Friday, October 24, 2008

From The Letter B Carved On Her Face
To The Chicken Drumstick On My Table


Readers, this is an experiment. Do it quickly and without thinking about it, or looking in a mirror. Ready?

If you're right handed, with your index finger, draw a capital letter 'B' on your left or opposite cheek.

Remember where the vertical line is. Is it closer to your nose with the loops toward your ears, or the opposite?

If a friend or family member is available, ask them to do this experiment on their own face, then on yours. Remember, no mirror. I tried this on my kids as soon as I saw her below. They hadn't seen the story nor knew why I asked, and their self-drawn 'B's were backwards - just as I suspected they'd be.

I ain't saying this woman in the news reads my blog, or the black blogs and comments where folks of color have been expressing their fears of white mob violence if McCain loses, but this story, if untrue, will appear designed to do the reverse.

Maybe she saw that YouTube video of the young black woman riding a bicycle and run down by hater screaming nigger this and nigger that and all blacks should be killed.

Or maybe she's seen the bad press about the haters at the McCain and Palin rallies, and decided to do a little PR work to make Obama supporters look dangerous since we're such a peaceful and happy lil' rainbow of change seekers.

Or maybe her story is true. But this is what her 'B' looked like on her face:


I mean, really, there could be a dyslexic, 6'4 black man running around in Pittsburgh and guilty of robbing this 20 year old woman of $60 at an ATM, then seeing a McCain sticker on her car, and in a rage, assaulted her and carved the letter 'B' on her cheek. That's what this McCain volunteer alleged happened to her yesterday. Maybe it did.

Or maybe it didn't. I don't how quickly white folks bruise, but a shiner like the one on her eye doesn't look super fresh like the reversed 'B' on her cheek.

It's a fishy story, like the hundreds if not thousands of stories throughout American history where a black men was blamed for committing a crime to cover up the motive or crime by a white person.

Remember the news story of one of McCain's key supporters, Florida Congressman Bob Allen? In July 2007, he was busted in a men's restroom after offering $20 to give a blow job to an undercover black male cop. The reason he gave was his "fear of black men". He was convicted, resigned, but has appealed his case.

If Bob hadn't used the common fear of black folks defense, I'd be sympathetic to him because addiction to anonymous sex, if that's his issue, is a monster that some people really have. No one should ever be in office or work in a helping or teaching profession either if they fear another race. It's just bad for the public good.

Then there's the 1989 case of Boston area resident Charles Stuart, who alleged that a black man abducted and robbed them, then shot his pregnant wife in the head and himself in the stomach while they sat in their car. Boston residents and the country was outraged and called for a reenactment of the death penalty.

Boston cops made life miserable for a number of blacks, especially the man they arrested and his mother whose home they trashed. Stuart identified him a line up, and this poor black man would still be rotting in jail, except that Stuart's brother, Matt identified Stuart as the real killer. The motive? Insurance money. Stuart was on his way to being found guilty when he committed suicide in jail.

Boston's former Mayor, Ray Flynn, who had been and anti-school busing proponent when younger and in the 70s, refused to apologize for the city's actions. The family of Stuart's wife, however, set up a scholarship fund for underprivileged kids in the black area where the murder took place. Now that made me misty-eyed.

Then there was that famous 1994 story I'll never forget. Susan Smith, the South Carolina white woman alleged a black man carjacked her car with her her baby and three year old in it. She kept up this lie for nine torturous days - torture for both whites who became enraged and fearful that a crazy, violent black man was at large and a threat to their community, and blacks for the same reason, plus being distressed by the new low in racial relations. The truth revealed she drowned her children by releasing her car in a lake.

I truly believe there are more good people than bad. The Union City, SC sheriff proved this. He handled Susan Smith with kid gloves. He suspected a lie, and finally got her to confess. She's still doing time, but she never apologized to blacks or whites for worsening the racial divide and stirring up the hate she did with that outrageous lie.

Mob violence, lynchings, and imprisonment, often stemming from false allegations of 'a nigger raped, assaulted, or stole from me' stories are more untold than told. I have no question that many racist perpetrators of crimes have gone unquestioned and free while blacks suffered or died from lies.

How did Smith, Stuart, Allen or others learn to blame blacks for their own behavior? I mean, if they get questioned, or caught for doing wrong and plan to lie, why not simply blame it on someone in their race?

Two answers. One is that a white person may feel guilty about sending another white person to jail based on their lie.

Call it group loyalty or tribalism. Neither is necessarily bad, but when innocent people in another group or tribe is harmed because of it, it is.

The other answer lies in our terrible, terrible history of stereotyping an ethnic group of people exploited and abused for centuries for their free and later, cheap labor, and who were brutally separated from their spouses, family, and also raped.

While we think of black women being the victims of rapes, knowing how the worst of all humanity behaves, we can assume that black children were molested, and male teens and young adults were raped or exploited too since they were utterly defenseless and powerless in filing complaints about it.

