Filed under: Don't Drop The Soap, Drive-By Activism, Frivolous Lawsuits, Get Money, Go Sit Down, Knee-Grow Please, The Evil That Men Do, What A DoucheBag
I’ll be completely and totally honest with you here. I really do not know what to make of this story from my home state.
Since three former Duke Lacrosse players were declared innocent of rape and assault charges, the alleged victim in the highly publicized Duke Lacrosse case has remained out of public view until now.In a press release, Crystal Mangum’s manager has announced plans to release a tell-all memoir entitled “The Last Dance for Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story.”
According to the book’s co-author Vincent Clark, the book will be released in October.
“It is “the only definitive account of the life and struggles of the woman at the center of the Duke Lacrosse case, the alleged accuser,” said Clark in a press release. ” Were it not for the Duke Lacrosse Case, she likely would be described as a bright, young woman from Durham, North Carolina, who has had a difficult life.”
Mangum plans to donate $1 from each book sold to help battered women. Former Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong was disbarred and jailed following the collapse of the Duke Lacrosse Case. Nifong is among several defendants named in at least three federal lawsuits stemming from the case.
Mangum is accused of falsely accusing David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann of raping and beating her at a team party in March 2006. After a review by the State Attorney General’s Office, all charges were dismissed.
As I stated last year when the Duke Lax kids were cleared of all charges, nobody should have to suffer through what they experienced. I could only imagine the fear of being accused of something so heinous as rape, knowing you did nothing of the sort. The guys have been exonerated, but I will personally remember all three of their names for the rest of my life. That’s an unfair scar for anyone to have to carry. I don’t really agree with their pending $30M lawsuit against the cash-strapped city of Durham, but I guess I understand.
Then again, the real villain here isn’t Mangum, who reportedly suffers from some sort of mental illness, but disgraced District Attorney Mike Nifong, who actually did some time as a result of his lazy and opportunistic job of handling this case. He never even bothered talking with Mangum in the first place, and instead saw a way of manipulating the Black community in Durham to his advantage. Why he was so dumb that he thought white folks with money wouldn’t lawyer up and “beat them charges like Rocky“[1] is beyond me. Nifong has since been disbarred, was sued by the Lax players, filed for bankruptcy, and is now working at the Sizzler off I-540 near RDU airport. No, really, I saw him there a few weeks ago and he ruined my baked potato (no sour cream, you idiot!). He’s a douchebag par excellence, and he got what he had coming.
I don’t really know how to feel about Mangum writing this book though. If she was indeed experiencing some mental issues during the time of the allegations, you can’t totally write her off as ruining those players lives, especially when the people (namely Nifong) who could have short circuited this whole thing didn’t do their jobs. The book is supposedly about her life, not necessarily the Duke case, thus I suppose it’s fair for her to write a book and profit from it. She says some proceeds are going to charity, which is always an iffy proposition, but to each her own. On the flipside, wouldn’t any proceeds made from this book be fair game for the Duke Lax kids in a civil case? I’m sure my armchair attorneys in AverageNation™ will break this one down for me.
Question: Should Crystal Mangum be allowed to write a book that profits indirectly from the misfortune of others? Are the Duke Lax kids entitled to some of those proceeds?
Duke LAX accuser pens memoir [ABC 11 News]
[1] Yeah, I know. For a guy who supposedly doesn’t care much for Jay-Z, I sure quote him a lot. Spare the comments, please.
Filed under: Frivolous Lawsuits, Grand Hu$tle, That Sh*t Is Racist, The Evil That Men Do, White Men Gone Wild
You guys know how much I hate overly quoting a news source, but sometimes the story is so bewildering, I can’t help myself.
I’m trying to figure out who the biggest d-bag in this equation is: the moron who makes the shirts, or the moron who spends $70 on said shirt and catches a massive beatdown?
