unbelievable...

at first i thought this was some sort of a joke, but it's true: some italian guy sees his ex at a bar, drags her to his place and makes her do housework. (!!!) one can only guess as to what could be seen with a glimpse into their relationship window, especially if it revolved so heavily around her ironing his shirts. they need to convict him so he can go to prison and iron and fold laundry for the next 10 years.

the world is a very sexist place. i wonder how often this actually happens. a lot, i imagine -- they're just not telling it.

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Man accused of kidnap to get ironing done

Italian man accused of kidnapping ex-girlfriend to get ironing, dishes done

Reuters

updated 5:32 p.m. ET, Mon., June. 16, 2008

ROME - An Italian man was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend from a pub, taking her home and forcing her to iron his clothes and wash the dishes, police said Monday.

The 43-year-old man dragged the woman out of a pub in the port city of Genoa, shoved her into a car and took her to his home, where he made her iron and wash dishes after threatening her, they said.

Police arrived at his house after being tipped off by a friend of the woman who watched the scene at the pub.

The man, who was apparently furious at his ex-girlfriend for leaving him, was arrested on charges of kidnapping, police said.

Meet the Mandingos

my, my, my. such colorful times we live in.

what someone's sexual fetish is says more about them than just about anything else -- probably because sex isn't something that we learn by group behavior. whatever you're into is you. with sex tourism on the rise, it seems that people everywhere are becoming more open and deliberate about persuing that obscure object of desire. and the love/hate relationship that the world has with black people/black culture need hardly be stressed. with all of this in mind, here's an interesting article that some would hardly consider surprising.

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They're gentlemen in the street, thugs in the bedroom, and your wife's steamiest fantasy.
-By Sanjiv Bhattacharya

Jeff didn't always like black guys. He was prejudiced—he admits it. As one of the few white kids at his school in the southeast of Washington, D.C., he fought a lot with black kids and was occasionally beaten up. When he later ran a string of gas stations, he was robbed: A black guy held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger—but the gun didn't go off.

"Honestly, that experience helped me a lot," he says. "I used to be very conservative. I didn't spend much money. Now I enjoy life. I'm much more open. Especially sexually."

It's a measure of how far he's come that Jeff (not his real name), now 40, is telling me this while we're watching a black guy have sex with his wife, Amber (not her real name), 37, at an interracial orgy. In Jeff's house. On his bed. The man screwing Jeff's wife is Branford (not his real name), a 30-year-old massage therapist who's not holding back—this isn't lovemaking, this is a proper pounding. Forget Amber—that's just how Jeff likes it.

In some ways, Jeff hasn't changed at all—he's the same football jock with small eyes, a wide head, and a big man's shyness; he's still a staunch Republican with a firm handshake and a solid golf game. But after surviving the holdup and two failed marriages, he set off in search of a new life. He moved from D.C. to Clearwater, Florida, where he sells mortgages, not gas. He bought a $700,000 home on a fairway of a country club, where he's yet to see a single black member. And he met Amber, a divorcée with a sag of victimhood on her face. Jeff and Amber have been married for three years and in "the lifestyle"—as swingers like to call it—for two. At one point Amber started talking about black guys. "I wasn't thrilled," says Jeff. "Nope, wasn't a fan." But she persisted, and he decided to go along. "I like seeing Amber get off," he says with a shrug. "It excites the hell out of me. And it's better if they're black. All Amber wants is sex. Black guys get that. And I know that Amber would never date a black man."

Jeff's casual bigotry aside, tonight's orgy is fairly typical. Amber's two boys, 11 and 13, have been shipped off to their grandparents' house, and their rooms have been suitably modified—the posters are off the walls, the clothes have been put away, and the lightbulbs have been changed to red. By 8 p.m., the incense is lit, the Jacuzzi's bubbling, and the DJ is spinning Sean Paul and Jay-Z by the swimming pool. Within an hour or so, the guests—23 white couples and 3 black couples—have arrived, all of them here specifically to have sex with single black men often a decade or two their junior. There are 12 such men in the house tonight. They call themselves Mandingos. And this is a Mandingo party.

