(by Eva McKend | Clutch Mag) - Who would have thought that being a single black woman would be all the rage? If you’ve clued-in to the blogosphere over the past few weeks, you probably have noticed the trend. From Helena Andrews’ forthcoming book and film Bitch is the New Black to ABC’s Nightline segment on single black women, I am starting to feel like the “it” girl. Everybody seems to be talking about me and I’ve never been more ready for my close up. After all, there are serious issues at play that could really use the airtime.

As an underappreciated beautiful black woman, I hope that you would understand my trepidation over being haphazardly catapulted into stardom. For those of us who know, being single isn’t always cute and certainly isn’t something to exploit. It can be lonely and desperately painful but can be an unfortunate reality for so many black women.

Although it was not without flaw, I am comforted when I see television specials like that of the ABC segment. The largest blemish was Steve Harvey’s perpetuation of binary gender roles and antiquated irrelevant advice that only further contributed to the rhetoric of assault on women. The relationship advice in his book, which he predicates his comments on, encourages women to constantly be altering their physical and emotional selves to fit the male gaze. Apart from this disappointment and some problems with the numbers (the eligible numbers should have included black male college graduates, but I suppose they didn’t want us to hurl ourselves off of the Brooklyn Bridge and should have subtracted gay black men), I felt solace in hearing other black women facing what I am. It makes me feel as though I am part of a community grappling with a common struggle and ultimately as if I am not alone. However, not all black women share this sentiment. If Essence’s relationships editor Demetria L. Lucas could, “she would climb under a rock…to avoid the onslaught of articles, primetime TV segments, books, and countless blog discussions.” While Lucas very eloquently iterates her frustrations with the white constructed “Black Man Shortage” narrative, I don’t see what we have to gain from hiding from this reality. I do not deny that major networks do in fact pull out this story ever so often to sensationalize the issue but I wonder if we can start using these specials as a springboard to discuss what is really going on in our community. Many black women and men ask why we are still talking about this. To them I answer, because it continues to be a dire circumstance with no trace of getting any better.

 

If this comes true, it's the end of days y'all!

(by John Jeter | The Root) - It does not take a pollster, partisan or psychic to see a harbinger of things to come in Massachusetts voters’ choice of a Republican to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. If Barack Obama’s next three years in the White House are anything like his first, he will surely be a one-term president.

And for black America, that’s the good news.

Because if history is any guide, the truly awful news is that the smart money is on Sarah Palin to replace Obama in the White House.

Foreshadowing a Palin presidency is a perfect, gathering storm of economics, politics and tribalism, which is not to suggest that Obama is an innocent bystander in his reversal of fortune. It is certainly true that he inherited a capsized economy. But his administration has done little to right the ship. And no president can survive double-digit unemployment and 30,000 foreclosures a month for long.

“But what about Ronald Reagan,” the skeptics are no doubt asking now, “who was saddled with a deep recession in his first term, yet bounced back to win reelection in a landslide?” The difference is epic: Reagan’s poor-performing economy was stalled; Obama’s is broken, and despite all the sanguine media talk of a recovery, the crisis shows no signs of abating anytime soon.

Pittsburgh (Hip Hop Wired) - A teen violinist who was severely beaten by Pittsburgh police on January 12 and had his dreadlocks ripped out from his skull is recovering. 18 year-old Jordan Miles was approached by the police who thought he had a gun but what turned out to be a soda bottle under his coat.

His mother Terez Miles stated to The Associated Press,

“I feel that my son was racially profiled. It's a rough neighborhood; it was after dark. … They assumed he was up to no good because he's Black. My son, he knows nothing about the streets at all. He's had a very sheltered life, he's very quiet, he doesn't know police officers sit in cars and stalk people like that.”

Jordan's head is now shaved and his eye is still slightly swollen and bloodshot while the three white officers have been reassigned.

A judge continued the case until Feb. 18 after the officers failed to appear at a hearing Thursday, Miles' attorney, Kerrington Lewis, said. The police department is saying little as it investigates, and isn't releasing the officers' names

Imagine if it was the other way around and Miles didn't show up.

The confrontation began around 11 p.m. Jan. 12, when the teenager walked out of his mother's home and headed to his grandmother's, where he spends most nights. His mother complimented him on the new jacket he had gotten for his birthday.

“It looks handsome,” she said, smiling as he walked down the front steps.

As Miles walked up the block, he noticed three men sitting in a white car, “but I thought nothing of it,” he said.

The criminal complaint says Miles was standing against a building “as if he was trying to avoid being seen.” But he says he was walking when the men jumped out of the car.

“Where's the money?” one shouted, according to Miles. “Where's the gun? Where's the drugs?” the other two said. “It was intimidating; I thought I was going to be robbed,” Miles said.

That's when he says he took off back to his mother's house but slipped on the icy sidewalk. Before he could pull himself up, Miles said, the men were at his back

“That's when they started beating me, punching, kicking me, choking me,” he said.

Not until 15 minutes later, when uniformed officers drove up in a van and Miles overheard their conversation, did he realize he had been arrested. Initially, when the handcuffs clamped around his wrists, he thought he was being abducted.

The police believed Miles, who appeared to have something heavy in his pocket, was carrying a gun, according to the affidavit. The police say they used a stun gun on the teenager.

(via NY Times) - For years, Allison Ross rubbed in skin-lightening creams with names like Hyprogel and Fair & White. She said she wanted to even out and brighten the tone of her face, neck and hands. Mrs. Ross, 45, who lives in Brooklyn, also said that she used the lightening creams “to be more accepted in society.”

After months of twice-a-day applications, her skin was not only fairer, it had become so thin that a touch would bruise her face. Her capillaries became visible, and she developed stubborn acne. A doctor told her that all three were side effects of prescription-strength steroids in some of the creams, which she had bought over the counter in beauty supply stores.

