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Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
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Rikyrah, have you watched Chicagoland?
Where Are the People of Color in Children’s Books?
By WALTER DEAN MYERS
MARCH 15, 2014
Of 3,200 children’s books published in 2013, just 93 were about black people, according to a study by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin.
Reading came early to me, but I didn’t think of the words as anything special. I don’t think my stepmom thought of what she was doing as more than spending time with me in our small Harlem apartment. From my comfortable perch on her lap I watched as she moved her finger slowly across the page. She probably read at about the third grade level, but that was good enough for the True Romance magazines she read. I didn’t understand what the stories were about, what “bosom” meant or how someone’s heart could be “broken.” To me it was just the comfort of leaning against Mama and imagining the characters and what they were doing.
Later, when my sisters brought home comic books, I got Mama to read them to me, too. The magazines and comics pushed me along the road of the imaginative process. When I got my first books — “The Little Engine That Could,” “Bible Stories for Every Day,” and “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” — I used them on the same journeys. In the landscape of my mind I labored as hard as I could to get up the hill. I stood on the plain next to David as he fought Goliath, and tasted the porridge with Goldilocks.
As a teenager I romped the forests with Robin Hood, and trembled to the sound of gunfire with Henry in “The Red Badge of Courage.” Later, when Mama’s problems began to overwhelm her, I wrestled with the demons of dealing with one’s mother with Stephen Dedalus in “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” But by then I was beginning the quest for my own identity. To an extent I found who I was in the books I read. I was a person who felt the drama of great pain and greater joys, whose emotions could soar within the five-act structure of a Shakespearean play, or find quiet comfort in the poems of Gabriela Mistral. Every book was a landscape upon which I was free to wander.
In the dark times, when my uncle was murdered, when my family became dysfunctional with alcohol and grief, or when I realized that our economics would not allow me to go to college, I began to despair. I read voraciously, spending days in Central Park reading when I should have been going to school.
But there was something missing. I needed more than the characters in the Bible to identify with, or even the characters in Arthur Miller’s plays or my beloved Balzac. As I discovered who I was, a black teenager in a white-dominated world, I saw that these characters, these lives, were not mine. I didn’t want to become the “black” representative, or some shining example of diversity. What I wanted, needed really, was to become an integral and valued part of the mosaic that I saw around me.
Books did not become my enemies. They were more like friends with whom I no longer felt comfortable. I stopped reading. I stopped going to school. On my 17th birthday, I joined the Army. In retrospect I see that I had lost the potential person I would become — an odd idea that I could not have articulated at the time, but that seems so clear today.
My post-Army days became dreadful, a drunken stumble through life, with me holding on just enough to survive. Fueled by the shortest and most meaningful conversation I had ever had in a school hallway, with the one English teacher in my high school, Stuyvesant, who knew I was going to drop out, I began to write short columns for a local tabloid, and racy stories for men’s magazines. Seeing my name in print helped. A little.
Then I read a story by James Baldwin: “Sonny’s Blues.” I didn’t love the story, but I was lifted by it, for it took place in Harlem, and it was a story concerned with black people like those I knew. By humanizing the people who were like me, Baldwin’s story also humanized me. The story gave me a permission that I didn’t know I needed, the permission to write about my own landscape, my own map.
During my only meeting with Baldwin, at City College, I blurted out to him what his story had done for me. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said. “I had to leave Harlem and the United States to search for who I was. Isn’t that a shame?”
When I left Baldwin that day I felt elated that I had met a writer I had so admired, and that we had had a shared experience. But later I realized how much more meaningful it would have been to have known Baldwin’s story at 15, or at 14. Perhaps even younger, before I had started my subconscious quest for identity.
TODAY I am a writer, but I also see myself as something of a landscape artist. I paint pictures of scenes for inner-city youth that are familiar, and I people the scenes with brothers and aunts and friends they all have met. Thousands of young people have come to me saying that they love my books for some reason or the other, but I strongly suspect that what they have found in my pages is the same thing I found in “Sonny’s Blues.” They have been struck by the recognition of themselves in the story, a validation of their existence as human beings, an acknowledgment of their value by someone who understands who they are. It is the shock of recognition at its highest level.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/opinion/sunday/where-are-the-people-of-color-in-childrens-books.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=1
We write our own stories and publish them. That’s where people of color in children books LIVE.
is it mean of me not to really give two shyts about what’s going on in the Ukraine?
Not our problem.
Not our business.
ALL.OF.THIS. PHUCK PUTIN.
