FaceBook Conversation on Tiger Woods

This exchange was so interesting, that I’m re-publishing it here. See below:

Nsenga Burton Tiger Woods using steroids. BULLSHIT. This shit has gone too far and yes I’m pissed.

Nsenga Burton:  Sorry for the cuss words, but really.

SZ:  nevermind the cussin!! I fully agree…they are doing waaaay to much right now!!!

JM: WORD!

CS: Wait-why is everyone pissed?

JS: please answer Christine’s questions… who cares what happens to him

NB:  @Christine – there’s now speculation in the press that he uses steroids – essentially if he cheated on his wife, then he’d cheat in sports. Nonsense.

JH:  I must agree slow news days can kill a career

NB: @Christine – there’s now speculation in the press that he uses steroids – essentially if he cheated on his wife, then he’d cheat in sports. Nonsense.

DW: Golf does have drug testing for PEDs so hopefully he’s been tested since his knee surgery. Just because he cheats on his wife doesn’t mean he cheats at his sport. Making no excuses for him, just feel until something proves otherwise we should withhold speculation.

CS: Kilo-please don’t defend that fool!

NB: @Christine: I’m not defending his indiscretions, but his golf playing — yes. He is the best golfer to ever walk the face of the earth regardless of race and to go after him because he cheated on his wife is ridiculous. Michael Jordan is a notorious cheater/womanizer. Noone has questioned his basketball abilities because of this. Shaq. Lance … See MoreArmstrong. You name it – many athletes cheat on their spouses, but that doesn’t mean that they cheat on the game. Those are two very different things and to try and connect them is disingenuous at best and a smear tactic at worse, particularly by people who could not beat this man even as a teen and long before he was married.

BN:

I’m witchu on your statements, Ms. B.! The last thing some folks want is for his Cablinasian ass to surpass the Holy Jack Nicklaus. If they can find a way to besmirch his previous 12 majors, then Jack will still be considered the greatest ever.

RP: How else are those white boys gonna explain how he’s been whupping their ass & taking their women for the last twelve years!!!

CS: So let the Caublasians defend him! Save your energy for athletes who admit they are black-if they need defending. If they accused Singh of cheating would you give a darn? So why waste your breath on that Caublasian fool?

DM: Yeah, this is getting stupid. No doubt Tiger got a lil bit of sociopath in him, but let’s tacke one f-up at a time!

NB: @Christine – I get your point. It’s beyond race to me. You’re right. Where are the Caublinasians?

JD: There is only one and he is in Sweden. As a reult the question I’ve been hearing the most is what do Black people think, are they mad at Tiger, etc.?? Just let him clean up his mess. Next they are going to ask Obama on 60 minutes b/c Tiger was at the inauguration.

NR: hmmm … maybe he DOES use steroids!

JA: thank u christine- i didn’t want to the first to say it

DM: Allegedly, Tiger’s doctor used a controversial — yet legal — therapy on Tiger’s bum knee. There’s no proof so far that anything illegal took place. The doctor’s shady, but that doesn’t make Tiger shady… at least not on the golfing front. Like Kee said, a wife cheater doesn’t automatically translate to a sports cheater. We got a witchhunt …

CL: now THIS is the type of dialogue i have been waiting for. I dont understand why Tiger got married in the first place. Because of who he is and the sport he is dominating and who he married, his infidelity was going to cost him everything. He had to know this, and his advisers are the ones that need to be fired. The interesting question is would…

DM: @ Contrarian… great point! If he’d married LaTasha from Brooklyn instead of Elin from Sweden, we may not be talking about this.

Tiger has always been a robotic, regimented and very scary cat to me. Someone that robotic has got to blow a gasket at some point, but who knew there’d be this much steam, ya know? Tiger went and procured a wife that would complement and complete his public image. When she was all set up, he went out and found the type of women that would satisfy his real compulsions. In this respect, Tiger is not at all unusual. There’s a segment of men who do this everyday; they marry a woman they can put on a pedestal and then they round it all out with a woman (or women) who will accept them in all their griminess. Only difference is Tiger had 11 of these skanks lined up instead of the usual 1 or 2.

NB: @Dee – Preach BSGO!

Why the Princess and the Frog is No Big Deal

I think I’ve had enough of the hoopla surrounding the new Disney animated film The Princess and the Frog.