In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina fiasco and the killing of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man, by police officers in New York last November, America's relationship with race—notwithstanding the enthusiasm surrounding Barack Obama's bid for the presidency—remains troubled. For the Mandingos, meanwhile, the parties continue. The man who arranged tonight's event, Art Hammer (a name he uses solely for Mandingo parties), started the Florida Mandingo group four years ago, just after his divorce. An enterprising 42-year-old black swinger from Tampa Bay, he has since become the go-to guy when it comes to organizing gang bangs and orgies for couples—the vast majority of whom are white—with a fetish for black men. So it was Hammer who sent the Evites for this "pajamas and lingerie" party and secured the attendance of the guests; it was also Hammer who booked the DJ, paid for the finger food, and brought the "courtesy condoms." Amber and Jeff just had to open their home. An advertising-sales guy by day, Hammer has done a bang-up job of marketing the Mandingos among the swinger set. The name Mandingo comes from Mandinka, a West African tribe that, in the antebellum South, was prized and bred for strength and virility. (Not that Hammer necessarily has Mandinka roots; he has no idea—"I'm Art Hammer," he says. "Not Art Haley.") Mandingo is now a byword for black male sexual prowess. When Hammer established the Florida Mandingos, two other (unaffiliated) groups—the So Cal Mandingos and the NYC Mandingos—were already up and running. Today new groups keep sprouting—in Atlanta, Chicago, Oakland—but Hammer's is the most prominent, the only Mandingo group invited to host a "Chocolate Fantasy Suite" at N'awlins in November, the second-biggest swinger convention in the country.

"The fantasy goes both ways," he explains. "The women get to fuck our guys while their husbands watch, and we get to fuck rich white women, really mutt 'em out. It works! But people in this lifestyle are affluent—I'm talking judges, CEOs, FBI agents, important people—so before they invite a bunch of black men into their homes, they want to know they're safe, they're not going to get robbed, and everyone is discreet. So that's what I provide—a gentleman in the street and a thug in the bedroom."

Hammer's "A-team" comprises 20 of the more than 100 single black men on his books; many of them are here tonight. "They have to have at least eight inches, and most have a college degree. They have to be able to role-play, and most important of all, they have to be gentlemen. It's the difference between Notre Dame, where you're a student-athlete, and the University of Oklahoma, where you're an athlete-student. We don't just take jocks."

Hammer is a model Mandingo, if a little old. Chipper and Ivy League-educated, he was raised on Long Island and served with the Special Forces. Almost half of the Mandingos at the party are ex-military men. There's also an accountant, an engineer, and a software developer, all in their early thirties. The youngest, Charles (not his real name), is 25 and a second-year law student. While they all uphold a strict standard of behavior, their individual opinions of these parties vary widely. Oddly, the crassest among them is the oldest, John, 47 (ex-Air Force, now a software salesman). Ever since his divorce went through in 2003, after some 20 years of marriage, he has been relishing his opportunity to "sling dick" without any responsibility. "Couples, for me, are perfect," he says. "There's no girlfriend-boyfriend shit. You keep her when I'm done—thank you very much. No valentines, no birthday. I'm a pig."

By contrast, Jared (not his real name), 36 (a car and pet-cleaning-equipment salesman who's in the Army Reserve), likes to write poetry and refrains from using words like pussy and fuck. He describes interracial orgies as a "heightening experience," proof that prejudice may be on the wane. "I find the yin and yang of the two colors mixing very erotic," he says. "I believe the world is looking beyond color now more than ever. And people are getting more attractive. Sexier people are having more babies. Look around!"

It's not clear where Jared is looking. These women resemble Kathy Bates more than they do Kathy Ireland. As they hover around the snacks on the kitchen island, the Mandingos mill among them in silk pajamas. And almost instantly, while the women's mild-mannered husbands chat about real estate and the PGA, the games begin. Hands rove from chicken wings to breasts, from chips to hips, from guac to cock. One couple grind by the sink and feed each other meatballs. Husbands and wives start slinking off with their chosen Mandingos. The party has begun its carnal ebb and flow, between nookie in the bedrooms and foreplay in the kitchen.

Hammer himself won't have sex tonight out of principle—the swinger equivalent of "don't get high on your own supply." He's the host here and a diligent one, always circulating and making introductions—he's the one who knows everyone's sexual predilections. Meanwhile, Jeff will manage to squeeze in two brief blow jobs before the night is over. The rest of the time he seems to be cleaning up empties and replacing trash bags. He's an obsessively tidy man—"my OCD husband," Amber calls him affectionately.

