BAD HAIR - GOOD HAIR PATHOLOGY
Put aside the concept of conspiracy for a while and deal directly with the monumental, destructive psychological effects of Madison Avenue's racist/colorist exclusionary insistent advertising to our multi-colored/cultured women that they're not glamorous unless they're wearing shiny straight hair.
You'd think - even these days - that the only 'worthwhile' threadlike growth from the heads of huemans should be straight shiny ones - like one elder Black woman working at the Apollo Theater in NY's Harlem said, "...that good white stuff..."
(Connect those vicious dots: Black children - in 2007 - preferring white dolls over "ugly" Black dolls: early damage to little egos)
Here I am in my latter seventies, still fighting, every damn day, society's conditioned urge to straighten my kinkly hair - resisting the overt brainwhitewashing waves of insistent straight-hair advertising in not only TV and cinema but also magazines galore. (Although some welcome exceptions to this onslaught show up in Black magazines)
I've also had to - continuously - refute the sick familial conditioning which surfaces too frequently that echoes my own mother's remarks that she 'couldn't handle' my hair. My father was the one who brushed, combed and braided my hair into "manageable" condition.* Then, as I reached an age/stage where I could 'contain' my 'unruly' locks, I also tried mightily to 'tame them tresses' - pulling, stretching, oiling and confining my offending kinks.
It was when I became the first "Negro" U.S.A. Airline Hostess/Stewardess (now we say 'Black Flight Attendant') [actually first Black - males or females] - that I started smearing the white man's white cream - lye - onto my Black hair, to 'pull out the kinks' to make myself more 'acceptable' to white and other brainwhitewashed people of color.
Little did I realize at the time that years of using those stinking white chemicals on my scalp would seriously damage the nerve endings on my head making it difficult to feeel hot/cold shower water! To this day, there are no warnings on bottles/jars of hair straighteners - even though years ago I asked a New York City Ombudsman to ensure that all hair straighteners carry warning labels. So much for caring about the physical health of folk who are convinced that they aren't 'acceptable' without thermally or chemically-altering what God gave 'em - naturally beautiful 'nappy' hair.
Now, aside from actual physical attrition, breakage, scalp damage, balding, etc. - consider the continuous psychological damage mainly white male Madison Avenue adfolk do to people of color from early childhood on. (The concurrent psychological damage done to white kids - encouraging them to feel 'superior' because of their 'white' tresses is not my immediate concern here - but deserves at least mention because of its potential for undergirding racist/colorist societal erosion as whites become teens and adults and enter careers like law enforcement, education and medicine, etc.)
Who can even adequately determine, describe, monitor the horrendous psychological undermining occurring- not only in children of color who exhibit their self hate/low ego status as they self-destructively eschew Black dolls looking like themselves and embrace white dolls not looking like themselves - but on the millions of thusly-damaged folk of color who haven't been doll-or-other-tested for levels of self respect?
Does low self-image/respect have anything to do with school achievement, career success, family relations, drug/child abuse or incarceration rates? Does the fact that Madison Avenue whites routinely exclude actors/models who wear skins of dark, dark Black - if we must use white as 'the norm'-, issue a continuous message that "white is right - Black stay back" in this colorism-ridden society?
Now, every time I see a Black Sister-of-color with her Black Afrikan hair greasy, stringy, bleached, straightened, an ineffable sadness floods through my consciousness and, I do admit, equally do frustration and anger arise at what may or may not be a white male supremacist conspiracy not only to make the 'big dollars,' but to consolidate a white minority hegemony over a three-quarters-people-of-color world.
All of this over 'good hair - bad hair?' Is this hair issue but a symptom of society's larger counterproductive colorist malaise? Where do "nappy-headed hoes" name callings, nooses, bat-attacks or cop-killings of Blackfolk come from? OH OH!
*For many years now, I've worn what my Black Sisters with "hard" hair say is my 'easier-to-manage' hair "natural;" I win! - no more worries about humidity or spaghetti pots of boiling water or 'nappy kitchens!' I can twist it, 'dread it,' part it, link it - look out, Bo Derek!
Friday, October 26, 2007
"A CHAT WITH LIFELONG NYC CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST CAROL TAYLOR
"A CHAT WITH LIFELONG NYC CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST CAROL TAYLOR
The 'Little Black Book' Interview with Kam Williams"
(With photo of CT in: The Washington Afro-American April 16-22, 2005; The Baltimore Afro-American April 9, 2005 and The Philadelphia Sunday Sun April 3, 2005)
"Born in Boston, Mass., on Dec. 27, 1931, Carol Taylor matriculated at both Elmira College and New York University before becoming the first Black U.S.A. flight attendant in 1958. Over the course of a professional career that has included stints as a registered nurse, model, office manager, journalist and more, this Renaissance woman has nontheless remained reolute in her commitment to civil rights issues. This explains why she is a familiar face at rallies and demonstrations around the city.