When a 25-year-old Manhattan graduate student who was assaulted Tuesday night got dressed that morning, she probably didn’t anticipate that her T-shirt would provoke four teens into shoving her, pulling out her earphones and spitting in her face.The ugly incident over the ugly shirt took place at 8:30 p.m. in Union Square, Braun told Metro, when four African-American female teenagers accosted the student, cursed at her for her shirt and pushed her. According to the designer, the student walked away, but the girls followed her, one pulling the earphones out of her ears, another spitting in her face.
Then again, with a shirt sporting the slogan, “Obama is my slave,” it may have been wise to consider the possibility.
Now she’s suing the $69 shirt’s designer, Apollo Braun, for “all he’s got,” the designer claims.
But the Israeli-born Braun — born Doron Braunshtein — says what allegedly happened to his now-disgruntled customer isn’t his fault — and that his outrageous design reflects not his views but those of “ordinary WASPs.”
“For a lot of people, when they see Obama, they see a slave. People think America is not ready for a black president,” Braun told Metro from his five-year-old Orchard Street boutique.
Braun claims that after the customer — who did not return repeated calls from Metro — threatened to sue, he contacted his own lawyer, who assured him he was shielded by the First Amendment from any legal action.
This isn’t Braun’s first sartorial criticism of the Democratic presidential presumptive nominee. He has also sold shirts with slogans such as “Jews Against Obama,” “Obama = Hitler” and “Who Killed Obama?” — which he claims was so popular, he moved 1,200 pieces.
“I can’t stand Obama,” Braun says, adding that it’s not because the Illinois senator is black. “That’s the only thing I like about him. He opens the door for other minorities.”
“He reminds me of Adolf Hitler,” Braun explained, adding he does not like Obama because “he is a Muslim” — a thoroughly debunked myth.
Braun is certainly entitled to his opinion, this being America and all. So is the student. That’s what the First Amendment is all about, the right to free speech.
On the flipside, just because you’ve got the right to say it (or wear it) doesn’t mean others can’t be offended, and exercise their right to whoop your ass in response. So I don’t feel bad for any of the involved parties. They should all know better.
How ironic.
The lawsuit is another story altogether. The student (whose name is curiously not mentioned in this story – I smell a Grand Hu$tle here) assumed all responsibility for the message conveyed by the shirt when she put it on. The fact that she caught a beatdown as a result is hardly the manufacturers fault.
It’s hardly an exact parallel, but if I wore a Polo shirt to a job interview and didn’t get the gig, could I sue Ralph Lauren? Unlikely.
Peddlers of ignorance like Braun deserve their comeuppance. But reality is, as long as there’s a market full of folks who’ll pay $70 for a t-shirt with a slogan as hateful as Obama = Hitler, Braun’s only a symptom, not the problem itself.
Question: Does the student have a valid lawsuit? Are you offended by this shirt? Do you smell a Grand Hu$tle here, or is it just me?
Obama ‘slave’ shirt sparks lawsuit threat [NY Metro]
[*] Hat tip to AnythingBlack.Net for the link.
Filed under: Frivolous Lawsuits, Grand Hu$tle, That Sh*t Is Racist, The Evil That Men Do, White Men Gone Wild
You guys know how much I hate overly quoting a news source, but sometimes the story is so bewildering, I can’t help myself.
I’m trying to figure out who the biggest d-bag in this equation is: the moron who makes the shirts, or the moron who spends $70 on said shirt and catches a massive beatdown?
When a 25-year-old Manhattan graduate student who was assaulted Tuesday night got dressed that morning, she probably didn’t anticipate that her T-shirt would provoke four teens into shoving her, pulling out her earphones and spitting in her face.The ugly incident over the ugly shirt took place at 8:30 p.m. in Union Square, Braun told Metro, when four African-American female teenagers accosted the student, cursed at her for her shirt and pushed her. According to the designer, the student walked away, but the girls followed her, one pulling the earphones out of her ears, another spitting in her face.
