenya Is a Sign Of Burgeoning Feminism Across Africa

By Emily Wax

Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 9, 2005; Page A01

UMOJA, Kenya -- Seated cross-legged on tan sisal mats in the shade, Rebecca Lolosoli, matriarch of a village for women only, took the hand of a frightened 13-year-old girl. The child was expected to wed a man nearly three times her age, and Lolosoli told her she didn't have to.

The man was Lolosoli's brother, but that didn't matter. This is a patch of Africa where women rule.

Rebecca Lolosoli, the matriarch of an all-female village in Kenya that offers a haven to those fleeing forced marriages or abuse, sits with a group of women and children. (By Emily Wax -- The Washington Post)

"You are a small girl. He is an old man," said Lolosoli, who gives haven to young girls running from forced marriages. "Women don't have to put up with this nonsense anymore."

Ten years ago, a group of women established the village of Umoja, which means unity in Swahili, on an unwanted field of dry grasslands. The women said they had been raped and, as a result, abandoned by their husbands, who claimed they had shamed their community.

Stung by the treatment, Lolosoli, a charismatic and self-assured woman with a crown of puffy dark hair, decided no men would be allowed to live in their circular village of mud-and-dung huts.

In an act of spite, the men of her tribe started their own village across the way, often monitoring activities in Umoja and spying on their female counterparts.

What started as a group of homeless women looking for a place of their own became a successful and happy village. About three dozen women live here and run a cultural center and camping site for tourists visiting the adjacent Samburu National Reserve. Umoja has flourished, eventually attracting so many women seeking help that they even hired men to haul firewood, traditionally women's work.

The men in the rival village also attempted to build a tourist and cultural center, but were not very successful.

But the women felt empowered with the revenue from the camping site and their cultural center, where they sell crafts. They were able to send their children to school for the first time, eat well and reject male demands for their daughters' circumcision and marriage.

They became so respected that troubled women, some beaten, some trying to get divorced, started showing up in this little village in northern Kenya. Lolosoli was even invited by the United Nations to attend a recent world conference on gender empowerment in New York.

"That's when the very ugly jealous behaviors started," Lolosoli said, adding that her life was threatened by local men right before her trip to New York. "They just said, frankly, that they wanted to kill me," Lolosoli said, laughing because she thought the idea sounded overly dramatic.

Sebastian Lesinik, the chief of the male village, also laughed, describing the clear division he saw between men and women. "The man is the head," he said. "The lady is the neck. A man cannot take, let's call it advice, from his neck."

"She's questioning our very culture," Lesinik said in an interview at a bar on a sweltering afternoon. "This seems to be the thing in these modern times. Troublemaking ladies like Rebecca."

In a mix of African women's gumption and the trickling in of influences from the outside world, a version of feminism has grown progressively alongside extreme levels of sexual violence, the battle against HIV-AIDS, and the aftermath of African wars, all of which have changed the role of women in surprising ways.

Rebecca Lolosoli, the matriarch of an all-female village in Kenya that offers a haven to those fleeing forced marriages or abuse, sits with a group of women and children. (By Emily Wax -- The Washington Post) Free E-mail Newsletters Today's Headlines & Columnists See a Sample  |  Sign Up Now Breaking News Alerts See a Sample  |  Sign Up Now

A package of new laws has been presented to Kenya's parliament to give women unprecedented rights to refuse marriage proposals, fight sexual harassment in the workplace, reject genital mutilation and to prosecute rape, an act so frequent that Kenyan leaders call it the nation's biggest human rights issue. The most severe penalty, known as the "chemical castration bill," would castrate repeatedly convicted rapists and send them to prison for life.

In neighboring Uganda, thousands of women are rallying this month for the Domestic Relations Bill, which would give them specific legal rights if their husbands take a second wife, in part because of fear of HIV infection.

Eleven years after the genocide in Rwanda, in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed, women in the country hold 49 percent of the seats in the lower house of parliament. Many of them are war widows who have said they felt compelled to rise up in protest after male leaders presided over the 1994 slaughter of Tutsi tribal members by the Hutu majority.

Across the continent in West Africa, Nigerian women are lobbying strongly for the nomination of more women politicians, including a president in 2007, saying that men have failed to run the country properly.

Focusing on the meeting of Group of Eight leaders in Scotland this week, female activists said they hoped international aid intended for Africa would include funding for women who are seeking rights in their court systems and more representation in their statehouses.

"We are at the start of something important for African women," said Margaret Auma Odhiambo, a leader of western Kenya's largest group for widows. The members are women whose husbands have died of AIDS complications.

Lolosoli's effort to speak out for change in her patch of the continent shows the difficulties of changing the rhythm and power structure of village life. Before Lolosoli even went to the U.N. conference, she was going house to house in the nearby town of Archer's Post, telling women they had rights, such as to refuse to have sex with their husbands if they were being beaten or ill-treated.

"A woman is nothing in our community," she said, referring to the members of her tribe, including the men in the village across the road.