Tireless, Taylor is the author of The Little Black Book: Black Male Survival in America: Staying Alive and Well in an Institutionally Racist Society, a pocket-sized how-to text designed to help African-American men survive any encounter with the police. She is also the inventor, with psychologist Dr. Mari Saunders, of the Racism/Colorism Quotient Test that determines the reltive degree of racism (or "colorism," a term coined by Taylor) within an individual, (see www.racismtest.com)
Taylor lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she is completing work on her autobiography. She has two grown children, Cindy and Larry, and a grandson, Tyler, and welcomes inquiries about her first book at littleblackbook@juno.com.
AFRO: Why did you write The Little Black Book?
Carol Taylor: Because our Black sons all over this country are being slaughtered mercilessly and constantly by cops and no one is dealing with this outrage on a national basis! Judge Bruce Wright's introduction [to my book] says, "And so it goes, with the scalpel of American society aimed at Black testicles." My book says to set up Black/African male survival centers.
AFRO: Why is there such a pattern of police brutality against young Black men all over this country?
CT: Don't think for a moment that it's only young Black males! All Black males are targeted because they're Black and male and the reason is: the epidemic of untreated racism/colorism institutionalized in this society.
AFRO: Why haven't highly publicized cases like the beating of Rodney King and the killing of Amadou Diallo brought about some significant changes?
CT: Black males entering this colorist maelstrom of a country should be warned: 'Abandon hope - all ye Black males who enter here [U.S.A.]!' Significant changes will not occur by themselves and, unfortunately, we Black folk are not sufficiently organized to enforce them.
AFRO: Why do you think that racism persists in this society?
CT: Whitefolk - among others - are not taught who they are, who their most distant ancestors are, in their early education. They think that there's more than one race and, in the unearned privilege of their White skins, that their race is superior. There should be no 's' on the word 'race' as it applies to humans.
AFRO: I know that you don't like the word racism. Why do you suggest that we adopt the word 'colorism' instead?
CT: It's not that I don't like the word - it's totally inaccurate! As I said, there's only one race: the human one!
AFRO: Why do you think that you've been such a vocal and devoted civil rights activist?
CT: I detest bullies - like the lesser Bush and his war dawg gang - and for ages, I've felt like I was Donna Quixote, tilting at the windmills of untreated racism/colorism.
AFRO: About how many rallies and demonstrations a year do you attend? How many meetings and conferences?
CT: Do you have all night? As many as this 73-and-a-half-year-old body can make! Inequity demands eternal vigilance.
AFRO: Which issues do you see as the most critical at this moment in history?
CT: The myriad wars and invasions this country has thrown us into, mainly against countries of color, the extant pandemic racism/colorism that causes most wars. Another is insane patriarchy - the mistaken notion that male hormones are more important than female ones. We women are the majority in most countries. How dare males so disrespect their own mothers by maltreating us females all over this misogynist world?
AFRO: Why do you think that Black women are so often overlooked in terms of leadership roles in the movement?
CT: Because Black males have, unfortunately, adopted the white males' insane misogyny - wholesale.
AFRO: How would you describe yourself politically? As an independent?
CT: How could any thinking one be otherwise who understands that (1) the voting system is just one giant scam sham, and that (2) we Black folk have never had an untampered-with voting right in this country. Do your research and you'll discover Black vote tampering going back ever since we were supposedly 'given' the vote!
AFRO: Doesn't not voting disqualify you from complaining about Bush?
CT: If that disqualifies me, this means that other millions who don't vote are unrepresented by elected individuals, which Bush is not - elected that is. The Republicans stole the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. That's why no one should call the cretin 'President!' I think his mother should be tried for war crimes for having him.
AFRO: Do you think that Black people should create a third party or simply not participate in the political process?
CT: How can we Black folk participate in the political process when there's so obviously more than one - one for Whites and one for people of color? Fix the damn racism/colorism first! www.racismtest.com up the wazoo!
AFRO: How do we get from the status quo to a better world?
CT: I just answered that one! Every cop, teacher, judge, jury, employer, editor, doctor, politician, journalist - whoever's in authority - should have to prove to the public that they are not dysfunctionally racist/colorist, not pathological in their responses to culture or color.
AFRO: Meanwhile, what makes you happiest today?
CT: Oh, my! The fact that my two children, Cindy and Larry, are self-sufficient, caring, compassionate humans and that my grandson, Tyler, looks like he's following in their brilliance! And, of course, the knowledge and pride that I've finally completed my wild autobiography and am looking for a smart publisher, so when the thing's printed, I can go on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show!' Look out! I'm alkalizing, Ion Cleansing and still kickin' butt!"
The 'Little Black Book' Interview with Kam Williams"
(With photo of CT in: The Washington Afro-American April 16-22, 2005; The Baltimore Afro-American April 9, 2005 and The Philadelphia Sunday Sun April 3, 2005)
"Born in Boston, Mass., on Dec. 27, 1931, Carol Taylor matriculated at both Elmira College and New York University before becoming the first Black U.S.A. flight attendant in 1958. Over the course of a professional career that has included stints as a registered nurse, model, office manager, journalist and more, this Renaissance woman has nontheless remained reolute in her commitment to civil rights issues. This explains why she is a familiar face at rallies and demonstrations around the city.