But before I opine further, here’s a little background: For the first time in the company’s history, Disney has finally introduced a black princess as the lead in one of its features. The company that has given us some of the most iconic characters (Mickey Mouse), theme parks, television shows, films — you name it, they’ve done it — has introduced Princess Tiana: a young, beautiful girl who goes on an adventure through the Louisiana bayou. Like many Disney movies, there’s a prince, a father figure, a character with unconventional beauty and mystical fantasies. And finally, there’s a princess who looks like me. I think I’m supposed to be grateful, but in the words of Rhett Butler, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Why not? Because one film does not make up for decades of racist and sexist imagery that has defined Disney’s characterization of blacks and women. While I understand the need for young girls to have access to images that look like them in order to have some validation from the very media that permeates every facet of their life, I do not accept Princess Tiana as restitution for years of wrongdoing. What I do not understand is the throngs of black folk running behind this character as if it is new, when in fact, there have been black princesses in the history of people of African descent since the beginning of time. Why are we following suit and taking our cultural cues from a cartoon?

My friends know that I do not support Disney in general because of Walt Disney’s long history of anti-Semitism and apparent loathing of all things not white, male and Protestant. In my mind, Walt Disney and his images, which reflect his perverted ideology, are nothing to aspire to or certainly mimic; he went about the business of cultural imperialism through the making and marketing of figures that seem harmless but are in fact harmful.

Now, before you get your panties in a bunch, I’m not saying that white men are harmful or perverted. I am saying that continuously circulating the same image of dominant, white male superiority damages everyone, including white men, who may not fit that image. I understand that some people like to paint white men as invincible, but that takes away from their humanity.

Some of you are probably wondering, “Why all of the drama over fictional characters?” Animated cartoons, through which Disney has earned the bulk of its money and reputation, can be some of the most harmful programming to which children are exposed. Many of the characters are given “human” behavioral and psychological qualities that reflect dominant stereotypes about certain groups in media and society. Read more.

This article originally appeared in Creative Loafing, where Nsenga serves as cultural critic.

Get a Job: Extorting Money from Celebs Does Not Work

Here we go again — yet another celebrity has had someone arrested for an attempted extortion attempt. Yes, John Stamos a.k.a. Blackie from General Hospital and Jesse from Full House fame was being blackmailed for photos taken when he was having “relations” with a woman in 2004. This on the heels of David Letterman’s high-profile extortion attempt. Losers take note, trying to extort money from celebrities will no longer work because they are hip to the game. The ability to present oneself as a victim (of extortion) far exceeds whatever dastardly deed he or she might have done (‘infidelity’ in both cases). It seems to me that instead of trying to steal money from celebrities, you might want to do like the rest of us — get a job! Save yourself some time in jail and save us from having to watch more senseless celebrity coverage at the top of every news cycle.

Is Going ‘Brenda Richie’ On Someone Ever Acceptable

Okay, unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure that you’ve heard about the Tiger Woods debacle. Originally reported as a car crash in which his wife helped to free him, it has been alleged by TMZ that Woods suffered injuries prior to the crash and that actually his golf-club wielding wife went all “Brenda Richie” on his ass upon learning of an affair, allegedly.

I find this interesting because my sister and I had just talked about the Rihanna interview on 20/20 and how she never stated that she attacked Chris Brown, even though it has been widely reported that this is what happened. What she didn’t expect was that he would go O.J. on her and beat her like she stole something. I don’t believe that you should ever put your hands on someone, but if you hit someone in anger and sometimes in jest, you should expect to be hit back. Do I think that men should hit women? No. Do I think that women should hit men? No.

This is a glaring issue in domestic violence — the fact that no one wants to talk about women jumping on men in many of these instances. It’s unpopular to discuss because then women’s rights advocates (I am one) often accuse you of blaming the victim. It is not about blame — it is about having an honest discussion about domestic violence. Battering men, even cheaters and batterers, is not going to stop domestic violence in any community. Just like it is never okay for men to hit women, it is never okay for women to hit men either.

Further, it is ridiculous that some women think that they can hit men without recourse because men aren’t supposed to hit women. Really. In the world that I grew up in, if you hit someone, you should expect to get hit back which is why I’ve never put my hands on a man. I’ve been mad, cheated on, mistreated, etc., but nothing has ever prompted me to put my hands on a dude. I’m not trying to fight a dude or go to jail for hitting someone because I exercised the same lack of control that he demonstrated when doing his dirt.

I just walk away, leave him alone and keep it moving. No man is worth publicly humiliating myself or going to jail over. Domestic violence is a two-way street and women attacking men is no laughing matter.

Janet Jackson Performs at the American Music Awards

I know from John Allen Muhammad to Janet Jackson. I so love her and really appreciated this 2009 AMA performance so I thought I’d share it with you!

