Friday, November 11, 2011

The Beginning and The End

We all have to make the most out of our lives, there are so many people who do not value our lives or their own. When you are in an abusive relationship and you stay, the people that you love the most are the ones that suffer in the end. We as women love so hard and deep and when we are fed up, we just let go. After a woman is beaten to a pulp, her dignity is gone, her zest is gone and her real being is gone. When a woman is at the end of rope and she decides to hang on for dear life, she no longer will sustain the abuse and move on. The heart wrenching part of it all, is that when she decides that enough is enough, some men cannot deal with that reality and they decide to end the lives of these women.

We hear everyday about women losing their lives and it is truly sad. Women from all walks of life experience abuse first hand and their is no discrimination in abuse, any woman from any background can experience domestic violence, rich or poor, black or white, the experience of abuse can strike us all.

I listen to women daily who say it couldn't be me, I wouldn't take no man hitting me! Well, I do not believe any woman likes to be abused, but the will to stay is sometimes stronger than the will to leave. Some women do not believe that they can make it on their own and they are fearful of starting all over again by themselves. Men thrive on that mindset because they keep the women in line with this way of thinking.

Experiencing abuse at the hands of someone that your heart yearns for is devastating, you know deep down in your heart that it's not right, but you focus on the person you knew before, not the person that is in the here and now. You know that this person has a good side and you are trying to bring that loving side back out and through this journey the abuse endured is unbelievable. You are devastated, you feel lost and you question the person you are. You say to yourself, I am not this person, I am not someone that allows a man to beat her, but when you look in the mirror, you actually have a reality check, it is you!

For those that are aware of your abuse they tell you to leave, but they do not understand what both of you have shared, nobody really understands how passionate you love each other, and your union with this person is strong. You don't leave at the first signs of trouble, plus you do not want to be labeled a failure, so you continue to endure and hide the truth. You hear constantly your friends that are telling you to leave, don't even have a man, they are jealous of what you have, so don't let them ruin your love or life.

The reality is that hiding the truth is also hiding yourself. You are no longer the person you used to be, you are now a shell of a person and a person living in fear. Your joy has left your body and your smile has become a frown, it even hurts to commit to a fake smile to feel better or impress others. How could you have been so wrong about someone? Why are you facing these challenges? Is this some horrible way of being paid back from any wrongs in your past? You now look at this individual who pretends that everything that is wrong in his world is your fault. He wants to kiss you, he wants to hit you, he wants to have sex with you and tell you how much he loves you; and then he tells you nobody else will want you; so basically your best bet is to stay with him and endure.

The worst part of it all is that whether long term or briefly you believe him and doubt yourself. You believe that he is it, that you cannot do better. We can see the signs of abusive men, men that get on facebook and other social sites and degrade women, men that share their business on facebook and other sites are abusive because they feel a sense of power in their actions. Men that want to tell you what to wear and how to dress, that constantly put you down and tell you if you have gained an ounce of weight or you are not as pretty as you used to be. Men that try to separate you from your family and friends and complain that you are not giving them enough attention, because your world is supposed to revolve around theirs. If you feel that you have to always rush home and that you can never go out ANYWHERE, that is also a questionable tactic on their part.

Life is meant to be lived in the beginning and to the end, don't let your life be dictated and eventually be taken away, love yourself and be careful with who you choose to love.












Thursday, November 10, 2011

Children are the Victims

One of the saddest things in this world is how children sometimes go unprotected. There are men and women sexually abusing children every second, minute and hour of each day. These helpless children are the prey of pedophiles. The worst part of it, is that some people are made aware of these abusive practices and pretend to be blinded by this injustice.

Who are we as people if we do not stand up for the children. I mean the children, who are being abused, molested, tortured, kidnapped and sold. If you imagine the worst thing that happened to you as a child and you could only remember being yelled at or not allowed to go out with your friends, you are certainly one of the blessed ones. But if you can regress back to a time when you told your mother that your stepfather was touching you inappropriately and she told you to stop lying and being a slut, or the time when your brother tried to have sexual relations with you and you had no choice in the matter, or your coach takes you in the shower and does unthinkable things to you, then you have fallen prey to the abusers in this world. We are slacking and lacking in protecting our children and it is not right.