Tireless, Taylor is the author of The Little Black Book: Black Male Survival in America: Staying Alive and Well in an Institutionally Racist Society, a pocket-sized how-to text designed to help African-American men survive any encounter with the police. She is also the inventor, with psychologist Dr. Mari Saunders, of the Racism/Colorism Quotient Test that determines the reltive degree of racism (or "colorism," a term coined by Taylor) within an individual, (see www.racismtest.com)
Taylor lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she is completing work on her autobiography. She has two grown children, Cindy and Larry, and a grandson, Tyler, and welcomes inquiries about her first book at littleblackbook@juno.com.
AFRO: Why did you write The Little Black Book?
Carol Taylor: Because our Black sons all over this country are being slaughtered mercilessly and constantly by cops and no one is dealing with this outrage on a national basis! Judge Bruce Wright's introduction [to my book] says, "And so it goes, with the scalpel of American society aimed at Black testicles." My book says to set up Black/African male survival centers.
AFRO: Why is there such a pattern of police brutality against young Black men all over this country?
CT: Don't think for a moment that it's only young Black males! All Black males are targeted because they're Black and male and the reason is: the epidemic of untreated racism/colorism institutionalized in this society.
AFRO: Why haven't highly publicized cases like the beating of Rodney King and the killing of Amadou Diallo brought about some significant changes?
CT: Black males entering this colorist maelstrom of a country should be warned: 'Abandon hope - all ye Black males who enter here [U.S.A.]!' Significant changes will not occur by themselves and, unfortunately, we Black folk are not sufficiently organized to enforce them.
AFRO: Why do you think that racism persists in this society?
CT: Whitefolk - among others - are not taught who they are, who their most distant ancestors are, in their early education. They think that there's more than one race and, in the unearned privilege of their White skins, that their race is superior. There should be no 's' on the word 'race' as it applies to humans.
AFRO: I know that you don't like the word racism. Why do you suggest that we adopt the word 'colorism' instead?
CT: It's not that I don't like the word - it's totally inaccurate! As I said, there's only one race: the human one!
AFRO: Why do you think that you've been such a vocal and devoted civil rights activist?
CT: I detest bullies - like the lesser Bush and his war dawg gang - and for ages, I've felt like I was Donna Quixote, tilting at the windmills of untreated racism/colorism.
AFRO: About how many rallies and demonstrations a year do you attend? How many meetings and conferences?
CT: Do you have all night? As many as this 73-and-a-half-year-old body can make! Inequity demands eternal vigilance.
AFRO: Which issues do you see as the most critical at this moment in history?
CT: The myriad wars and invasions this country has thrown us into, mainly against countries of color, the extant pandemic racism/colorism that causes most wars. Another is insane patriarchy - the mistaken notion that male hormones are more important than female ones. We women are the majority in most countries. How dare males so disrespect their own mothers by maltreating us females all over this misogynist world?
AFRO: Why do you think that Black women are so often overlooked in terms of leadership roles in the movement?
CT: Because Black males have, unfortunately, adopted the white males' insane misogyny - wholesale.
AFRO: How would you describe yourself politically? As an independent?
CT: How could any thinking one be otherwise who understands that (1) the voting system is just one giant scam sham, and that (2) we Black folk have never had an untampered-with voting right in this country. Do your research and you'll discover Black vote tampering going back ever since we were supposedly 'given' the vote!
AFRO: Doesn't not voting disqualify you from complaining about Bush?
CT: If that disqualifies me, this means that other millions who don't vote are unrepresented by elected individuals, which Bush is not - elected that is. The Republicans stole the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. That's why no one should call the cretin 'President!' I think his mother should be tried for war crimes for having him.
AFRO: Do you think that Black people should create a third party or simply not participate in the political process?
CT: How can we Black folk participate in the political process when there's so obviously more than one - one for Whites and one for people of color? Fix the damn racism/colorism first! www.racismtest.com up the wazoo!
AFRO: How do we get from the status quo to a better world?
CT: I just answered that one! Every cop, teacher, judge, jury, employer, editor, doctor, politician, journalist - whoever's in authority - should have to prove to the public that they are not dysfunctionally racist/colorist, not pathological in their responses to culture or color.
AFRO: Meanwhile, what makes you happiest today?
CT: Oh, my! The fact that my two children, Cindy and Larry, are self-sufficient, caring, compassionate humans and that my grandson, Tyler, looks like he's following in their brilliance! And, of course, the knowledge and pride that I've finally completed my wild autobiography and am looking for a smart publisher, so when the thing's printed, I can go on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show!' Look out! I'm alkalizing, Ion Cleansing and still kickin' butt!"
Re: Brooklyn N.Y.'s 'Noosing' of Attorneys Evelyn & Michael Warren**
Carol Taylor R.N.
590 Flatbush Avenue
Ste.11A BK NY 11225-4935
23 October 2007
Kings County D.A. Charles Hynes
350 Jay Street
BK NY
District Attorney Hynes:
Re: Brooklyn N.Y.'s 'Noosing' of Attorneys Evelyn & Michael Warren**
Today, on my Grandson's 11th Birthday, I - for 30 years a BKLYN taxpayer, in my 76th year - had to rise early from my comfortable bed to witness another* of this Borough's modern day lynchings (at the 120 Schermmerhorn Criminal Court House) - the untenable legal pillorying of two Black Afrikan, upstanding, longterm taxpaying members of our Black Brooklyn community, Attorneys Evelyn and Michael Warren.