John Allen Muhammad: Is Justice Really Being Served?

John Allen Muhammad, better known as the DC Sniper, will die tonight. The state of Virginia will execute the man responsible for terrorizing the metropolitan DC area. His manner of death? Lethal injection.

Many people, particularly those from this area, believe that Muhammad is getting what he deserves. I’ve read and heard “fry him,” “eye for an eye,” and “he did the crime now do the time.” Muhammad and his accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, terrorized the beltway and are responsible for 10 murders and 16 shootings. Had they not been caught, who knows what the statistics would have been? It seems like a clear-cut case, ripe for execution, but there are other factors to consider.

One of those factors is US Attorney Gen. John Aschcroft’s decision to send Muhummad and Malvo to Virginia to be tried in the first place.  If most of the murders took place in Maryland, then why were they were tried in Virginia? Because the death penalty was on hold in Maryland due to issues surrounding racial disparity in the administration of capital punishment as opposed to Virginia, a death penalty state, where action is swift and death is certain in most death penalty cases.

It was no surprise that Muhammad, the mastermind of the murders was sentenced to death. It is no surprise that judges in Virginia truncated the time for filing appeals and refused to hold a single hearing after the trial.  It is also no surprise that Governor Kaine denied clemency to Muhammad even though his lawyer’s argued that the case moved too quickly and that Muhammad’s original lawyers failed to communicate that the man has a history of mental illness.

According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, Jonathan Sheldon, Muhammad’s current lawyer stated,

“He is delusional, paranoid and incompetent. He was angry at the government after he came back from the Gulf War. And he has delusions of racist conspiracies.”

Which leads me back to my original statement, John Allen Muhammad will die tonight, because the state of Virginia will do what it has always done, fast-tracked the execution of convicted murderers, most of whom are African-American. Regardless of how one feels about Muhummad, if someone is mentally ill, should he be put to death?  If the murders occur in multiple states, should the U.S. Attorney General have the authority to “arbitrariiy” send it to the jurisdiction where the plaintiff is more likely to die than not? Is justice really being served? (read more)

This post originally appeared on TheLoop21.com, where Nsenga serves as managing editor. Follow her on Twitter @ntellectual.

‘Precious’ Comments Spur Activity on FaceBook

Okay, so I made the statement on FaceBook in reference to what I was doing, “Hating ‘Precious’ and ‘The Blind Side.” Stereotypes about Black folks are making a big comeback in 2009. Post-racial society my a**.

This spurred a plethora of comments that created a really interesting dialogue. See the exchange below:

AB:   meeeee tooooo !! ~ it’s ridiculous (

FO:  I’m not really feeling ‘The Blindside’ either based on the trailer but I was planning to see ‘Precious.’ Y r u hating it?

CM:  Would love to hear what you have to say about both flicks…what was stereotypical about it…are they saying Black people can’t raise their kids again? Thinking about shows like Different Strokes…

AP:  Haven’t heard of The Blind Side. What’s it about?

FO:  @ Chris – that was my takeaway from ‘TBS’ trailer. ‘Different Strokes’ is a good reference except this time ‘The Great Hope’ is a woman, played by Sandra Bullock. I hate how they’re exploiting that young man’s life. Kilolo break down ‘Precious’ for me?

NR:  I read “Push” (the book on which “Precious” is based) this week, and I’m looking forward to the movie. Nsenga, your complaint – while I think I understand it – reminds me of the exasperation we heard when The Color Purple was released many years ago. That’s somebody’s story, and it should be told. I wish there was more balance out there, too, though. Still love ya, girl ;- )

LH: @ Nichole: ( bumping fist) Now, I’m prepared to wince but I’m curious to see the adaptation.

NWM: Folks love to see us drugging, beating, molesting and just generally being ignorant and/or criminal. I am tired of it because there just aren’t enough positive counter images. It is just very discouraging.

CO:  gotta agree with dr. burton. I am waiting on a remake of Amos and Andy.

JS:  Ok…now you got me feeling bad about wanting to see this cuzzo!!! lol

GP:  I’ve seen Precious. Liked it a lot. I don’t think it is what you are expecting. Very well done. And I do consider myself sensitive to the issues that you are talking about.

TC: Still interested in seeing Precious because my clinical work is largely based on treating survivors of prolonged childhood abuse. Curious to see whats depicted in the movie.

