Girl lied about B branding by Obama support, CNN reports

Got home from work, put away groceries, fed the cats, turned on the TV and immediately saw what I had expectedever since the story broke yesterday: 20 year old Ashley Todd has admitted that her story about being assaulted by a Barak Obama supporter who scratched a "B" on her cheek is a complete fabrication.

I'd been suspicious since I heard the story, and after I saw a picture of Ms. Todd, I was sure: the letter B carved into her cheek was backward-- the way it would be if you were looking in the mirror while you mutilated yourself.

The McCain campaign is unlikely to have had anything to do with Ms. Todd's tale. She was a volunteer for the McCain campaign, and if she's anything like several other people I've met in my life, felt like she wasn't getting enough attention, needed that attention, and would do just about anything to get it. How very sad.

Meanwhile, the usual suspects on Springfield, MA's online forum MassLive were clucking like hens. Mr.Wasp and Redneck33's monikers do tend to give away their bias against African-Americans, and fear mongering is their game. Blacks are voting for Obama just because he's black, blacks are racist, whites who support Obama should wake up, "Obama thug supporters" would just as soon kill you as as let you pass with a McCain sticker or will burn down your house..

Of course you understand that these are white people who are terrified of Blacks, who see the word "mugger" or "rapist" superimposed on every Black male under forty that they pass on the street. So to protect themselves from their fear, they have to make out that they, the white people, are the real victims. How very sad.

A few folks on the forum had doubts from the beginning also, and called out Mr. Wasp and Redneck33's paranoia. A lot of other decent folks just wouldn't even dignify the discussion with a comment. Those are the people who give me hope. My fear is that those who think like Mr. Wasp and Redneck33 but say nothing are numerous enough to sway the election.

Photo from CNN.

What, Me Racist? Playing the race card

As is not uncommon these days, Springfield, MA's MassLive forum is awash in posts about racism, a number of which are racist themselves. I have written about the manifestations of racism on this blog but haven't tried to "unpack" it too often, as so many other do it better-- but here goes.

Whatever else may come from Barak Obama's campaign for president, the extraordinary level of debate about race now taking place is bringing change in unanticipated ways. I have my fingers crossed that most of the change will be positive.

One trend that disturbs me is when discussions of race lead to accusations against blacks of reverse racism.

If a white person talks about a black person talking about race, the black person is accused of "playing the race card." Well, if that is the hand you are dealt, is that any surprise? The cards in the white person's hand are white, not black. Those cards may be more kings than queens or more low than high-- but they are not colored.

One huge part of the problem is that most people don't seem to understand the difference between prejudice and the isms-- racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ageism and more. The isms are backed by more than prejudice, they are backed by institutional power.

Prejudice is painful. One poster on MassLive listed a group of insulting words about white people and called them racist. One of those words, redneck, is certainly classist. I remember a southern friend explaining the derivation of that word-- that it was about white workers in the field whose necks became sunburned while they were working. I can guarantee you, however, that the big bosses standing over them were also white, not black.

To see the effect of institutional power in play, one has only to look at the halls of Congress, the administrators of the government, the Wall St. brokers and the heads of financial institutions. Those members are overwhelmingly white, male, rich and declared heterosexuals.

A black person can call me a name and even get his friends to beat me up, but she or he has no control over where the majority of whites can live, what education we receive or where we am employed. That power rests elsewhere.

Photo from BrainEthics.

In practical terms, if we don't understand institutional power, we can't challenge it. We turn on each other as the cause of our miseries and never look up the food chain. Thus we remain struggling for power-- blacks, gays, working and middle class whites, women-- but we're struggling against the wrong people.

We have an opportunity to dig a little deeper in 2008, and I hope we take it.

Open Pantry backstabbers: bad reporting assists cowards

I was at the Open Pantry press conference yesterday, where the agency asked for the community's help. We were asked to help convince legislators to override Gov. Patrick''s veto of funds for the agency.

After the press conference, when some of us were milling around talking to each other, there was an odd moment when I realized that the agencies and individuals who had come to support the OP-- not the best-heeled groups in the city-- had gradually been infiltrated by people from the community who were there to get food. We were pretty indistinguishable from each other.

This morning I went to MassLive to read the Springfield Republican's coverage of OP's plea. Why I should be surprised at what I read I don't know, but several paragraphs referenced 'homeless advocates" and Noonan's "detractors" without ever saying who those people were! What kind of reporting is Stephanie Barry's piece supposed to be?