The Warrens, legally witnessing 77th Precinct Sgt. Talvey and other cops inflict physical abuse on another prone, handcuffed Black male, were themselves subsequently verbally and physically attacked by Talvey for exercising their obligations as Brooklyn citizens witnessing a crime. They were exercising their legal obligations as officers of the court when they asked why men in blue uniforms were beating and kicking a handcuffed Black man.
To add insult to their injuries, Mr. Hynes, now you're allowing your racist/colorist NYPD criminals to further pursue these beloved civil rights leaders, the Warrens, in an already overburdened BKLYN court instead of having them awarded at City Hall for their exemplary exercise as concerned activist BKLYN citizens. You and your BKLYN D.A.'s office are sending the wrong message by continuing to prosecute this conscientious couple and are blatantly wasting our tax dollars.
You are making a public mockery of criminal justice in Brooklyn by continuing to prosecute the Warrens.
I am therefore and herein demanding that you end this racist/colorist 'noosing' charade which only further inflames our direly put-upon Black Afrikan community: exonerate and free Eveyln and Michael Warren from this high-tech 'legal' lynching.
End the Warrens' time-energy-financial-wasting, stressful trips to your courts for their heroic civic acts of conscience. Yes, they are our heroes and you, by further persecuting these warriors, are making them martyrs by allowing this modern day 'noosing party' to continue.
In Utter Contempt For This Outrageous and Untenable Travesty,
Carol Taylor R.N.
First BlackAfrikan Cherokee U.S.A. Flight Attendant
*Your white Brooklyn Judges ( The Grievance Committee) also have been, for 17 years, in my opinion, 'noosing' our Hon. Attorney Alton H. Maddox, Jr., by denying him the right to practice law to protect us BlackFolk!
**CAN'T BELIEVE THE WARRENS'VE BEEN GIVEN ANOTHER COURT DATE - DEC. 17! WHAT B.S.!
590 Flatbush Avenue
Ste.11A BK NY 11225-4935
23 October 2007
Kings County D.A. Charles Hynes
350 Jay Street
BK NY
District Attorney Hynes:
Re: Brooklyn N.Y.'s 'Noosing' of Attorneys Evelyn & Michael Warren**
Today, on my Grandson's 11th Birthday, I - for 30 years a BKLYN taxpayer, in my 76th year - had to rise early from my comfortable bed to witness another* of this Borough's modern day lynchings (at the 120 Schermmerhorn Criminal Court House) - the untenable legal pillorying of two Black Afrikan, upstanding, longterm taxpaying members of our Black Brooklyn community, Attorneys Evelyn and Michael Warren.
The Warrens, legally witnessing 77th Precinct Sgt. Talvey and other cops inflict physical abuse on another prone, handcuffed Black male, were themselves subsequently verbally and physically attacked by Talvey for exercising their obligations as Brooklyn citizens witnessing a crime. They were exercising their legal obligations as officers of the court when they asked why men in blue uniforms were beating and kicking a handcuffed Black man.
To add insult to their injuries, Mr. Hynes, now you're allowing your racist/colorist NYPD criminals to further pursue these beloved civil rights leaders, the Warrens, in an already overburdened BKLYN court instead of having them awarded at City Hall for their exemplary exercise as concerned activist BKLYN citizens. You and your BKLYN D.A.'s office are sending the wrong message by continuing to prosecute this conscientious couple and are blatantly wasting our tax dollars.
You are making a public mockery of criminal justice in Brooklyn by continuing to prosecute the Warrens.
I am therefore and herein demanding that you end this racist/colorist 'noosing' charade which only further inflames our direly put-upon Black Afrikan community: exonerate and free Eveyln and Michael Warren from this high-tech 'legal' lynching.
End the Warrens' time-energy-financial-wasting, stressful trips to your courts for their heroic civic acts of conscience. Yes, they are our heroes and you, by further persecuting these warriors, are making them martyrs by allowing this modern day 'noosing party' to continue.
In Utter Contempt For This Outrageous and Untenable Travesty,
Carol Taylor R.N.
First BlackAfrikan Cherokee U.S.A. Flight Attendant
*Your white Brooklyn Judges ( The Grievance Committee) also have been, for 17 years, in my opinion, 'noosing' our Hon. Attorney Alton H. Maddox, Jr., by denying him the right to practice law to protect us BlackFolk!
**CAN'T BELIEVE THE WARRENS'VE BEEN GIVEN ANOTHER COURT DATE - DEC. 17! WHAT B.S.!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
'Don't See Color'
Carol Taylor R.N.
590 Flatbush Avenue
Ste.11A BK NY 11225-4935
16 October 2007
Dr. Gary Null
Gary Null & Associates
2307 Broadway
New York, N.Y. 10024
U.S.A.