Then again, with a shirt sporting the slogan, “Obama is my slave,” it may have been wise to consider the possibility.
Now she’s suing the $69 shirt’s designer, Apollo Braun, for “all he’s got,” the designer claims.
But the Israeli-born Braun — born Doron Braunshtein — says what allegedly happened to his now-disgruntled customer isn’t his fault — and that his outrageous design reflects not his views but those of “ordinary WASPs.”
“For a lot of people, when they see Obama, they see a slave. People think America is not ready for a black president,” Braun told Metro from his five-year-old Orchard Street boutique.
Braun claims that after the customer — who did not return repeated calls from Metro — threatened to sue, he contacted his own lawyer, who assured him he was shielded by the First Amendment from any legal action.
This isn’t Braun’s first sartorial criticism of the Democratic presidential presumptive nominee. He has also sold shirts with slogans such as “Jews Against Obama,” “Obama = Hitler” and “Who Killed Obama?” — which he claims was so popular, he moved 1,200 pieces.
“I can’t stand Obama,” Braun says, adding that it’s not because the Illinois senator is black. “That’s the only thing I like about him. He opens the door for other minorities.”
“He reminds me of Adolf Hitler,” Braun explained, adding he does not like Obama because “he is a Muslim” — a thoroughly debunked myth.
Braun is certainly entitled to his opinion, this being America and all. So is the student. That’s what the First Amendment is all about, the right to free speech.
On the flipside, just because you’ve got the right to say it (or wear it) doesn’t mean others can’t be offended, and exercise their right to whoop your ass in response. So I don’t feel bad for any of the involved parties. They should all know better.
How ironic.
The lawsuit is another story altogether. The student (whose name is curiously not mentioned in this story – I smell a Grand Hu$tle here) assumed all responsibility for the message conveyed by the shirt when she put it on. The fact that she caught a beatdown as a result is hardly the manufacturers fault.
It’s hardly an exact parallel, but if I wore a Polo shirt to a job interview and didn’t get the gig, could I sue Ralph Lauren? Unlikely.
Peddlers of ignorance like Braun deserve their comeuppance. But reality is, as long as there’s a market full of folks who’ll pay $70 for a t-shirt with a slogan as hateful as Obama = Hitler, Braun’s only a symptom, not the problem itself.
Question: Does the student have a valid lawsuit? Are you offended by this shirt? Do you smell a Grand Hu$tle here, or is it just me?
Obama ‘slave’ shirt sparks lawsuit threat [NY Metro]
[*] Hat tip to AnythingBlack.Net for the link.
Filed under: Barry 4 Prez, Drive-By Activism, Frivolous Lawsuits, PoliTricks as Usual, That Sh*t Is Racist, You Must Learn
Lifelong North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms quietly went to the Good Ole’ Boy’s Club in the sky this past weekend. While I’m always respectful of the departed, I have to admit I didn’t really shed any tears for ole’ Jesse. Growing up in the Tarheel state, I’m intimately familiar with his flavor of bigotry and stark racial politricks. He used the whole “Negroes are evil and not to be trusted” style of campaigning his forefathers like Ben Tillman and Strom Thurmond perfected to play on the hidden sentiments of many Southerners.
While Helms list of political sins is lengthy, perhaps no incident personifies this tactic more than his infamous “hands” anti-affirmative action ad employed to deep-six the Senatorial aspirations of his black opponent, Harvey Gantt back in 1990. You know it, you’ve seen it, but here it is just in case.
Yep, he went all the way there. And he did it because he knew it would work. And it did, as he barely squeaked by his African American opponent. You could argue that the subliminal undertones of this ad delivered the margin of victory.