For one group to be comfortable with the chronic abuse of another, they have to vilify that group in order to feel justified about their actions. Otherwise they feel guilty for their brutality.

This is sort of the way I rationalized why we ate meat to my daughter when she was very young, after learning it came from animals.

"But the poor chickens! Or pigs, cows or fish! I can't believe we kill them!"

I know pigs are smart and felt a twinge guilt, but I passed the plate and said, "Well, we have to eat, so God made them stupid on purpose so they wouldn't understand or have any feelings about it. For example, chickens are so dumb they'll run around after their heads are cut off."

She giggled and grabbed a drumstick.



This mentality, extended to people belonging other groups, is why these kinds of stories continue. Minorities, as well as the white poor, i.e., the coal miners, have also been treated like chickens in this country for a very long time.

I can't discount the allegations of the McCain supporter because I wasn't there, and so far there's no evidence beyond her statements to prove her story otherwise. The police have some doubts, but she really could be a victim of loony black backlash. If so, she has my condolences.

On the other hand, if she's lying, this is yet another case of white backlash over a more than possible Obama Presidency bringing change to this country.

I find great comfort that over half of white American voters in the polls don't consider us 'chickens', and I personally thank them for embracing Obama and change. For my black brothas and sistahs, group hug time. Most of us, I pray, will get through this. Somehow we always have.



***************************

Update, 10/24/2008 @ 7:30 PM. It was a lie and the plot thickens and the McCain campaign was unethical in promoting this. Keith Olbermann's commentary below; the first part is really interesting.


Hat Tip: Acts of Faith & Love In Life
blog

23 comments:

  1. You can say that again! We always have been and always will be survivors!

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  2. lol, running around with heads cut off...

    looking at the picture, it is obviously fake. as a lefty, looking at a mirror, i could get it right. but that took thought.

    thanks for visiting my site. i'll be adding you to my blogroll, if you don't mind

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  3. I tried this on two coworkers and they got the B backwards. If that woman made up the story, it would be crazy since she looks exactly like the kind of person who would benefit from a President Obama, not a President McCain.

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  4. I feel sorry for any Black guy who even J-walks in the wrong area. Whites have a history of violence when they feel they lost. So like I always say GET UR GUN!

    I agree with your experiment it just seems the opposite way anyone would actually write it. Here we go with the "RoseWood" white lies again. Like I said GET UR GUN!

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  5. Freeman, Glad you liked the post, but IMHO, there's something about carrying a gun that attracts trouble. I say go for a bullet proof vest instead if you travel in hostile areas.

    Shelton, yes, my thoughts too. One site wondered if she'd been beat up by her boyfriend. If so, she'd benefit from some domestic abuse counseling, but everything except defense spending will be frozen under McCain, but expanded under Obama.

    Sista GP, I haven't read that the photo is fake, only questions of whether or not her story is. It will be interesting if she submits to the police department's request for a polygraph test, and more interesting if fixed news publishes the results if she was untruthful.

    And oh, re: blogrolling - of course I don't mind!

    Dom, Thanks, and I pray every night whatever the election results, people don't succumb to violence, but it probably will. Frankly I worry more about people starving to death when this monster Depression hits harder, right here in the USA. More on that another day...

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  6. She's already changing her story.

    She now claims she was "knocked unconscious," and doesn't remember being cut.

    Surveillance video from the bank cameras show she was never at the ATM.

    The "B" is not only backward, it's superficial.

    He's supposedly in a "Rage," and then he gently carves a letter into her face?

    Bullshit.

    The wound would be jagged, and deep.

    The zit on her left cheek looks more serious.

    Also, her black eye is on the left side of her face, which means the person who popped her is right handed. Why would they carve the letter on the other cheek? It would be easier, and more comfortable for a right handed person to do it on the left side.

    One other observation. You're right about the black eye. It looks old. There's no swelling whatsoever.

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  7. Anonymous Brown Man - just messin' with you - read your post today and didn't have time to comment - just surfing a minute ago and now its a hoax - DAMN - I don't even have time to get a post together and the shit is over!

    Good call, Kit (this was my mother's childhood nickname - she liked kitkat candy so much they starting calling her "kitkat" - "kit" stuck - nothing as funny as seeing 70 year olds calling each other by their nicknames.

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  8. Fairlane, thanks for adding your timely observations. I loved your sense of outrage!

    Brown Man, Heh-heh, thanks for that update; hadn't seen it yet. Whew! I'm soooo glad this lie was revealed - it's the kind that can get innocent people hurt and killed.

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  9. What this lady did was very dangerous. It's folks like her that set race relations back.

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  10. Well the latest white woman in peril story has been debunked. And so close to the election. Tsk Tsk. I think the time is coming that more people are going to see through these race baiting tactics as quickly as (some) Black people do. Of course for all this fear of a Black man (President) these white people don't even get the fact that Obama is going to be catering more to them than us just by nature of their numbers.

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  11. Apparently the story is false, in fact I just referenced it over at my blog. What burns me is up that folks could have lost their lives over this bs story.