Dear Dr. Null:
Re:Your Statement- The Week of Oct. 7, 2007 - That You 'Don't See Color'
I've just read a copy of of an insightful, irenic letter by the Hon. Jean Wilkins Dember MHS to you: herein is my take on your state of denial concerning 'not seeing color.'
One of the most hideous aspects of untreated racism/colorism is its propensity for cutting right across hueman intellect. In other words, some of the most otherwise intelligent individuals are afflicted with varying degrees of racism/colorism, more often than not unknowkingly. And they retreat, defensively when confronted, into deep denial of their societally-conditioned bias.
We believe that the sort of pre-judgement based on perception of a hueman being's skin melanin, to some degree or other because it is fallacious, causes an increase in the body's acidity levels. In other words, untreated racism/colorism actually affects the health of folk who, consequently, aren't cogitating clearly: people who 'judge a book (hueman) by its cover' are engaging in negative thinking and that negativity affects their body's acid/base balance - it's unhealthy.
Considering your temendous contributions to the overall health of so many of us who've followed your sage advice down through the years, it is vital that you, of all people, begin to acknowledge that because the hueman body is an integrated entity, and because our minds have such a profound impact upon our physiology, anything which operates against our mental health deserves strict attention, special understanding and action geared toward healing.
Many years ago, several of us - including an Ethnotherapy Psychologist, Dr. Mari Saunders and an international journalist, Winston Worrell, decided that we would set up - not as a panacea of course - a healing intervention in the form of our www.racismtest.com with follow-up Ethnotherapy, a tool we use to foment positive dialogue about colorism in non-threatening arenas to - as Law Professor Lani Guinier has so aptly said - "...put the issue of racism (colorism) on the front burner so as to be able to deal with it in a forthright manner...".
I enclose a recent tract, one of my blogs,** to further elucidate what we've delineated as the dire need for counteracting the systemic and deleterious mal-education to which we've all been subjected (which continues to this day) which fails to teach millions of white, Red, Yellow, Black, Brown and Olive huemans who their most distant relatives were: Black Africans in Africa, the cradle of civilization.
All huemans are 'of African descent.* - some are more or less 'rinsed out, but more's the continuing pity that eurocentricity has failed miserably to teach the truth about hueman origins! This has led to the pandemic generally unacknowledged affliction of colorism. ('Mitakuye Oyasin' - Indigenous for "We're all related")
Dr. Null, since you have publicly (and probably inadvertently) revealed your own colorism by denying that you see color, thereby relegating three quarters of the world's population invisible, may we offer you a tried and true method of healing - the www.racismtest.com Program - to at least begin to divest yourself of the unhealthy societal conditioning which has you denying the reality of our beautiful melanin?
In Solidarity With Your Health Quest,
Carol Taylor R.N.
President: The Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Inc. (Motto: "Prejudice Is Learned - It Can Be Unlearned"
First BlackAfrikanCherokee U.S.A. Flight Attendant
cc: Jean Wilkins Dember MHS
Laurence William Legall: Affrimative Action Specialist; Vice President I"I"H, Inc.
* Ref: Geneticist Dr. Spencer Wells video: "Journey of Man" (1 800-PLAY PBS)
** http://caroltaylorword.blogspot.com
590 Flatbush Avenue
Ste.11A BK NY 11225-4935
16 October 2007
Dr. Gary Null
Gary Null & Associates
2307 Broadway
New York, N.Y. 10024
U.S.A.
Dear Dr. Null:
Re:Your Statement- The Week of Oct. 7, 2007 - That You 'Don't See Color'
I've just read a copy of of an insightful, irenic letter by the Hon. Jean Wilkins Dember MHS to you: herein is my take on your state of denial concerning 'not seeing color.'
One of the most hideous aspects of untreated racism/colorism is its propensity for cutting right across hueman intellect. In other words, some of the most otherwise intelligent individuals are afflicted with varying degrees of racism/colorism, more often than not unknowkingly. And they retreat, defensively when confronted, into deep denial of their societally-conditioned bias.
We believe that the sort of pre-judgement based on perception of a hueman being's skin melanin, to some degree or other because it is fallacious, causes an increase in the body's acidity levels. In other words, untreated racism/colorism actually affects the health of folk who, consequently, aren't cogitating clearly: people who 'judge a book (hueman) by its cover' are engaging in negative thinking and that negativity affects their body's acid/base balance - it's unhealthy.
Considering your temendous contributions to the overall health of so many of us who've followed your sage advice down through the years, it is vital that you, of all people, begin to acknowledge that because the hueman body is an integrated entity, and because our minds have such a profound impact upon our physiology, anything which operates against our mental health deserves strict attention, special understanding and action geared toward healing.
Many years ago, several of us - including an Ethnotherapy Psychologist, Dr. Mari Saunders and an international journalist, Winston Worrell, decided that we would set up - not as a panacea of course - a healing intervention in the form of our www.racismtest.com with follow-up Ethnotherapy, a tool we use to foment positive dialogue about colorism in non-threatening arenas to - as Law Professor Lani Guinier has so aptly said - "...put the issue of racism (colorism) on the front burner so as to be able to deal with it in a forthright manner...".