What would make a child think twice about sharing this experience with their parents if molested? What kind of mind would mentally justify molesting a child? What kind of parent would not believe a child or even investigate when a child shares information about sexual abuse? What makes us doubt our children? Wouldn't there be at the back of your mind and thoughts that they could be telling the truth? These people are sick and they need help, but in the mean time these children suffer. I do not have all of the answers; but what I can say is to allow a child to be physically hurt and molested is cruel. To know that something wrong has happened and not be attentive to aiding a child is wrong. We have to do better in our roles as adults, even when we do not want to get involved. These scars are everlasting and we have to do our best to help prevent children from experiencing these painful injustices. We are all that they have, shouldn't we help them until they can help themselves? Would you want someone there for you? Pay attention and Care..Silence can be the scar of a lifetime.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Greg Norman: Steve Williams a little dumb in comments but not racist

Greg Norman: Steve Williams a little dumb in comments but not racist

How to End Violence


Rev. Al Sharpton


How to End Violence? Get Guns Off of the Street


Whenever we hear of horrific tragedies like the slaying of Zurana Horton, a 34-year-old mother of 13 who was killed by a stray bullet last Friday while shielding children outside of an elementary school in Brooklyn, we often ask ourselves how such a travesty could happen. We watch as mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children and all those left behind mourn the loss of their loved ones and grapple with how to push forward with their head held high. But what we do not focus on enough is how guns have gotten into the hands of the wrong people in the first place, and why they are so readily accessible to them. This week in NY, eight NYPD officers were charged with helping to run a gun-smuggling ring in a city already grappling with unresolved shootings. Whether it's illegal trafficking on the streets or organized illegal trafficking with the assistance of authority, bottom line is, we must stop guns from coming into our community -- period.
I can't begin to tell you how many funerals I've attended or how many family members I've tried to comfort after they traumatically lost someone near and dear to them to a senseless act of violence. Often times caught in a crossfire of bullets, these innocent victims have ranged in age from infants to grandmothers, and have been killed while completing everyday tasks like picking up children from school or running an errand, or simply sitting in their home. But what is strikingly clear is that a vast majority of these shooting victims have been Black and Latino, and we simply cannot remain silent about saving our families and protecting our streets.
Gun supporters and advocates always champion the 2nd Amendment and our right to bear arms. But this right doesn't mean that everyone should possess a weapon. It doesn't mean guns should be so readily accessible to the least stable among us. And it doesn't mean that we don't need stricter gun laws to keep them out of the hands of criminals and those with a complete disregard for human life. Perhaps the fierce gun proponents need to take a walk in our neighborhoods, where young children have to dodge bullets just to get an education, or where mothers and fathers spend sleepless nights figuring out ways to keep their families safe. Or maybe they need to have a conversation with Zurana Horton's 13 children who will now have to somehow survive without a mother for the rest of their lives.
The trafficking of guns in this country is it an astronomical level. The sheer fact that police officers who are hired to serve and protect us would willingly participate in such behavior is egregious at best. We must ensure that those eight NYPD law enforcement officials receive the appropriate punishment and we all must work to get these guns off of our streets and out of the hands of would-be murderers. We at NAN previously held gun buy-back programs, and we will continue such activities with the hopes that others will follow suit.
We cannot continue to watch heroes like Zurana Horton lose their lives, and we cannot continue to bury our precious ones. Life is indeed short, but let's not make it shorter by killing one another needlessly. Get guns out of the community and stop them from ever finding their way back in. Together, we can save ourselves -- and the next generation.
 