"No one's having sex on the sofas," he says, looking pleased. "I left the throw cushions on to encourage people to use the bedrooms—a little something I learned at the last party. Especially because we've got a couple of squirters here tonight. You don't want that on the microfiber. Not good."

Watching the Mandingos in action, one immediately notices two things: that most of them are packing more than eight inches, and that they're better-looking than the women they're pleasuring. Jared, for instance, is a chiseled and muscular six feet, probably the best-looking of the men. His first encounter is a ménage à trois with Maryam (not her real name), a pudding of cellulite, and her chiropractor husband, Rick (not his real name), who's all back fuzz and belly. Rick adopts a lavatorial squat near Maryam's face and thrusts his penis at her. Jared's presence seems like an act of charity, not that he'd say so himself. "No, no, there was attraction," he insists. "They're very nice, polite people. It's an inner attraction."

"Listen, black guys like bigger women because they can tear it up," says Branford, the masseur who had sex with Amber earlier in the evening. "They might look like librarians, but look at them go from room to room, taking double-digit dicks all night. It's awesome." In comparison, he finds that younger, hotter girls are scarcely worth the effort. "They think lightning shoots out of their pussy—'Oh, you want sex, what are you going to give me?' Here you get the soccer mom who's like, 'I just want you to fuck the living shit out of me.' That alone is hot."

Branford is an evangelist for the Mandingos. At the last 70 or so parties, he's brought his table and given free massages. "I make great contacts here," he says. "This gets my name out there; that's why I don't charge." The way he sees it, interracial orgies are the new golf—a way to interact with rich folks. Charles, the law student, also sees the benefits. "When you network with someone, it's because you have something in common. Whether it's golf or tennis or . . . .interracial sex," he says. "I haven't used it to my advantage, but I'm not opposed—I've definitely had sex with lawyers in the past."

According to Charles, both black and white friends he has told are usually intrigued, even impressed, by the Mandingo party scene. Shelby (not his real name), Jared's ripped 29-year-old cousin (ex-Navy, now a firefighter), tells me that those who are repulsed tend to be for sexual rather than racial reasons—men by the thought of having sex around other men, women by the wanton promiscuity. This isn't to say that they chatter about it at the watercooler—most of the Mandingos keep their weekend activities a secret from their co-workers.

But the Mandingos themselves have their own issues with the lifestyle. For example, there's seldom kissing or going down. It's a rule for some—Jared won't kiss or come unless he's with someone "special." Of course, the no-kissing rule is a prostitute's code. Not that the Mandingos get paid for sex—it's against the rules. Each guest at Hammer's parties pays an annual membership—couples pay $30 and Mandingos $75. Everyone pays an additional fee of $30 for each party.

But occasionally the rules are bent. Some Mandingos confessed to receiving tips of $100 and more after private sessions with couples at last year's N'awlins in November swinger convention. Others brag about the vacations they've been taken on. "I've been to Vegas twice, all expenses paid," says John, the software salesman. "The Bahamas, Miami. One couple took me twice. After a while, you feel like a piece of meat. But hey, they're not using me to mow their damn lawn. They're using me to fuck the wife."

Jared, too, for all his idealism, has felt used in the past. Once, when he was with a couple from Sarasota, the husband directed all the action and the woman didn't say a word. "I felt like I was just—excuse my language—'a dick' for his wife," he says. Unfortunately, a similar thing happens tonight—a heavily medicated husband starts belching out commands—and Jared just walks out, leaving the wife frustrated and embarrassed.

Jared believes that, the stereotype of black male potency notwithstanding, the fundamental dynamic in the interracial swing scene—that of black men dominating white women—is fueled by a combination of white guilt and female sympathy. But Hammer, who is an impresario of these fantasies, sees another potent element at play: the humiliation of the white husband. Up to four times a week, Hammer is asked to arrange cuckold scenes in which the husband is submissive to his wife, who is, in turn, dominated by a Mandingo. "He can't participate, he can only watch," he says. "And afterward, he has to clean her up." Then there are the public-humiliation fantasies, in which a white man asks a Mandingo to kiss and grope his partner in public while he watches. Even here at the party, there's an air of humiliation. Some of the husbands I speak with confess that they're no longer able to satisfy their wives. And while others say they get off on watching, they're never fully committed. "It kinda kills me sometimes," says one partygoer, Kevin (not his real name), listening to the submission fantasies of his girlfriend, Gail (not her real name). "Because I'm not dominant. I'm really an easygoing guy."