I enclose a recent tract, one of my blogs,** to further elucidate what we've delineated as the dire need for counteracting the systemic and deleterious mal-education to which we've all been subjected (which continues to this day) which fails to teach millions of white, Red, Yellow, Black, Brown and Olive huemans who their most distant relatives were: Black Africans in Africa, the cradle of civilization.
All huemans are 'of African descent.* - some are more or less 'rinsed out, but more's the continuing pity that eurocentricity has failed miserably to teach the truth about hueman origins! This has led to the pandemic generally unacknowledged affliction of colorism. ('Mitakuye Oyasin' - Indigenous for "We're all related")
Dr. Null, since you have publicly (and probably inadvertently) revealed your own colorism by denying that you see color, thereby relegating three quarters of the world's population invisible, may we offer you a tried and true method of healing - the www.racismtest.com Program - to at least begin to divest yourself of the unhealthy societal conditioning which has you denying the reality of our beautiful melanin?
In Solidarity With Your Health Quest,
Carol Taylor R.N.
President: The Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Inc. (Motto: "Prejudice Is Learned - It Can Be Unlearned"
First BlackAfrikanCherokee U.S.A. Flight Attendant
cc: Jean Wilkins Dember MHS
Laurence William Legall: Affrimative Action Specialist; Vice President I"I"H, Inc.
* Ref: Geneticist Dr. Spencer Wells video: "Journey of Man" (1 800-PLAY PBS)
** http://caroltaylorword.blogspot.com
PLEASE, BLACKFOLK: NO "WILD NOOSE CHASES!"
PLEASE, BLACKFOLK: NO "WILD NOOSE CHASES!"
Anyone with an ounce of truthcentricity in their bones will admit that untreated racism/colorism is pandemic, right?
Is it really necessary to point out that in virtually every country in this euro-colonized world, that the darkest*-hued huemans are relegated to and kept on the bottom of the socio-economic rungs of nations' ladders? *(If we must continue to utilize white as 'the norm' for comparisons anyway)
So, for the sake of this cautionary plea not to go on 'wild noose chase short-term-no-follow-up-action--demonstrations-of-outrage-into-the-ether,' can we agree that untreated, unhealthy, undeniable and unfair racism/colorism is, unfortunately, still eating away at societys' fabrics?
Okay, so you're not racist/colorist because you haven't been conditioned by a society you've just agreed is racist/colorist - hmm? (I don't know how you've arrived at that spurious conclusion without at least taking the www.racismtest.com - but let's push on.
It's truly painful going through a lugubrious litany of abhorrent examples of vicious and deadly widespread colorism (the holding of one's color against one), such as: 70th precinct NYPD cops ramming a broomstick up Abner Louima's rectum, big brawny white cops handcuffing a five year old Black child, deadly shooting 50 times-(19 struck him) at the late, unarmed Amadou Diallo, killing unarmed Sean Bell on his wedding day in Queens, N.Y., keeping Brazil's Blacks out of colleges and super Soprano Marion Anderson outta' the NYC Metropolitan Opera House despite her phenomenal world-famous voice, maltreating Brown Algerians in France until, in frustration, they burned hundreds of vehicles, terror-chasing and incarcerating Black and Brown and Olive and Yellow folk in U.S.A. immigration I.C.E. raids, maintaining an all-white U.S.A. Congress, declaring that Black children in N.Y. only require an 8th grade education, maintaining all-white TV ads & Rockettes & fire departments in a multi-colored milieu, calling Black female athletes "Nappy-headed hoes," 50% unemployment for NYC Black males while the unemployment for white males is a mere 5-7%, castigating a brillant Black 9 year old girl for her social commentary (Autumn Ashante), the 'normalizing-the-unthinkable' Katrina outrages (which continue), firing a tenured Indigenous outspoken Professor, (Ward Churchill), maltreating Dalits in color-caste-riven India, building obscene walls against Palestinian children, ignoring for so long the genocide in Black Rwanda, Sudan's Darfur and in the "Democratic" (yeah, right) Republic of Congo, and refusing to www.racismtest.com U.S.A. cops before sending 'em into Black and other people of color communities, the U.S.A.'s hue-sick Census Board dividing the hueman race into ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN 'RACES,' - among too many other instances of colorist insanity. ('The Jena 6' Mychal Bell is back in jail, isn't he?)
Anyone with an ounce of honesty in 'em should realize that there will, inevitably, be more and more instances of this colorist mental sickness surfacing like putrid pus from a popped pustule. Expect more and more "nooses", people - but for everyone's sake don't be side-tracked! - DEAL WITH THE CAUSAL UNTREATED RACISM/COLORISM!
There'll be more and more 'nooses' (symptoms of the disease) -and not just at Teachers College at Columbia University and the Hempstead police station - but until and unless the underlying colorist sickness is ferreted out on an individual basis, by first incorporating continuous (I can't emphasize enough, the importance of maintaining ongoing efforts to counteract institutional colorism) anti-racism/colorism programs in every single hueman institution by utilizing the www.racismtest.com and follow-up Ethnotherapy, the entrenched colorism and denial will only escalate.