MN- this is what happens when white folks are NOT informed about REAL AMERICAN HISTORY
St. Paul- Rep. Pat Garofalo (R-Farmington) gave the following statement in response to his comments Sunday evening.
“In the last 24 hours, I’ve had the opportunity to re-learn one of life’s lessons: whenever any of us are offering opinions, it is best to refer to people as individuals as opposed to groups. Last night, I publicly commented on the NBA and I sincerely apologize to those who I unfairly categorized. The NBA has many examples of players and owners who are role models for our communities and for our country. Those individuals did not deserve that criticism and I apologize. In addition, it’s been brought to my attention that I was mistaken and the NBA policy on drug enforcement is stronger than I previously believed. Again, I offer my sincere apologies for my comments,” stated Rep. Garofalo.
Ukraine, Russia agree short truce as Crimea referendum gets under way
KIEV/SIMFEROPOL, UKRAINE – The Ukrainian and Russian Defence ministries have agreed on a truce in Crimea until March 21, Ukraine’s acting defence minister said Sunday.
“An agreement has been reached with (Russia’s) Black Sea Fleet and the Russian Defence Ministry on a truce in Crimea until March 21,” Ihor Tenyukh told journalists on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting. “No measures will be taken against our military facilities in Crimea during that time. Our military sites are therefore proceeding with a replenishment of reserves.”
Crimeans voted in a referendum Sunday on whether to break away from Ukraine and join Russia, with Kiev accusing Moscow of rapidly building up its armed forces on the peninsula in “crude violation” of an international treaty.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/03/16/world/ukraine-russia-agree-short-truce-as-crimea-referendum-gets-under-way/#.UyXKxT9dXSZ
Repost & TOUCHE!
GAME, BLOUSES, BITCHES!
Model Sues Playboy for Letting Golfer Drive Ball Off Her Butt
by Matt Wilstein | 5:23 pm, March 15th, 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZrxmZcSKgvY
SMGDH
Top of the morning….
“….Republican Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says he won’t allow it to come up because a majority of Republicans don’t support it.”
In other words……”let ’em die, those poor fuckers” Why is it everything even remotely beneficial runs up against a Republican Wall, then they blame the masses as freeloaders. I’m bettin’ if any of them are in a bad car crash, and the 1st responders are not lily white dudes wearing anti – O’bama buttons, they ain’t bitching about anything from that point.
Maybe the 1st responders should have a short questionnaire that goes something like….
A) What Political party do you belong to
B) Are you an NRA member
C) Do you support Fogen in any way, shape or form
D) Did Michael Duuuhhnn receive Justice
E) Do you believe the South will rise again
F) Finish this sentence “Attorney Benjamin Crump is………….”
6 easy questions……and ask them while still holding any first aid pieces needed, but before use of said pieces. Yep…..we’ll weed them out.
Good morning, Racer!
Good questions!
Hi Racer. These questions would weed out a MAJORITY white male first responders. PERIOD
I said it before and I’ll say it again. I should be the one who interviews Fogen and his brother, and Taaffe would leave crying.
Kelis Tells PETA to Kick Rocks: “Minks and Chinchilla are Rodents Anyway.”
Posted on January 14th, 2010 – By Bossip Staff
Categories: Kelis, News, Pure Comedy, Twitter Files
– See more at: http://bossip.com/203488/kelis-tells-peta-to-kick-rocks-minks-and-chinchilla-are-rodents-anyway/#sthash.m7Tsz8Mp.dpuf
Short: Kiss my BLACK ASS & Throw paint on my mink/fur, I’m kickin’ you ASS.
From
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2014/03/15/3006197/georgia-setting-standard-on-teaching.html
2014 Grades for Civil Rights Coverage in the United States
South Carolina – A – 97%
Louisiana – A – 96%
Georgia – A – 85%
Maryland – B – 78%
North Carolina – B – 75%
Alabama – B – 74%
Virginia – B – 70%
Oklahoma – B – 70%
California – B – 68%
New York – B – 65%
Florida – B – 60%
Tennessee – C – 56%
Kansas – C – 53%
Mississippi – C -52%
Arkansas – C – 50%
West Virginia – C – 49%
District of Columbia – C – 41%
Arizona – D- 39%
Pennsylvania – D – 37%
Utah – D – 33%
Washington – D -32%
Delaware – D – 30%
Illinois – D – 30%
Massachusetts – D – 28%
Ohio – D – 27%
Minnesota – D – 26%
New Mexico – D – 26%
Texas – D – 26%
Colorado – D -23%
New Jersey – D – 21%
Rhode Island – D – 21%
Indiana – F – 15%
Michigan -F – 15%
Missouri – F – 14%
Montana – F -13%
Hawaii – F – 11%
Kentucky – F -10%
Nebraska – F -10%
Wisconsin – F – 10%
Connecticut – F – 8%
New Hampshire – F -8%
Idaho – F -4%
Nevada – F -4%
North Dakota -F – 4%
South Dakota – F- 4%
Vermont – F -4%
Alaska – F – 0%
Iowa – F – 0%
Maine – F – 0%
Oregon – F – 0%
Wyoming – F – 0%
Source: Southern Poverty Law Center Teaching the Movement 2014 Report.