What all this means for race relations in the age of Obama is difficult to say. Though he's had a disappointing night, an optimistic Jared still likes to think that the more the races share fluids, "the more these taboos will disappear and we'll all realize we're not that different." But as the clock strikes three and only the stragglers remain, you see the races pulling apart. The Mandingos are hanging out by the pool table, talking reverentially about the white women they've had—"Dude, she took, like, 12 guys; her husband has to let her go, there's no way one man can satisfy her . . ." The only white people still there are out by the pool. Neither Amber nor Jeff will be seeing any of the black men they've invited to their home tonight until the next party, to be held in a month's time. Though Jeff has allowed Branford to be intimate with his wife, he won't be calling him for a beer after work. And if they should see each other at the mall, they'll usually look the other way—it's all part of the swingers' pact.

I find Jeff at the end of the night, busy cleaning up the kids' bedrooms—their grandparents will be returning them in a few hours, and the sheets need to be changed, the lightbulbs switched, the evidence removed. Shining a flashlight underneath the 11-year-old's bed, he tuts and tsks. "There, look, a condom wrapper! I missed one of these once, and the kids found it. You know, I leave a trash can in every room, but still, some people . . ."

white privilege, white progressives

this is a really well-written article that attempts to dissect the gender/race issue that's at the core of the hillary/obama divide. while i don't agree with everything it says, i think that this is the stuff that the media ignores and that we refuse to address. frankly, i can't imagine how anyone could think that black men in this country have ever had more power than white women, simply because white women have always had the luxury of white privilege at their disposal. once upon a time in our not too distant past, the word of a white woman could get a black man killed, whether she was lying or not. black men were killed for looking at white women. look at what happened to emmett till. and he was fourteen! nowadays, no matter how loudly they scream things like gender bias, that white privilege is always within reach.

it's an interesting juxtaposition: as a woman, claim solidarity with your sisters of color in the struggle, as well as oppressed people everywhere to "fight the power"; as a privileged white person, grab all the gusto you can -- and maintain the status quo by any means necessary because in the end, you know that it's in your best interests to do so.

and who did you vote for on Super Tuesday?

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White Privilege, White Progressives and the Audacity of Obama's Definition of Hope by Edward Rhymes, PhD

"In the highest halls of the state and federal government we have proven that a white woman can and does receive more opportunities than Black men."

In light of the comments made by Hillary and Bill Clinton in the past week, Roseanne's bigoted diatribe and the "racism-laced" New York Times op-ed of Gloria Steinem's, I felt it necessary to come out of my long writing hibernation to speak to these concerns.

It appears that when the stakes are high and the psychic shades are opened, many so-called white feminists and white female liberals run to the familiar confines of latent racism and white privilege. Let me make myself perfectly clear, in this writing I will not put forth an argument for or against Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in regard to the presidency, but rather I want to offer a counter to the erroneous assertions made by the aforementioned players.

Darren Parker in his article “White Female Liberals aka ‘Progressives’” touches on an aspect of racism and white supremacy that is often overlooked: “The reality is that white women represent the second most privileged category of human in the US. In spite of the reality of sexism no category of man of color has the level of wealth, power, privilege, education, or control as white women.”

When Steinem writes something as asinine as Blacks receiving the vote after the Civil War and women not receiving the franchise until 1920 as some sort of indication that gender trumps race as the most crippling and restricting factor in American society, it should be a powerful eye-opener that white women, by and large, have not been our allies in the struggle for racial justice. Steinem’s ominous omission of Jim Crow is deceptive and irresponsible given that even as recently as the 60’s, Blacks were being killed for trying to exercise their right to vote --- prompting the need of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts of the mid-1960’s. To date, I can’t recall one white woman being lynched for voting or trying to vote in America.

Steinem goes on to say that if a woman ran for president with Obama’s lack of qualifications, she would not be taken seriously. In response to that I say: would Hillary be the U.S. Senator from New York and a possible nominee for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, if her husband wasn’t Bill Clinton? The years of experience as the first-lady that she touts, is a privilege that 42 other women have had the opportunity to enjoy, none of which were the hue of Michelle Obama.