This, of course, is an horrendous undertaking, but if lives are to be saved, colorist inhuemanity purged, 'the good society' to be achieved and equity to be firmly established, testing and treating racism/colorism must be incorporated - all over this color-torn world!
James Baldwin said: "There was not then, or is there now, a single American institution which is not a racist institution;" Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "Racism is a sin unto death."
EQUITY DEMANDS "DIVERSITY"
MANY COLORS - ONE 'RACE'
Carol Taylor R.N.
President:The Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Inc. Motto: "Prejudice Is Learned - It Can Be Unlearned"
First BlackAfrikanCherokee U.S.A. Flight Attendant
Anyone with an ounce of truthcentricity in their bones will admit that untreated racism/colorism is pandemic, right?
Is it really necessary to point out that in virtually every country in this euro-colonized world, that the darkest*-hued huemans are relegated to and kept on the bottom of the socio-economic rungs of nations' ladders? *(If we must continue to utilize white as 'the norm' for comparisons anyway)
So, for the sake of this cautionary plea not to go on 'wild noose chase short-term-no-follow-up-action--demonstrations-of-outrage-into-the-ether,' can we agree that untreated, unhealthy, undeniable and unfair racism/colorism is, unfortunately, still eating away at societys' fabrics?
Okay, so you're not racist/colorist because you haven't been conditioned by a society you've just agreed is racist/colorist - hmm? (I don't know how you've arrived at that spurious conclusion without at least taking the www.racismtest.com - but let's push on.
It's truly painful going through a lugubrious litany of abhorrent examples of vicious and deadly widespread colorism (the holding of one's color against one), such as: 70th precinct NYPD cops ramming a broomstick up Abner Louima's rectum, big brawny white cops handcuffing a five year old Black child, deadly shooting 50 times-(19 struck him) at the late, unarmed Amadou Diallo, killing unarmed Sean Bell on his wedding day in Queens, N.Y., keeping Brazil's Blacks out of colleges and super Soprano Marion Anderson outta' the NYC Metropolitan Opera House despite her phenomenal world-famous voice, maltreating Brown Algerians in France until, in frustration, they burned hundreds of vehicles, terror-chasing and incarcerating Black and Brown and Olive and Yellow folk in U.S.A. immigration I.C.E. raids, maintaining an all-white U.S.A. Congress, declaring that Black children in N.Y. only require an 8th grade education, maintaining all-white TV ads & Rockettes & fire departments in a multi-colored milieu, calling Black female athletes "Nappy-headed hoes," 50% unemployment for NYC Black males while the unemployment for white males is a mere 5-7%, castigating a brillant Black 9 year old girl for her social commentary (Autumn Ashante), the 'normalizing-the-unthinkable' Katrina outrages (which continue), firing a tenured Indigenous outspoken Professor, (Ward Churchill), maltreating Dalits in color-caste-riven India, building obscene walls against Palestinian children, ignoring for so long the genocide in Black Rwanda, Sudan's Darfur and in the "Democratic" (yeah, right) Republic of Congo, and refusing to www.racismtest.com U.S.A. cops before sending 'em into Black and other people of color communities, the U.S.A.'s hue-sick Census Board dividing the hueman race into ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN 'RACES,' - among too many other instances of colorist insanity. ('The Jena 6' Mychal Bell is back in jail, isn't he?)
Anyone with an ounce of honesty in 'em should realize that there will, inevitably, be more and more instances of this colorist mental sickness surfacing like putrid pus from a popped pustule. Expect more and more "nooses", people - but for everyone's sake don't be side-tracked! - DEAL WITH THE CAUSAL UNTREATED RACISM/COLORISM!
There'll be more and more 'nooses' (symptoms of the disease) -and not just at Teachers College at Columbia University and the Hempstead police station - but until and unless the underlying colorist sickness is ferreted out on an individual basis, by first incorporating continuous (I can't emphasize enough, the importance of maintaining ongoing efforts to counteract institutional colorism) anti-racism/colorism programs in every single hueman institution by utilizing the www.racismtest.com and follow-up Ethnotherapy, the entrenched colorism and denial will only escalate.
This, of course, is an horrendous undertaking, but if lives are to be saved, colorist inhuemanity purged, 'the good society' to be achieved and equity to be firmly established, testing and treating racism/colorism must be incorporated - all over this color-torn world!
James Baldwin said: "There was not then, or is there now, a single American institution which is not a racist institution;" Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "Racism is a sin unto death."
EQUITY DEMANDS "DIVERSITY"
MANY COLORS - ONE 'RACE'
Carol Taylor R.N.
President:The Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Inc. Motto: "Prejudice Is Learned - It Can Be Unlearned"
First BlackAfrikanCherokee U.S.A. Flight Attendant
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Another Noose - So, What Else is New?
(To the Columbia University Teachers College Professor Madonna Constantine who was sent a noose placed on her door) Via E-mail: Constantine@exchange.tc.Columbia.edu
10th September 2007
Dear Professor Constantine:
I am very sorry that you've become the latest (that we know of) target in a serious stream of untreated racism/colorism. I refer you to the - below - letter I've sent out this am to others in the Psychology Department. (before I had your e-mail!)