“I never read the labels,” Mrs. Ross said. Instead, she took her cues from friends, many of them, like her, from the West Indies. “Once somebody told me Fair & White was the one they were using, I’d go to the Korean store and ask for it,” she said.

Dermatologists nationwide are seeing women of Hispanic and African descent, among others, with severe side effects like Mrs. Ross’s from the misuse of skin-lightening creams, many with prescription-strength ingredients, which are sold in beauty shops and bodegas and online.

Hyprogel, made in Germany, contains the powerful steroid clobetasol propionate and includes a warning to use only as directed by a doctor. Fair & White, from France, normally contains no steroids, but counterfeit versions with undisclosed ingredients have turned up in stores.

No major studies have focused on the use of such creams in this country. But dermatologists with practices that cater to darker-skinned women say adverse effects are on the rise. Ethnic beauty supply stores, where clerks often shrug at selling prescription creams over the counter, report that sales are strong.

Dr. Erin Gilbert, a chief resident in dermatology at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, said that she or a colleague saw a case of severe side effects from skin-lightening creams at least once a week. Dr. Gilbert attributed the frequency, which she called surprising, to the fact that the hospital served an “amazingly international cross section of women of color.

Users are not necessarily immigrants, said Dr. Eliot F. Battle Jr., who has a dermatology practice in Washington, where he treats side effects from lightening creams “not only containing corticosteroids, but mercury,” a poison that can damage the nervous system. The patients are “Ph.D.’s to women from corporate America, teachers to engineers — the entire broad spectrum of women of color,” Dr. Battle said.

For quite some time I've held the opinion that America has become a country catered to and run by big business.  It is no longer a country FOR THE PEOPLE! 

The health, safety, well-being, and economic stability of the American people is continuously sacrificed in favor of the corporate dollar and corporate interests.  We even have a political party that caters to their needs.  It's known as the Republican party.  And since the Democratic party has absolutely NO backbone, the Republican agenda, and by default the corporate agenda, continues to flourish and prosper. 

I am simply disgusted by the current state of affairs.  And this latest Supreme Court decision has only served to further erode my faith in the system, our government and its officials.  SHAME ON THEM ALL!

WASHINGTON (Politico) - The Supreme Court on Thursday opened wide new avenues for big-moneyed interests to pour money into politics in a decision that could have a major influence on the 2010 midterm elections and President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

The long-awaited 5-4 decision overruled all or parts of two prior rulings by the court that allowed governments to restrict corporations and unions from spending their general funds on ads expressly urging a candidate’s election or defeat. But the decision upheld disclosure requirements for groups like the one that brought the case.

The decision, handed down in a special session of the court, is generally expected to boost Republicans more than Democrats, because corporations and corporate-backed outside groups tend to align with conservatives and also often have access to more money than unions or liberal outside groups.

“No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporation,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

In a stinging dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.”

President Obama led a chorus of Democrats and public interest groups attacking the decision, saying in a statement that the court “has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics,” and vowing that he will work with congressional leaders “to develop a forceful response.”

“It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans,” the president said. “This ruling gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington—while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates."

Puuhhhhlease!

Has anyone else heard this drivel?  It's been all over the airwaves lately.  Apparently, Mr. Woods has been spotted outside Pine Grove Behavioral Health & Addiction Services in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. 

Family, I just have to call BS when I see or hear it.  The man was, and arguably still is, a cheater!  He cheated with numerous women, not because he is a sex addict but because he COULD!  The only reason he's going to "sex rehab" is to save face and his career (which, to be honest, I don't think was in any major jeopardy).  He wants to get back in the public's good graces.  He wants to appear remorseful, seem as if he's taking responsibility, and most importantly......he wants to appear REHABILITATED! 

And another thing.  I think the terms "sex addict" and "sex addiction" have gained a semblance of popularity as of late, especially with the popularity of Dr. Drew's rehab shows, such as Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, Sober House and Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.  As a result, whenever a celebrity has been caught in an indiscretion, the media is quick to ask the question:  Is he/she a sex addict?  It's as if they want to find an excuse, any excuse, to let the perpetrator off the hook, a way to say it's not their fault.

Don't get me wrong.  By no means am I saying that sex addiction is not real or a serious condition.  It is.  However, not every person who exercises poor judgment and has numerous sexual encounters is a sex addict.  Sometimes, it's as simple as that man or woman being a ho!  Last time I checked, they've been around for centuries!

 

ATLANTA (AJC) - Roger Stephens, who captured national headlines last August after repeatedly slapping a 2-year-old at a Stone Mountain Wal-Mart, was sentenced to one year in jail Tuesday following a brief bench trial in Gwinnett County.

Stephens apologized to the little girl's family but did not testify. The trial was held without a jury as agreed upon by prosecutors and the defense.

Stephens was given credit for the four-plus months he's already served. By the first of March -- six months into the sentence -- Stephens will be eligible for house arrest, though defense attorney Jeff Sliz told the AJC that the retired Georgia Power worker would have difficulty paying the accompanying $300 monthly fee

Sliz said his 61-year-old client was blindsided by the media attention his case generated.

"He's absolutely amazed this incident took on such Goliath proportions," Sliz said. "He never in his wildest imagination believed it would mushroom into this."

Sliz called his client's behavior "the ultimate knee-jerk reaction."

"He put his hands on a child when he clearly shouldn't have, and he realizes that," the attorney said.

The girl's mother told police that she was shopping at the Rockbridge Road store when Stephens approached and told her, “If you don’t shut that baby up, I will shut her up for you."

A few moments later, Stephens grabbed the 2-year-old and slapped her across the face four or five times, according to the police report.