And you wonder why I have no love for CNN’s Alex Castellanos.[1]
18 years later, with ole’ Jesse 6 feet under, I’m suddenly thinking about affirmative action yet again. While there’s lots of talk about the war and the economy, one seldom discussed undertone of this year’s Presidential campaign is the likelihood that as many as three Supreme Court judges could retire in the next term. Since those likely to retire lean somewhat liberal, it’s a given that John McCain would replace these guys with staunch Conservatives, upsetting the relative judicial balance that currently exists. Abortion would be dealt with. Gay rights too. And somewhere on that checklist would certainly be the issue of affirmative action, which McCain (in a quite flipflop from his position as recently as 2000) would look to eliminate altogether.
I’m sure many anti-affirmative action proponents would tell you that Barack Obama’s thus-far successful run for Prez would signal the fact that affirmative action is no longer needed. And on some level, they just might have a point.
But I beg to differ. For the average non-Rockstar Negro™ seeking a job, reality is that a need for structured government programs to ensure equality in hiring is still very necessary. Just google the term ‘racial employment discrimination’ if you need a refresher. It’s not exactly 1960, but we haven’t come as far as the Obama campaign might like you to think.
I’m not going to do too far off the deep end about my Day Job[2], but let’s just say I know a thing or two about which I speak. To wit, I was an affirmative action hire. I have no problems putting this out there. There is no shame attached to this. No lasting stigma. Reality is, my school wasn’t a huge recruiting target until some pressure was put on the company to start looking for minorities. I was hired in such a program, along with many others from my Negro College HBCU. And over time, each and every one of us has continued to ascend the corporate ladder. There was no weak link in the bunch. Everyone was fully qualified. Nobody was hired simply because they were black. We’ve all panned out, probably well beyond what anyone at this company could have imagined. We just needed a chance.
Affirmative action opened that door. Our personal competency kept us inside.
Again, I’m not trying to throw too much out there, but I think the need still exists, at least in subjective terms like employment. For more objective areas like education, particularly issues like admission, the area’s a bit grayer. I will concede that much.
Either way, this is yet another reason why I’ll vote for Obama. He acknowledges that his own children shouldn’t benefit from affirmative action, by virtue of their socioeconomic status. Yet it shouldn’t be done away with because of the issues of bias that still exist. I couldn’t have said this better, although you might argue that I just did.
I’m sure Jesse wouldn’t agree, but then again, what can he do about it now?
Question: Do you think affirmative action is still a necessary evil? Are there some things about AA that should perhaps be adjusted to fit the times?
Affirmative Action, Another Possible US Presidential Debate Topic? [Digital Journal]
Helms was ahead of campaign curve [Politico]
[1] He was the mastermind behind this ad, just in case you were wondering. Lee Atwater was smiling inside.
[2] Because I’ve got a mortgage and 529 plan to worry about.
Filed under: AvBro NewsBriefs, Drive-By Activism, Frivolous Lawsuits, Raise Your Own Damn Kids
All the news that’s fit to print, but not worthy of it’s own post.
Well, it’s Q4, which means the Day Job is cracking the massas’s whip having us chase that paper double-time to reach those EOY targets. This of course means I’m gonna have to keep the blog entries short and sweet for awhile, since my wife wants that new iPod for Christmas, and you know where money doesn’t grow.
Anyways, some stuff that caught my eye.
Jena Six Slapped With Lawsuit
Hmmm, just when you thought Mychal Bell was out of trouble after taking that guilty plea the other day, the bad news just keeps on comin’.
The family of the victim in the “Jena Six” case has sued the adults accused of beating him, the families of the juveniles allegedly involved and the board of the school where the attack occurred.Justin Barker and his parents, David and Kelli, also accuse a seventh, uncharged student of being part of the group that attacked Justin on Dec. 4, 2006, as he walked out of Jena High School’s gym headed to another class.
Barker spent several hours in the emergency room after the attack but was discharged and attended a school event the night after the attack.
The lawsuit was filed Nov. 29 in state district court. It alleges that the LaSalle Parish School Board is liable because school employees were not adequately supervising students and failed to maintain discipline.