Sisterly Congratulations for having the bravery to come out swinging publicly!
I've just read your statement, right below President Fuhrman's statement and I would say - about your phrase, "...individuals of all races..." - that there is but one 'race,' the hueman one. (We, at the Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Inc. have been calling for a new Anti-Racist/Colorist Lexicon) I can think of no better venue for a series of panel discussions on this topic than Columbia, in light of the current stir over colorism.
I would like to offer you the use of our Racism Quotient Test Program to be used with your students and any Staff members who'd like to learn just how this society's conditioned them -most times even without their knowledge. (We should 'strike while the iron is hot!')
Sincerely Yours,
Your Sister-in-THE-Struggle,
Carol Taylor R.N.
First Black U.S.A. Flight Attendant
President/Founder: The Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Inc.
P.S. Are you by any chance related to Learie Constantine?
Another Noose - So, What Else is New?
So? The fact that, even though the Teachers College at Columbia University up in Harlem, New York, is listed as a 'bastion of liberal activism,' (with an impressive motto: "Educational equity - a moral imperative for the 21st century") does not insure its 500 students or its 150 faculty members from the effects of having been conditioned by an institutionally racist/colorist society, and thus, inevitably, someone resorting to hanging nooses - or worse.
Those of us long laboring in the field of anti-colorism know full well that if continuous www.racismtest.com ing and post-test follow-up referrals to Ethnotherapy aren't integrated into the curriculum and made available in non-threatening atmospheres, then colorist incidents like 'nooses' (and cops murdering Black males and other people of color almost indiscriminately -cops don't shoot white males in the back and 'Jena 6's and even Hempstead locker nooses) will continue to raise their sick heads in this country. And of course, mainstream media and others will continue to knee-jerk respond instead of taking www.racismtest.com proaction - as though these nasty events are unique and not an expected part of the epidemic of untreated racist/colorist thoughts and behavior
The - below reported - behavior at the Teachers College at Columbia University should be recognized by the President, Susan H. Fuhrman, as a God-Given opportunity (for the 5000 students and 150 member Faculty) to set up a ground-breaking and on-going Program of www.racismtest.com ing -and when dysfunction is indicated [and at least a third - if not a higher number - of those tested will be found dysfunctional, if our Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Inc. stats from www.racismtest.com ing the volunteer 4000 'liberal' readers of The Village Voice newspaper in 1992 is any indication of this society's brainwhitewashing effects on its unsuspecting students] - to provide follow-up referrals to Ethnotherapy for those who are found dysfunctional.
We at the Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Incorporated, have been administering the www.racismtest.com to individuals across the scope of huemanity (including a college President, members of the NYPD Psychology Department, Brooklyn sitting Judges, a Mayor of an upstate NY town, and many, many others) for over twenty years, with exceedingly positive results (we are often told that the dialogue following the administration of the Test is a remarkable learning experience).
We stand ready, willing and able to not only confer with those administrators who would like to ensure a non-colorist and stable atmosphere in their various institutions - especially institutions of learning - but to set up prototypes for each individual institution, tailored to their respective anti-colorism ongoing curricula.
Without such ongoing programs to counteract the extant colorist conditioning by this society, and despite all of the anguished deploring of such 'hateful acts,' or even 'fostering multiculturalism,' be prepared to witness escalating 'nooses' and bias attacks and colorist murders, ad infinitum and nauseam.
Carol Taylor R.N.
First Black U.S.A. Flight Attendant
President/Founder: The Institute for "Interracial" Harmony, Incorporated - Our Motto: "Prejudice Is Learned - It Can Be Unlearned"
590 Flatbush Avenue
Ste. 11A BK NY 11225-4935
P.S. Refer to: "Who Tests The Teachers For Bias?" Saturday February 24, 1990, in the New York Amsterdam News - page 15
*********************************************************************************************
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
The Brooklyn Court Department of Jurors
To: The Brooklyn Court Department of Jurors
Courthouse
360 Adams Street
Brooklyn, N.Y. (or 'anywhere' - U.S.A.)
Date:
Dear Sirs/Madams:
Because we are all conditioned by the United States of America's racist/colorist society which obdurately refuses to teach the truth about the historical Black origins of huemanity - (starkly illustrated by the fact of that colorist film you show to prospective jurors which incorrectly states that the jury system began in Europe instead of telling the truth that it began in Africa), I do not believe that any Black or other person of color can receive a fair trial in any court in this country unless every single individual in the court system of the United States of America is first tested for their racism quotient* to prove to the public that they're not dysfunctionally colorist. (Those who are thusly determined to be dysfunctional should not be fired but should be referred to Ethnotherapy until they're healed of their colorist afflictions)
Since your Court has no sytem of continuous racism/colorism testing and treatment, I know that I cannot honestly take part in your court proceedings, which remain a pitiful and cruel Twenty-first Century anomaly with respect to equity for people of color.
So, in all truthcentricity, I respectfully decline your demand that I, a Black hueman being of good conscience, "serve" as a juror in your colorist institution.
_______________
(Signature)
* Refer to the www.racismtest.com
Notarized:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