These grades don’t surprise me at all. The racial demographics says it all.
Texas – D – 26%?
At least it’s not a 0%, SG2. Our children aren’t receiving the truth about their history. It’s up to parents and other family members to SCHOOL them.
Also, these DISMAL stats are indicative of this sense of white entitlement in this country. If folks were really SCHOOLED about the Civil Rights Movement, they’d know what struggling and fighting for one’s basic RIGHTS really means.
December 12, 2013
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-12-12/news/ct-curriculum-african-american-met-20131212_1_ceo-barbara-byrd-bennett-cps-curriculum
Way past time. Enough of this DUMBING DOWN of our youth.
Paul Ryan’s Irish Amnesia
MARCH 15, 2014
IN advance of St. Patrick’s Day, I went time traveling, back to the 1840s and Ireland’s great famine. On one side of the Irish Sea was Victorian England, flush with the pomp and prosperity of the world’s mightiest empire. On the other side were skeletal people, dying en masse, the hollow-bellied children scrounging for nettles and blackberries.
A great debate raged in London: Would it be wrong to feed the starving Irish with free food, thereby setting up a “culture of dependency”? Certainly England’s man in charge of easing the famine, Sir Charles Trevelyan, thought so. “Dependence on charity,” he declared, “is not to be made an agreeable mode of life.”
And there I ran into Paul Ryan. His great-great-grandfather had fled to America. But the Republican congressman was very much in evidence, wagging his finger at the famished. His oft-stated “culture of dependency” is a safety net that becomes a lazy-day hammock. But it was also England’s excuse for lethal negligence.
There is no comparison, of course, between the de facto genocide that resulted from British policy, and conservative criticism of modern American poverty programs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/opinion/sunday/paul-ryans-irish-amnesia.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=1
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE GOP’S POLICIES.
How The Bush Family Dynasty Became America’s First Family Of Finance
Lucas Kawa
Feb. 28, 2014, 11:18 AM
America doesn’t have many political dynasties as powerful and well known as the Bush Family. Their success is an effort that takes money, power, and all of the right connections — some of which comes from a history on Wall Street.
Bushes have served in both the executive and legislative branches of our federal government. The family provided a pair of Presidents — the 41st and 43rd — and have held two state governorships.
And because of George W. Bush’s close ties to Texas and connections with the oil industry, the Bush family is often perceived as a bunch of oil tycoons.
In reality, however, the oil industry is just one of many in which the Bush family displayed their financial expertise. The family tradition, which continues to this day, was founded upon the pursuit of riches through investment banking and wartime business ventures.
This is why the family has had a hand in businesses from Halliburton to Merrill Lynch, and also has a history of owning major league sports teams.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-bushes–a-wall-street-dynasty-2014-2?op=1#ixzz2w88rv0ZO
WI Senate GOP leader stalling bill that would make cancer drugs more affordable
March 14, 2014 11:15 am • SCOTT BAUER | Associated Press
There are enough votes in the state Senate to pass a bipartisan bill that would make cancer drugs more affordable, but Republican Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says he won’t allow it to come up because a majority of Republicans don’t support it.
Fitzgerald commented when asked about an unusual procedural move that prevented any senator, Republican or Democrat, from attempting to force a vote on the measure.
http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/senate-gop-leader-stalling-bill-that-would-make-cancer-drugs/article_7e619e60-ad0a-54dc-affc-e5fc8eb77bf2.html#ixzz2w7qpYCiH
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, rikyrah and Everyone :)
Good Morning, Ladies & Everyone! :-)
Good morning, everyone!
Bacon, eggs, grits, biscuits, jelly & hot black coffee. mmmmm…
Sounds wonderful, SG2!
I am right now eating a spicy black bean veggie burger for breakfast :)
:)
Enjoy it.
Bacon…..sure….rub it in !!
I love crispy bacon. I could eat the whole package myself. :)
I wanna come for breakfast!!!
Be my guest! Come on and enjoy a little southern hospitality!