Let’s be honest here, the Barker family is not suing the Jena 6. Lord knows, even beyond the money some of these idiots are flossin’ on MySpace and BET, these kids and their families don’t have two nickels to rub together. This is all about trying to extort the county school board, which I think is pretty darned heinous when you think about it.
Still, I can’t help but wonder how much that MySpace fiasco might have agitated the Barkers to the point that they wanted their own money. If we see Justin Barker on Facebook covered in dollar bills, or on the CMT Awards next year, we really shouldn’t be all that surprised.
Sperm Donor Sued For Back Child Support
Boy, talk about ungrateful recipients. This one takes the cake.
A sperm donor may have to pay child support after the mother’s lawyer argued that the man has sent birthday cards and otherwise acted like a father to the teenage child, the donor’s lawyer said.
A Nassau County Family Court judge recently blocked the man from seeking a paternity test. The man’s lawyer, Deborah Kelly, says the Nov. 16 ruling sets the stage for a magistrate to determine how much her client may owe in support. The parties in the case are listed anonymously.
The man, a doctor, donated sperm to a hospital resident and her female partner in the late 1980s. The child was born in July 1989.
The donor and the women agreed verbally that he wouldn’t have any rights in the child’s upbringing, according to court documents. But he allowed his name to appear on the child’s birth certificate because he felt it was in the child’s best interests to have “an identity,” court documents say.
But Kelly said her client’s gestures of goodwill were being unfairly used against him.
“What’s the saying? No good deed goes unpunished,” she said.
I know I usually side with men when it comes to issues of child support, so you could already color me biased, but this is just friggin’ ridiculous. Granted, the donor probably didn’t do the right thing by continually showering the kid with money, gifts, and letters all marked “Dad”. He also probably shouldn’t have maintained a relationship with the kid by phone. I guess the guy just couldn’t help himself.
Still, how gully is it for the chicks to now ask this poor guy for years and years of back child support? I mean, really, he helped these women obtain the ultimate gift: life. I am guessing this is probably more of a personal beef because the women just wanted this guy to give his specimen and get lost, while he’s probably had second thoughts and tried to maintain a distant relationship with the kid.
That said, if these women can take him to court for child support, couldn’t he also sue for custody? Perhaps I’m way off after just shoveling a crapload of snow off my driveway, but that seems pretty fair to me.
I invite my resident attorneys to weigh in on both of these seemingly frivolous lawsuits in the comments.
Hot Links:
Victim in Jena 6 Case Sues Over Beating [ABC News]
Mychal Bell Of Jena Six To Remain In Jail As Part Of Plea Deal: Report [MTV]
Sperm Donor ‘Dad’ Must Pay Child Support [ABC News]
Filed under: Don't Drop The Soap, Frivolous Lawsuits, Nigga Nonsense, TeeVee Sux
[We Watch, So You Don't Have To. And Because You Asked.]
Ok, so I promised after last week’s skewering of NBC News’ godawful African American Women: Where They Stand series that I’d stop watching the final segments, and wouldn’t waste anymore bandwidth on this issue. Two problems however: 1) Hits were through the roof last week. 2) You guys asked me to. Who am I disappoint my loyal readers?
[Editor's Side Note: if you're a fellow blogger and have stolen my "black women, it sucks to be you" tagline, be sure to give me credit at least. Respect the architect.]
The final couple of segments were by-the-numbers and hardly enlightening. There was the bland and non insightful look into the power of the black female vote in South Carolina Friday. Apparently, NBC knows no better source of black intelligentsia than the beauty shop, so many of the viewpoints on this segment were shown from customers there. Note to Mainstream Media: despite whatever message Hollywood has given you about the importance of the black barber/beauty shop as the epicenter of black thought, I can reassure you, no substantive discussion has EVAR occurred there. Period. Unless you count T-Mac vs Kobe, and “how good was that bootleg” as serious critical examinations of the state of black America. Heck, I was there yesterday getting my Ceasar, so I can vouch for this. Conspiracy theories about the death of Sean Taylor? Check. The new Jay-Z album? Check. “The State of Black America”? Uhhm, not so much.