Follow Rev. Al Sharpton on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheRevAl

Rebecca Walker, Anita Hill Woke Us Up


Rebecca Walker


Anita Hill Woke Us Up

Posted: 10/27/11 11:24 AM ET
Close your eyes. Can you remember what you were doing in October of 1991? Zoom in on the crisp fall days of the Senate hearings when Anita Hill stood up and told her truth. Can you see it?
I can. I was a senior at Yale, and I had a very cute boyfriend whom I berated constantly for using sexist, homophobic language -- like calling a guy who wouldn't stand up to his girlfriend a pussy or a fag. He was a very nice young man from a well-known activist family that had fought for civil rights for generations. He said he was talking like one of the guys, and that I was blowing things out of proportion.
I wasn't having it. I had taken bell hooks' class the semester before. I had grown up crawling around the Ms. magazine offices and spent summers at my godmother Gloria Steinem's house. My mother was one of the most visible black feminists in the world. All of which meant that the boyfriend and I had some lovely discussions about Rousseau and the Enlightenment over ramen at my tiny off-campus apartment, but we almost came to blows over what I found to be his unfathomable utterances of patriarchal subterfuge.
And there was more, much more, happening that fall. The shocking footage of Rodney King being beaten mercilessly by the Los Angeles Police Department was viral before any of us even had email. George H.W. Bush was after Roe v. Wade, restricting access to reproductive choice for women and families -- one law, one county, one clinic at a time.
In other news, my generation was marked with a giant X that, we were told repeatedly, stood for unengaged, apathetic, self-absorbed children of Reaganomics, dilettantes who only wanted to make a ton of money. Newsweek screamed that feminism was dead, and the civil rights movement was, too. The pundits opined that this generation without a name had moved on from the equality game. Our parents may have marched, but we were going to business school.
But the hype never rang true to me. My friends and I were the opposite of apathetic. We were consumed. Van Jones and I argued on street corners in New Haven, Conn., about whether it was more effective to work for change within the corridors of power and privilege or outside of them. A brilliant law student I dated for a bit introduced me to KRS-One and Boogie Down Productions -- and their recycled slogan: By Any Means Necessary. After dinner we talked about how to apply the missive to build and control black media outlets.
My friends and I walked down the street listening to Tracy Chapman sing "Talking 'Bout a Revolution" on our Walkmans with tears streaming down our faces. U2's anthem to Dr. King, "Pride," blared on the quad. I stayed up all night talking with a dear friend about starting an ACT UP chapter on campus in response to Bush's refusal to mention AIDS at a point when thousands were dying of the disease. Two black women at my university attempted suicide, and we demanded a more substantive response from the administration to the high rates of depression among women of color on campus.
And we started a magazine for "people of color," a term that was fresh to our ears at the time, in hopes of bringing all the isolated groups together -- African Americans, West Indians, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, even the Chinese dissidents given asylum in our hallowed halls. Wasn't it a matter of those with power and those without? Wouldn't we stand a better chance if we joined together?
Contrary to the media's assessment, my tribe of Gen Xers was forging the language of coalition politics -- now known in academia as intersectionality theory -- by discussing the constructs of race, gender, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status, and how these identities were used to categorize and divide us. Our understanding that the world needed to shift in response to the overlapping oppressions and suppression of marginalized people was at the core of our personal and intellectual lives.
But it wasn't until the fall before my graduation that we got our chance to test the baby we were incubating. It wasn't until Hill spoke up and revealed the ongoing discrimination, the still-yawning chasm between powerful and powerless, that we found a place to enter the political fray and share our passion for change.
Ten years later, when the twin towers were struck, students at my alma mater sat together before large screens and absorbed the shock collectively. But when Hill stood up and said that Clarence Thomas had repeatedly made lewd, offensive, degrading comments to her, there was no huge television for us to watch. There was no Google to constantly refresh on the subject.
We heard about the hearings from our friends who had televisions, who read the newspapers -- all of them -- every day. I heard about them from friends in the movement, women of all ages and backgrounds who were in New York and Washington -- ground zero, so to speak -- who called to give me updates and ask for my response.
Which I gave. Stridently. Informally, in radio interviews, and formally in an article for Ms. magazine called "Becoming the Third Wave," both an ode to Hill and a manifesto for a new generation of activists. In addition to other exhortations, I suggested that we not sleep with men who did not respect us. I declared that I was not a postfeminist feminist, but the Third Wave. In other words, I said, no, the fight wasn't over. The next curl was just about to crash onto the shore.
Hill's courage made me write those words. And those words sparked letters from hundreds of young women who concurred. They were the Third Wave, too, they said, and what were we going to do about it?
If the history were known, I could simply say that the rest was history. But when the people at the center of the history are black, or women, or gay, or poor or all of the above, this is often impossible. So I won't say the rest is history, because it isn't, but it is out there on Google: the New York Times statement by African American Women in Defense of Ourselves, the sparking of the national LGBT movement called ACT UP and the tremendous outpouring of activism of all kinds in the early '90s -- from local, direct-action campaigns to the formation of progressive PACs and wealth-redistribution plans in the guise of 501(c)(3)s. That history is out there because Hill resisted erasure. She made sure her story was on the record, and that encouraged so many of us to do the same.
As for me, I graduated and, with a diverse group of other deeply motivated Gen Xers, founded Third Wave, a nonprofit dedicated to the empowerment of girls ages 15-30, then a completely underserved demographic within the philanthropic and advocacy worlds. Twenty years later, thanks to Hill, who supported our very first voter registration in inner cities and spoke to our intrepid team along the way, Third Wave has given millions of dollars to help young women make meaningful change in their lives and communities.
Thanks to Hill, a new generation of feminists and social-change agents were given their moment to shine, and many have been going strong ever since. While Hill has gone on to produce brilliant scholarship and create a life very separate from those hearings, many continue to draw upon the energy of her strength in those moments. We remember what she wore when she stood up to pledge to tell the truth, but most of all, we remember what she said.
Originally posted on The Root.