Over the past year or so the question has usually been framed as thus: Who would America elect first for President, a woman or someone who is Black? This is a misleading question and choice. The more direct question that we should be asking is: given a choice, would America choose a white woman or a Black man? If we look at this at the state and federal level, that question has been asked and overwhelmingly been answered. Thirty-four white women have been elected or have served in the U.S. Senate compared to 2 Black men since Reconstruction (Carol Mosley-Braun was the first and only Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate in 1993) --- presently, there are 16 white women serving in the U.S. Senate compared to one lone Obama. Thirty White women have served as state governors compared to two Black men since Reconstruction (the latest being Deval Patrick of Massachusetts elected in 2006). So in the highest halls of the state and federal government we have proven that a white woman can and does receive more opportunities than Black men to serve and to lead.

Additionally, since the economy has now come into play in this presidential race, let us take a look at the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Survey, 2005 Annual Social and Economic Supplement. In it we see that white women ($32,683) outdistance Black ($31,732) and Hispanic ($26,921) men in annual earnings --- sadly Black and Hispanic women are the most woefully at-risk making 29,145 and 24,255 respectively.

Hillary’s allusion to Dr. King’s ability to inspire as compared to LBJ’s ability to make the Civil Rights Act a reality smacks of racism at its most pernicious level. The old Blacks “sho can talk” but are short on ability stereotype is very evident in this analogy. Once again, the acclaimed and much-heralded liberal Mrs. Clinton, like Steinem, ignores the racial realities of American history; that politics in America has been a game that almost has been exclusively reserved for whites until recent history and proves that when push comes to shove and white power and privilege is threatened, she is not above stoking the fires of racial prejudice. It is also important to note that in invoking the MLK and LBJ comparison she also resurrects the reality that after King’s now famous speech in opposition to the Vietnam conflict, he was referred to by LBJ from that moment on as “that nigger preacher,” --- in other words, “how could he do this to me when I’ve done so much for his people?” Sound or look familiar? This is further accented and buttressed by former President Bill Clinton’s reference to the 46 year-old, Harvard-educated, elected-U.S. Senator Obama as a “kid” --- coming dangerously close in tone and temperament to the familiar racist designation of “boy.” If the Clinton campaign wants to draw a distinction between the record and experience of Barack and Hillary, then that is a conversation that can and should take place. However, that’s not what I heard or felt in Bill Clinton’s words. I heard the arrogance of a man who believes because of Black America’s love affair with him (for reasons I don’t understand) he has the right to say to Obama: “know your place boy” or “wait your turn boy.” It is a tone and attitude that I am all too familiar with and the liberal label or the progressive tag does not make one immune to it (and if the truth be told, the Clintons have always been far more centrist than they ever were liberal or progressive). Furthermore, as I have stated in other writings, during the economic boom in the Clinton years of the 90’s, Black men were the only group who lost ground. And it also has to be further recognized that part of the Clinton legacy is a sinister capitulation to the racist characterizations and misrepresentations leading up to welfare reform and a less than lukewarm defense of affirmative action.

Even though the gains enjoyed by white women, were secured in large part by the struggles of the Civil Rights movement; it is this allegiance to whiteness that when given a choice to support their sisters and people of color (and their own self-interests as well) by keeping affirmative action measures in place, they invariably choose their sons, their husbands, their fathers and their brothers who have been enjoying the benefits of centuries of good ole American written and unwritten affirmative action measures --- in 1996 when Proposition 209 came before the people of California, 57% of White women voted in favor of it; in Washington (1998) 51% of white women voted against affirmative action and in the recent defeat of affirmative action programs in Michigan, 59 percent of white women voted to approve Proposal 2 (82 percent of non-white women voted against it) .

So in what construction, or rather reconstruction, of reality by Steinem, Clinton and their ilk are Black men wielding more power in this country than white women? Many white liberals and progressives have allowed themselves to be convinced by the hyper-exposure of certain Black figures, that a certain level of vigilance is no longer necessary when it comes to racial justice and equality when practically every indicator (economic, educational, health etc.) says otherwise; that the absence of fire-hoses, dogs, lynchings and burning crosses also means the absence of racism and the achievement of racial equality.

This brings us to the Senator from Illinois. Shelby Steele, in his interview on PBS with Bill Moyers, stated that to fit into the current and popular definition of Blackness, that many Blacks live an existence of betrayal to their own desires, ambitions and dreams while subordinating themselves to a group identity that is at its core “grievance-driven.” He went on to say that many Blacks manipulate and prey upon “white guilt” or the perceived need of absolution by many Whites because of America’s racist history. Viewpoints such as Steele’s have always been a perplexing to me and I believe there is a reason why such viewpoints are out of the mainstream of Black thought. It is not because we as Blacks have a herd mentality nor is it that we, by-and-large, expect something for nothing, but rather it is because it runs counter to the historical record, the facts, the numbers and our own personal experiences.