So, can we please kill the “beauty shop soundbytes tell the heart of Black America B.S.” for the last time?
Anyways, they figuratively saved the best for last and ran a tired assed story about interracial dating, specifically how many black women are now turning to white guys because they’re ostensibly so tired of black men not being about idd’ish. Cue the Something New clip, and more sobering statistics. Interestingly enough, the story centered around a black woman who had admittedly always dated white guys, which I thought more or less killed the alleged premise of the episode, since she probably never exactly “crossed over”. But then again, it was the expected ending for a week of lazy assed reporting.
Love breaking racial barriers [NBC News Video]
If you’re really a glutton for punishment, there’s some additional segments on NBC’s series website, including an unintentionally hilarious bit about Black women in hip hop, starring Irv Gotti and Melyssa Ford.
My lasting impression of this series is that it was half-assed journalism at its worst. The stories were one-sided, sensationalized, and worst of all, classcist. All the segments seemed to conveniently focus on the professional black female perspective, but when men where critiqued, is was us as a whole. Why not explore some of the issues that lower classed black women have with dating, healthcare, politricks, and the workplace? I guess NBC was more interested in putting its best foot forward. It should have put its best foot somewhere else. But I’m sure last week’s rating were through the roof with all the added notoriety, so let’s not forget the obvious here: TV is all about ratings. Not objectivity. Not correctly reporting the facts. Not presenting all facets of a story. Nope.
It’s all about the Nielsens baby.
I sure hope Raheema Ellis enjoys that Christmas bonus.
Curiously enough, since I left the Tivo Season Pass on for NBC Nightly News, I saw that there was yet another episode recording last night. And lo and behold, even though the Where They Stand Series is technically over, NBC couldn’t resist throwing one more lick of salt in the proverbial black woman’s wound by running a somewhat old story about a stripper turned CEO here in DC who bilked thousands out of their homes in an elaborate refinancing scheme.
Vulnerable homeowners target of scams [NBC News Video]
NBC’s story was decent, but I liked the story the first time I heard it, months ago in the Washington Post.
Joy Jenise Jackson glided down the aisle of the Mayflower Hotel ballroom wearing her handmade oriental silk wedding gown and tiara with Swarovski crystal rhinestones. Trailing her was a 42-foot train, it, too, adorned with bling.The June 2006 reception was equally glitzy, captured, like the wedding, on video. Patti LaBelle serenaded Jackson, 39, a former exotic dancer turned mortgage broker, and her groom, Kurt Fordham, 38. Later, the video shows the couple and their 360 guests sipping Moet and Cristal champagne and dining on lobster and shrimp fried rice, followed by four wedding cakes. As gifts, the couple gave one of their attendants a Porsche, another a house, and a third a $10,000 check, wedding guests said.
The price tag for the nuptials, Jackson told friends, was nearly $800,000.
It was a fairy tale wedding born of a booming real estate market. But even as Jackson was basking in her platinum wedding, her dreams and those of hundreds of homeowners in the Washington area were crumbling around them — just like the market.
Investigators and attorneys say it appears that Jackson paid for her wedding and her lavish lifestyle, in part, with money from an elaborate foreclosure rescue business she operated out of her Lanham-based Metropolitan Money Store Corp.
Last month, a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of homeowners who say they have collectively lost as much as $60 million in home equity through her business.
While NBC’s story really couldn’t capture the Ghetto-Fabulousness that is Joy Jackson and the Metropolitan Money Store quite like the August story in the Post (a must-read), I couldn’t help but notice the strange juxtaposition of the stories.
After a week of stories that mostly reflected well on the black woman (albeit at the expense of black men), I couldn’t help but wonder just who thought it was a good idea to run this completely negative story to cap things off? I mean, this story isn’t by any means new, there haven’t been any new developments since it broke last Summer. There’s a really good chance that the segment NBC News aired was actually old. So, again, I ask, what’s up with the timing?