 
Follow Rebecca Walker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rebeccawalker

Adult children living at home

Adult children living at home after their parents are retired

October 29, 2011 · Filed Under Statistics 
A new report from TD Canada Trust shows that adult children living at home may be interfering with their parents’ retirement plans — because those adult children will still be living with Mom and Dad after the parents have retired.
The TD Canada Trust Boomer Buyers Report shows that 17% of baby boomers who plan to downsize are delaying selling the family home because they still have adult children living at home. Of those, 12% say they will likely still have adult children living with them after they have retired.
These numbers illustrate one of the important points I try to make when talking about why adult children should always make a financial contribution to the household, and why it’s important to create a family budget. While it may seem like it’s “free” for parents to let their children live at home, it simply is not. In this case, parents who would otherwise be lowering their living expenses and freeing up equity from the family home are delaying doing so in order to house their adult children. This is a real, and significant, cost.
This report also raises an important question: Does it make sense for boomers who have retired and are living on pensions or retirement savings to continue to support their adult children, who are in their prime earning years?

Positive Attitude

It is important that you recognize your progress and take pride in your accomplishments. Share your achievements with others. Brag a little. The recognition and support of those around you is nurturing. – Rosemarie Rossetti

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. – Herm Albright

If you think about disaster, you will get it. Brood about death and you hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience. – Swami Vivekananda

You’ve done it before and you can do it now. See the positive possibilities. Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination. – Ralph Marston 

Challenges

In life we face so many challenges, but we can never give up. Giving up is not an option. We have to stay focused and stay true to Rising Above Our Circumstances. There will always be people to tear you down when you have fallen, but it is up to you to rise and know that failing is not Failure. Failure is giving up.

http://www.witn.com/news/headlines/Allred_Says_New_Woman_To_Accuse_Herman_Cain_133363738.html?ref=738

http://www.witn.com/news/headlines/Allred_Says_New_Woman_To_Accuse_Herman_Cain_133363738.html?ref=738

Penn State fallout forces changes – USATODAY.com

Penn State fallout forces changes – USATODAY.com

LOVE COMES FROM GOD

WE MUST LEARN TO SPREAD LOVE THROUGHOUT OUR WORLD, TAKE TIME TO LOVE AND ENJOY YOURSELF!

I'M GONNA MISS YOU