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  12. Yea, this story is beginning to stink. . . real bad.
    I'm not worried about if McCain loses. I don't think the prole electorate is that motivated.
    I am worried about what I'm going to do and feel if O-Man loses. . . especially after the latest round of malfunctioning voting machines in WV that seemed to always default to the republican candidate.

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  13. That was a funny story about your daughter and the drumstick.

    My pops would have just said:

    "You are going to just be hungry then."

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  14. great post...good test.
    when I first saw that story, and maybe this is the potential criminal in me, but it would be easy to get the B backwards if you knocked someone down and began carving while the person lie in front of you with legs away... as in upside down.

    I was more perplexed as to what a person would use to carve a letter that just scratched but didn't really cut the skin. That was a welt, not a slice.

    Turns out the Pittsburgh police are saying the lady confessed to making it up.

    I have long held that one of the obstacles to interracial healing is our deep running social seperation which leads to some fundamental missinterpretations of the "other" groups actions.

    I would say that the white woman would have no real qualms or guilt over having another white person take the blame... we whites have little to no real loyalty to each other. It would be more likely that a desperate person would both prey on the racist fears of others, as well as try to throw the scent as far away from herself as possible.
    She would also want to blame someone who would be least likely to defend themselves (in the eyes of authority) and the most believable (once again, to a racist white majority).

    What looks like white unity is usually not an affinity or loyalty to each other, but rather the oppression or fear of a common "other".

    To those who fear a great white uprising if Obama wins, remember that black people only make up 12% of the US population. that means for him to win, a whole lotta white folk have to vote for him.

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  15. Kat, Faith, Black Girl In Maine, so very true.

    Sagacious, They haven't fixed those WV voter machines yet? OMG. *shakes head*

    Big Man, *chuckling as I take a bite out of a roast beef & ham sandwich*

    Brohammas, I agree whole heartedly that social separation is a huge problem. You input on motive and throwing the scent as far away from herself as possible makes sense to me.

    Your thoughts of a true lack of white unity except for fear of a "common other" is intriguing and another excellent explanation of why these things happen.

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  16. The heifer is lying. It's sense come out that she is:

    A Republican campaign worker who told police she was assaulted by a man angered by a John McCain sticker on her car admitted she made up the report, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, assistant police chief said Friday.

    So there you have it. Another case of Lying White Woman syndrome.

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  17. "That heifer is lying."

    Ha-ha-ha-ha! JJ, That's the perfect four word post. Love ya!

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  18. Well, well, well, folks, I just saw that the Letter B got locked up.

    YouTube: Race-Baiter Goes To Jail.

    Not surprisingly, she's using the 'history of mental health problems' defense. Gets ya less time.

    Meanwhile the black coopted Pittsburg spokespersons on that clip have assisted her lie by saying "she is" rather than "she claims", and the media is pretending mental illness negates and excuses acts of racism.

    On a positive note, most people are not stupid, and I think more of them will not want to be aligned with those many hateful McCain supporters, his moose-hunting VP. So perhaps this incident was a very good thing.

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  19. Damn that chicken look good!

    *sigh*

    Lemme behave before your white readers think you have a dysfunctional cousin.

    You know the thing about all this?

    This chick had help. There is no way a person can do this all by herself. I can make myself puke, but I damn sure can't give myself a black eye.

    So the question is...

    who helped her?

    I think I have the answer...

    ITS THOSE DAMN DUKE LaCROSSE BOYS!

    Damn straight!

    Those cats were looking for payback. Hell the Duke stripper who accused them is releasing a book, and that made them mad at black people.

    Think about it...

    *giggle*

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  20. I thought it was fishy from the beginning as well. The backwards "B" was my first hint.

    Now that the fear is over and she is revealed to be a liar, I can feel sorry for her. How did she get those bruises? Either someone did that to her (abuse), or she did that to herself (crazy beyond anything I've ever even thought of).

    I also recalled the Susan Smith story. Again, remember the Runaway Bride? She was also "kidnapped" by "black people," just as a cover to her embarrassment. It's so sad that some white folks will always bring out the black boogeyman.

    And on the machines in WV issue, the problem is spreading. From 2 counties, relatively close by, to reports in Martinsburg (a DC suburb area) and Wheeling (about an hour from Pittsburgh). I'm so nervous about this that I will be voting on Monday before I go out of town. And I pity the poor fool that tries to disenfranchise my ass.

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  21. Rippa, Here's a joke I left at another site. Those Lacrosse fellas are actually the bad boys from Lord of the Flies, and Johnny Mac is still their leader.

    Mtn Laurel, Video recording your voting on a cellphone might be a good idea in WV.

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  22. Kit, I intend to. thank heavens for the camera on my phone.

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  23. I was just over on the Faux News page and there are no stories about this dumb a**. I wonder why?

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Hi, this is Kit.

I haven't posted since summer 2010, and comment moderation has been on for a very long time.

My old blogger friends (you know who you are) are welcome to email me.

I can be reached at:
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