NB:  Okay. @Glendon, Nichole and Lena – I hear you loud and clear. It just amazes me what films do get made in Hollywood. If you want it made and Oscar worthy, there has to be some perverted Black pathology involved. Lee Daniels has made a grip off of this (Monsters Ball), although Like Glendon, he is an interesting producer/filmmaker (Shadow Boxer). I … Read Morealso find it interesting that such strong female-centered narratives get to be told by men i.e. Daniels and Perry. I would have loved to have seen Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou, Talk to Me) direct this film. So it’s problematic on multiple levels, which is what makes me want to hate the film. I do have a negotiated relationship with it because it is an extremely well-done film, although a bit heavy-handed in some instances. The Blind Side is another dominant Hollywood narrative where some white person saves some black person from his terrible life. While that happens in society, black people and others I would argue do that too. Why is the same colonizing gaze/narrative being circulated in Hollywood all of the time? I know that it is an economics piece — we love that dominant narrative in our society for obvious reasons. When will we see black folks save other black folks? There are true stories of that happening. Some of us have them ourselves. Where are they? Must I continue to see some white woman or man intervene in the life of a Black person in perpetuity? It’s been 100 years. Time for a new, consistent narrative. Antwon Fisher and The Pursuit of Happiness demonstrate that there is a market for these type of stories. Let me be clear, there is room for so many stories which is why I question the constant circulation of narratives about black people that involve our pathology and need for rescue as opposed to our resiliency with or without the presence of whites.

MB:  Hey girl, check this out:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/221282

I agree with Nichole — and like both you, I would love to see some balance. Unfortunately, we have ourselves to blame for a lot of this stuff. Our community doesn’t do the best job of demanding/investing in better. We can get the story of Biggie’s life to the big screen but Ben Carson’s… Read More? Not so much. He’s a movie of the week. How about Geoffrey Canada? Bayard Rustin? Ruth Simmons? Audre Lorde? What about bring Octavia Butler’s work to the screen? (Well maybe no because if the f it up, I will be pissed?) It’s true that Hollywood is more comfortable with us in certain roles. It’s amazing how the same f-ing movie gets made over and over again (you know the kind with the white folks to the rescue and with us full of gratitude, blah blah). Oprah should have known better with “Beloved” — you cannot leave that movies as a white person and feel good about yourself lol! That said — and God Bless her — it turned my stomach to see Halle Berry accept an Oscar for that madness. She chose that and too often we are choosing to support that.

GP: You also have to look a the genesis of this film. it was produced outside the system. Written, directed and produced by us. Not sure of financing. It wasn’t until Sundance that Tyler and Oprah got on board and brought it to Lionsgate If you read the soiurce Novel, Push, it is a hard adaptation and not an obvious film. Daniels is the only one… Read More who pursued the author and had a vision of turning that novel into a film. I completely understand your perspective, but I think the facts on the ground (did I just stray into foreign policy) makes this film different.

CAW: Whoo hoo!

SBW: This is a great topic Nsenga. I can see if from both angles. There have been a few more good movies though. “Coach Carter” and “Aqueelah and the Bee” just to name a couple. But I think what we see on the big screen is indicative of what our counterparts see of us. It still amazes me how little, many people actually know about African-American … Read Moreheritage and culture. I work as a teacher on the Southside of Chicago. The majority of what I see is negative. But I am a caring black woman who decided I wanted to help my children. But I do see so much negativity and neglect everyday it is truly disheartening. As several people said, this is someone’s story. Just as “The Cosby Show” was someone’s story. I do remember people criticizing Cosby too, saying that it was unrealistic. Of course we still have a long way to go. But I think much of that has to do with us coming together “as a culture”. I think of Jesse Jackson getting caught on air talking about President Obama. I think if we supported each other more would could deliver more positivity in film.

NB: More info on the film: http://www.theloop21.com/news/interview-euphoric-lee

African Americans and Domestic Violence: The Real Cost to Our Community

Domestic violence in the African–American community must stop. It seems like an easy enough thing to say, but doing it seems like something else all together. We live in a society marked by violence. This country was founded on violent acts, many of which were against women, particularly Black women who were slaves. It would seem that having suffered such violence at the hands of former male and female slave owners, our cultural practices would demand that we respect and protect Black women from harm. It is truly sad, when the one thing that we can count on statistically speaking, is harm in the form of physical and emotional abuse from our intimate partners.

According to the study “When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2006 Homicide Data,” released by The Violence Policy Center, a national non-profit organization that conducts research on violence in the United States, 551 African American women were murdered by males in 2006. The study stated that there were 1,818 race-identified females murdered by males. While white women accounted for the largest total of those killed (1,208), African American women were killed at a rate nearly three times higher. How did most of the murders occur? Guns killed 305 of those women.