Moreover, if there are whites who are guilty of racism and bias; if there are whites who are guilty of enjoying the benefits of white privilege without examining the damaging consequences of that privilege, then I believe some level of guilt is appropriate. The murderer who murders; the rapist who rapes; the embezzler who embezzles should feel some level of guilt. Shouldn’t I, for the woman I disrespect or the man that I injure, feel some angst? By guilt I do not mean a pit of despair and hopelessness; or that whites should be beholden to me as a Black person in any way, but rather a guilt that spurs action and real personal and societal transformation. Guilt, at its core, is just another word for conscience. Dietrich Bonheoffer, Nazi holocaust victim, in his Christian classic The Cost of Discipleship talks about and details the phenomenon of “cheap grace.” His central point was that cheap grace represented forgiveness without requiring repentance (or a change of heart and conduct); an enjoyment of the consolations of absolution without restitution. I believe this is where we find ourselves today in the struggle against racism and the quest for racial & social justice.

Americans, for the most part, want an easy route to change or societal transformation in regard to race and racism; a “cheap morality” if you will, that pays lip-service to the virtues of equality and justice without any serious challenge of institutional & systemic racism or white privilege. It is a “cheap activism” that says “fight the power,” but avoids self-examination and an honest accounting of American society and history. I have never agreed with much Shelby Steele has said, but I do agree with him when he says that, for many whites, Obama is absolution. When his stance on the issues is closely examined, other than the color of his skin, what real change from the status quo does Barack offer? Obama, to his discredit, has helped to foster this cheap political and social grace scenario with statements like Blacks are 90% of the way too equality; class was more in play in Jena than race and the incompetence during Katrina was colorblind. This, by the way, should silence all those who say that Obama hasn’t talked about race during this campaign because he has, and what he has had to say is disheartening and has ingratiated himself to any and all who believe that colorblindness equals equality. And that is the audacity of Obama’s definition of hope, it is “cheap change;”he offers to America societal conversion without controversy. James Cone, noted theologian and activist, made a profound statement that lends itself to this paradigm: “…if America could understand itself as not being innocent, it might be able to play a more creative role in the world today. And you see, America likes to think of itself as innocent.

And we are not.” This is not about not letting whites off the hook, but about unfinished business and working until we have given our “last drop of devotion.”

Currently we live in a society where White men with prison records receive far more offers for jobs than Black men with identical records, and are offered jobs just as often -- if not more so -- than Black men who have never been arrested; where the income gap between black and white families has widened in spite of the gains of the civil rights movement (a key reason for the disparity is that incomes among black men have declined when adjusted for inflation. They were offset only by gains among black women); where mass incarceration of black men have decimated our communities. This is not an us-against-them clarion call; nor should this serve as a basis for hatred or animosity against any person or group of people. However, what I hope it does accomplish is a demand within the Black community for more. Demanding more of our politicians and elected officials; demanding more of white liberals and progressives who say they believe in racial justice and equality. Have we as Black folk been so spiritually devastated that we are willing to treat the mere mention of equality and justice as if they are the actual fulfillment of those things? That overtures, and only overtures, can satiate a desire for real equity? We have, in times past, demanded far too little and gotten exactly what we have asked for… far too little.

I know that I will be accused by some of pessimism and divisiveness --- especially in light of Obama’s declarations of hope --- and yet it still amazes me how merely stating the realities of Black folk in America elicits that same response from white folk wherever they are on the political and ideological spectrum, which is: “just get over it.” The harsh reality is that no amount of “can’t we all just get along” rhetoric is going to change the fortunes and everyday circumstances of the millions of Blacks in this country. So the questions still remain: do we as Black people have the political and moral will to accomplish the task at-hand and are white liberals and progressives truly committed to social and racial justice? The information provided in this writing is readily available to any and all who choose to seek it. So the issue is not my addressing of these concerns, but rather why aren’t more white liberals and progressives addressing them? What Gloria Steinem, the Clinton campaign and, regrettably, Obama shows us is that until white privilege is addressed and eradicated, it will continue to be the serpent in any and every Garden of Eden of feminist, liberal or progressive creation.