"You aren't able to answer men or speak in front of them whether you are right or wrong," she said. "That has to change. Women have to demand rights, and then respect will come. But if you remain silent, no one thinks you have anything to say. Then again, I was not popular for what I was saying."

At the U.N. conference in New York, Lolosoli said, she and other women from around the world bonded as they watched an episode of "Oprah" that focused on women, verbal abuse and cheating husbands.

"You just cry and cry," sighed Lolosoli, who said many men in her tribe still take several wives. "Then again, I was really inspired to know that a lot of women face challenges of this nature and make it."

When she came back to Kenya, armed with ideas and empowerment training workbooks, she stood her ground even when some of the men filed a court case against her, seeking to shut down the village.

"I would just ignore the men when they threw stones at me and ask, 'Are you okay? Are your children okay? Are your cows okay?' " she said. Her tactic and calm reaction was disarming, she recalled. "After everything, they weren't going to stop us."

Lolosoli is still battling her brother over his attempt to marry the 13-year-old.

But lately, the residents of the men's village have been admitting defeat. They are no longer trying to attract tourists. Some have moved elsewhere. Others have had trouble getting married because some women in the area are taking Lolosoli's example to heart.

"She has been successful, it's true." sighed Lesinik, who said maybe he is a little bit jealous. He then shrugged and said, "Maybe we can learn from our necks. Maybe just a little bit."

PONDERING: Cleopatra's Dark Beauty

THANK YOU, Delish for this article!  As you said, it most likely won't appear in American newspapers.

 This is an article that bears much pondering.  Many women of African descent have swallowed many lies regarding their beauty, and in a patriarchial-driven world a woman's beauty often translates into her "worth."  The Hollywood image of Cleopatra, whose beguiling beauty and it's effect on men is legendary, has always been used to help to render the beauty of European women "beyond compare."  Therefore this article is a critical element in rebutting some of these lies that, taken altogether, cause many people of African descent and people worldwide (for ex. Asians) to regard the beauty of dark woman and/or less-euro looking women as less-than.  Remember, 's/he who controls images controls minds.'  To rebut the lies that have built and support the CONSTRUCT of beauty, bw must bring forth as much information as possible to get rid of the bricks in this CONSTRUCT that says that African beauty is "less-than" beauty.

It has never bothered me that Europeans promote  the beauty of European-descended women or white women as the 'fairest of them all' and most worthy.  I would ***EXPECT*** white men to consider white women to be the most beautiful, most desirable, and most worthy and to promote that idea to the world.  What bothers me is that MANY men of African descent don't lift up or promote the beauty of the African or African-descended woman and declare these women from their group to be the 'fairest of them all,' most desirable, and therefore most worthy.

The bottom line, for ANY woman, is that in a patriarchial world, if the males from your group don't consider you to be the most beautiful, most desirable and therefore most worthy women, you need to put distance between yourself and these males because in general and if there are no barriers, most males are going to gravitate towards the women who they consider the most beautiful and the most desirable.  I know this may not sound 'fair,' but life has never been 'fair.' 

To Black Women:  This should not make you upset; it should make you DETERMINED to put yourself around ONLY those males who consider your desirability/worth to be equal to or greater than that of other women or those men who consider YOU to be the 'fairest of them all' a la Barack Obama.

And for AA women, there are plenty of these males out there of all races and ethnicities who, alike Obama, can think for themselves and  haven't allowed Hollywood to control them like puppets and tell them that only light-bright-white, euro featured women are beautiful.

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Sorry Liz But This is The Real Face of Cleopatra

 by Fiona McCrae  December 16, 2008

From Elizabeth Taylor to Sophia Loren, there have been many faces of Cleopatra. But this might be the most realistic of them all.

Egyptologist Sally Ann Ashton believes the compute regenerated 3D image is the best likeness of the legendary beauty famed for her ability to beguile.

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Likeness: The computer-generated 3D image has been pieced together from images on ancient artefacts

Pieced together from images on ancient artefacts, including a ring dating from Cleopatra's reign 2,000 years ago, it is the culmination of more than a year of painstaking research.

The result is a beautiful young woman of mixed ethnicity  -  very different to the porcelain-skinned Westernised version portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1961 movie Cleopatra.

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Realism: The result is a strikingly beautiful young woman of mixed ethnicity

Dr Ashton, of Cambridge University, said the images, to be broadcast as part of a Five documentary on Cleopatra, reflect the monarch's Greek heritage as well as her Egyptian upbringing.

'She probably wasn't just completely European. You've got to remember that her family had actually lived in Egypt for 300 years by the time she came to power. .    .     .    .

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Link to the  the rest of this article and the highly predictable negative comments is below.  I find it so interesting how to many of the commenters, Cleopatra in this picture is considered "plain" looking now that she obviously doesn't look like a European woman. LOL!!!!  So many people are so easily manipulated. SMH These folks have simply accepted the "opinions" of others that the image of Cleopatra as Liz Taylor is beautiful or more  beautiful than this woman.  Beauty is never a fact; it is now and has always been an opinion.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1095043/Sorry-Liz-THIS-real-face-Cleopatra.html