Intimate partners are literally blowing Black women away for a variety of reasons that include stress, mental illness, control, narcissism and pathology. Mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces and cousins are leaving this earth with wounded bodies and spirits and sadly enough the numbers are increasing, not decreasing. What does this mean for the black community?

It means that we have to do something to break the cycle of abuse and violence in our homes. If the majority of Black households are headed by women, what happens when those women are killed or injured? Talking about domestic violence hasn’t helped. High profile cases like those involving Chris Brown and Rihanna, Bebe Winans, Big Pun, Don Cornelius, Jennifer Hudson’s sister and Tyrese Gibson haven’t helped. Women offering testimony in church and on YouTube hasn’t helped. Men and women creating awareness campaigns during the month of October hasn’t helped.

If you turn on the television or read a newspaper, there is a very high likelihood that a woman murdered by an intimate partner is somewhere in the content.

We know that domestic violence breaks up families. We know that children suffer emotionally, financially and spiritually with the sudden loss of a parent. We know that it leaves irreparable mental and emotional scars on women and men. But do we know the economic costs of domestic violence to the black community? Let me break it down for you.

According to the National Network to End Domestic Violence, in the United States, the cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion each year, with $4.1 billion going towards direct medical and mental health services.

Victims of intimate partner violence lost 8 million days of paid work because of violence committed against them by current or former husbands, boyfriends or dates. That equals 32,000 full-time jobs and almost 5.6 million days of household productivity.

According to the National Funeral Director’s Association, the average cost of a funeral in the U.S. is $7,323 thousand each year. In 2006, Black families spent over $4 million burying African American victims of domestic violence.

According to the World Health Organization, the cost of domestic violence in the United States amounts to 3.3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). (read more)

This is an excerpt from an article that appeared on TheLoop21.com, where Nsenga serves as managing editor.

October Ends but Domestic Violence Continues

As I wrote in this space a few weeks ago, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Now, the beauty of an “Awareness Month” is that important issues, like domestic violence, are highlighted and discussed in ways that do not necessarily happen during other times of the year. It is an opportunity to go all out to bring pressing issues to the forefront.

The danger of an Awareness Month, however, is that important issues, like domestic violence, get relegated to one month out of the year — when it is something that we should be working to end 365 days each year. Unfortunately, unless a major pop star gets beaten up by another pop star or celebrity (a la Chris Brown and Rihanna, Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson Lee), then conversations and activism appear to reside in the margins of society as opposed to front and center, which is what it will take to end domestic violence.

Having said that, each time that Domestic Violence Awareness Month comes around, I endeavor to learn something about the issue that I did not previously know. Those of you who follow this column know that I am committed to exploring and exposing gender issues. Over the last year, I have written tirelessly about victims of domestic violence, mostly women. Although I never feel that I am writing in vain, I do wonder why it is so hard to get people to do the right thing.

Although most of the programming and resources about domestic violence are geared toward women, because we are the main victims and survivors of this community disease, men are also victims of domestic violence. How many little boys witness domestic violence incidents against their mothers? How many men have been on the receiving end of an intimate partner’s physical or mental abuse? According to Battered Men, an organization that helps male victims/survivors of domestic violence, intimate partners batter 835,000 men each year.

This is clearly an issue that affects us all, so why do we only confront it as a nation once a year? According to the domestic violence prevention group SOAR, intimate partners in the United States physically assault 1.5 million women annually. Since many women experience multiple victimizations every year, an estimated 5.9 million physical assaults are perpetrated against U.S. women annually. More than 1,500 women are killed by intimate-partner violence each year. That means that each day, more than three women are killed by an intimate partner.

Domestic violence has become so normalized that we rarely flinch when we hear about such stories on the news. These stories are reported every day of the year, multiple times, yet and still, the number of incidents increase each year.

One-third of all 911 calls are related to domestic violence incidents. According to EHS Today, domestic violence costs businesses $7 billion per year in lost wages, sick leave, absenteeism, non-productivity and direct medical care costs. (more)

This is an excerpt from an article that originally appeared on Creative Loafing where Nsenga serves as cultural critic.

Love Obama…but a Nobel Peace Prize?

Love Obama, but…
President Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize. For what exactly? He’s only been in office for a mere 9 months and is talking about sending more troops to Afghanistan. Did I hit my head on something? Talk about a set-up. This is worse than being nominated for an Oscar for your first film or performance. Marlee Mattlin or John Singleton, anyone? Things can only go downhill when there is no opportunity for one to grow. Some will see this as a victory. I see it as a farce in a world where people assign greatness in areas where people have yet to even tap their true potential.