Black women, if you had any doubt, whatsoever, NBC really didn’t give an idd’ish about where you stand.
Prince George’s Fairy Tale Unravels For Woman at Center of Fraud Probe [WaPost]
Filed under: Drive-By Activism, Frivolous Lawsuits, Get Money, Judge Joe Brown Says : "DO BETTER.", Nigga Nonsense
[No, that's not Snoop Dogg on roids']
Party like it’s 1991!!!
Television cameras swarmed the house of Rodney King Thursday after an incident Wednesday night in which he told authorities that he was riding his bicycle after 11 p.m. in a dicey area near the border of San Bernardino and Rialto and was sprayed with pellets from a shotgun.He reportedly pedaled his bike for roughly a mile to his Jackson Street home in Rialto before calling police and heading to the hospital in an ambulance.
Rialto police, who were the first to respond, said King was intoxicated when they arrived and that it was difficult to decipher what had happened.
In interviews with investigators who visited him Thursday afternoon at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, King reported that a man and a woman approached him and demanded his bicycle.
When he rode away, King told investigators, someone sprayed his shoulder with pellets from a shotgun. King had pellet wounds on his face, arm and back, Paterson said.
What else can you really say about this? It seems like that $4M settlement he got for his inconvenience is long since gone. Dude started out in a Hyundai, and now is back to pushin’ a Schwin.
Talk about hustlin’ backwards.
Getting jacked for a bicycle? Who the hell gets caught up like that? This sounds like a deleted scene from Friday.
Rodney King didn’t just write the forward for The Trent Benefield Book Of No Longer Sympathetic Victims, he published it.
Peep Rodney’s rap sheet (literally) since he hit that $3.8M lick’:
* In May 1991, he was arrested on suspicion of trying to run over a vice officer who allegedly found him with a transvestite prostitute in Hollywood, but no charges were filed.* In 1993, King entered an alcohol rehabilitation program and was placed on probation after crashing his vehicle into a block wall in downtown Los Angeles with a blood-alcohol level twice the legal limit.
* In July 1995, he was arrested by Alhambra police, who alleged that he hit his wife with his car, knocking her to the ground. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail after being convicted of hit-and-run.
* In 1999, he was sentenced to 90 days in San Bernardino County jail and put on probation for four years after a domestic dispute involving one of his daughters and her mother. He was required to attend a batterer’s treatment program and a child-abuse program, according to court records.
* In 2001, King was ordered to attend a yearlong drug treatment program after he was arrested for indecent exposure and being under the influence of PCP at Ganesha Park in Pomona.
* In April 2003, Rialto police watched him weave through traffic in his Ford Expedition at more than 100 mph before plowing through a fence and into a San Bernardino house. He pleaded guilty to being under the influence of PCP and was sentenced to a six-month drug rehabilitation program followed by a 120-day jail sentence.
* That October, Rialto police arrested King on suspicion of punching his girlfriend in the stomach.
Curiously not mentioned: his mercifully short lived rap career.
Note to Trent Benefield, Genarlow Wilson, Bryant Purvis, Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Marcus Dixon, and Co.: Look. Listen. Learn.
Rodney King is shot while riding his bike [LA Times]
Maybe I should lay off the NAACP after all. I’ve repeatedly bashed this old guard outfit without even bothering to see what they’re claiming to be about nowadays. Turns out even their own mission statement says they’re by nature a reactive organization.
Our Mission: Ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.
I had to navigate their very cryptically organized website, complete with lots of dead and recursive (pages that link to themselves) links, but there it was.
That said, maybe I should give them a pass. Despite whatever they might have done back in the days, they’re pretty adamantly stating that their job is not to raise your child, but if he gets busted breaking in someone’s house, don’t hesitate to give them a ring. I’ll have to file that one away in the mental Rolodex.
If you’re an NAACP member (and I don’t mean 20 years ago, I mean now) and would like to defend the merits of this venerable organization, you know what to do and where to do it.
Also found on their website: a rather cryptic petition to boycott Target.
For the third year in a row, Target has refused to participate in the NAACP’s annual survey on the state of diversity in corporate America, making them the largest retailer to refuse to answer questions about their company’s diversity practices.Last week, thousands of NAACP supporters like you helped send a clear message to Target that economic opportunity for African Americans must be a priority.
Now, as we enter the holiday shopping season, we need you to help us turn up the heat on Target. We need 100,000 people to sign the petition telling Target to Answer the Question.
Seriously, WTH!??!
Where are black folks s’posed to throw away three months pay on meaningless crap that won’t matter three months from now shop for Christmas? KMart? No thanks. Been there, done that. Not going back.
This looks like another shakedown. I’m sure Target will eventually come out in support of this survey, and subsequently announce they’re establishing a new scholarship or internship program or some such nonsense to get the NAACP off their back. I guess this is good in the grand scheme of things, but there’s probably easier ways of pulling this off.
Mary White Ovington is crying inside.
Filed under: Frivolous Lawsuits, Hollyweird, Judge Joe Brown Says : "DO BETTER.", White Men Gone Wild
Filed under: Frivolous Lawsuits, The Evil That Men Do, White Men Gone Wild
Never let it be said that black institutions have the market cornered on corruption and dysfunction.
One of America’s leading Christian universities has been hit by lurid allegations of sexual and financial misconduct, the latest scandal to engulf the world of televangelism.The president of Oral Roberts University, which sits in the heart of America’s Bible Belt in Oklahoma, is accused of using donors’ money to buy his wife expensive cars, fund private jet trips for his daughter, remodel his home and maintain a stable of horses for his children.
The wife of Richard Roberts is also accused of sending hundreds of text messages to “underage males” who had been provided with university-issued mobile phones, and spending tens of thousands of dollars on clothes with university funds.
Another allegation, contained in a lawsuit filed by three former professors, is that a long-time maintenance man on campus was dismissed so that an underage male friend of Lindsay Roberts, known as the university’s First Lady, could have his job.
Lindsay Roberts frequently had mobile phone bills of more than $800 a month, with hundreds of text messages sent between 1am and 3am to “underage males . . . provided phones at university expense”.
Good lord, talk about a mess! Where’s Chris Hansen when you really need him?
It will be very interesting to see the media spin as this story develops. These kinds of stories usually involve a man (Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard) whose libidinous indiscretions land him in hot water. I can’t really say I remember such a case in which the wife’s conduct was in question.
Most of the coverage I’ve seen of this story thus far seems to center on Richard Roberts defending his right to fire the three professors who exposed his ballin-out-of-control spending habits. The $800 a month phone bill his freaky-deaky wife rang up while text messaging her underaged boy toys? Not so much.
Surely there are cheaper and more discrete ways of doing this sorta thing, especially when you’re a First Lady. Hasn’t this woman heard of MySpace? Skype? Vonage? She could have at least saved the University a lil’ money in the process, no? On Larry King Live she defended these charges by basically pinning them on her daughter, then they both spun this by stating some mumbo jumbo about how they help disadvantaged kids, blah blah blah. Larry didn’t bother pushing the point any further, maybe his diaper was full or something and he was distracted. Whatever.
Basically, it looks like Lindsay Roberts is a pedophile to me. I’m just waiting for the young boys to come out the woodworks any moment now. [||]
Even though the news cycle is desperate for another scandal right about now (thanks Orental), something tells me this story won’t exactly take off. Call me sexist (I’ve been called worse), but a woman allegedly carrying on behind her husband’s back just doesn’t carry the same cache as a man doing the same, even when you mix in the underage element.
Then again, I’ve been wrong before, so we’ll see.
Scandal hits TV preacher’s academy [TimesUK]