"Noonan's detractors say he should not be seeking "new funding" from a barren state budget. Moreover, others say the $400,000 Noonan is seeking is simply an attempt to recoup funds he lost when the Open Pantry's Warming Place shelter at the former York Street jail closed last year.

"We're not able in this fiscal climate to provide funding for services that are not being rendered," Patrick spokeswoman Cynthia M. Roy said."

Barry only quotes Patrick's spokesperson Cynthia Roy-- who gets it wrong. Wonder where Roy got her information? And who are those "detractors" and "others?" Could Barry be referencing those anonymous posters on MassLive? Or is she talking about Springfield officials who lack the guts to go on the record and prefer to do their backstabbing behind closed doors?

"While funding to feed the needy and homeless may seem an unassailable pitch, homeless advocates say there is a statewide movement afoot to standardize help and move away from so-called emergency services such as temporary shelters and the like.

To that end, the Patrick administration is discouraging additional funding for emergency services and is devoting any new funding to prevention and a longer-term approach to homelessness, experts say."

Again, just who are those "homeless advocates" and "experts?". And another point here-- just because Patrick is moving away from emergency funding, does that mean it's a good idea? I'm a homeless advocate, and I have seen Patrick's 'either-or" approach as short-sighted and ill-timed. I'm all in favor of prevention and long-term approaches. But let's call a euphemism a euphemism. If there was ever a time when our local, state and federal governments needed to maintain emergency services, this is it.

Remember that line from Airplane!, when Lloyd bridge's air traffic controller character says, "Looks like I picked the wrong day to give up smoking?"

Shame on the cowards for not going on record and shame on Stephanie Barry-- and her editors-- for allowing it.

Open Pantry: One chance left to override Governor's veto

Why do some people hate poor people so much?

Yesterday there were folks posting on Springfield's forum MassLive who were rubbing their cyberhands with glee over Governor Patrick's veto of funds for Open Pantry Community Service. You can read more about it here:

Today an apartment building in the South End caught fire and thirteen families were displaced. As one MassLive Poster says, "One less low income ghetto the tax payers have to keep funding."

Sometimes it's hard not to hope that these people get a chance to find out firsthand what poverty is like, not only to be poor, in fact, but to have to put up with the slurs and assumptions that others will make about them.

If the Open Pantry has to cut back services, it will cut holes in our already tattered safety net.

Last year the Legislature overrode many of the governor's vetoes; this year, with everyone tightening their belts, it won't be as easy But poor people can't go without much more and still survive.

Readers of this blog who have been following the Open Pantry's saga remember the struggle to preserve shelter for homeless people. Now, its trying to keep the Food Pantry open its current four days a week and the Loaves & Fishes Soup Kitchen still serving twelve meals a week.

You may have called on behalf of the Open Pantry before, but please-- one more time. If you live in Massachusetts, please call your legislator, senators and representatives alike, and ask them to restore funding for the Open Pantry. You can find out who your legislator is and his or her contact information here:

Stand up for poor people.

Beware of food!

Another Masslive headline to accompany yesterday's "Loaf of Bread Sparks Fatal Fight"--
"Meats Jump Off Shelves at Easter."

Greater Internet Dickwad Theory

Happy New Year to My Friends and Foes at MassLive.

No one speaks-- on MassLive, anyway

Yesterday the Springfield Republican carried a story about vandalism that took place at three Jewish cemeteries in West Springfield. Three dozen headstones were toppled; a nearby Catholic cemetery was left untouched.

As commonly happens when an important story is carried on MassLive, there's a link to the local forum --"West Springfield Talks." So I went to the West Springfield forum to see what people were saying-- and they were saying absolutely nothing about it. Missing dogs, speeding busses, Ludacris coming to the Big E-- all those things that really affect people.

It's a little early, but Happy New Year.

A personal note

Haven't been feeling so great lately and have been really busy with my job so not blogging as much as I like, but just got back from an Arise meeting and that always psychs me up more than it wears me out, so in a bit I'll try to catch up with some homeless news, local and otherwise.

Someone who reads this blog told me it was interesting that I went back and forth between the personal and the political in my posts. That surprised me a bit, I'll admit, because although I do sometimes share my personal observations, I don't think I tell you much about my personal life-- not where I live, or the names of my children, not where I work or whether I'm in a relationship-- I suppose the longer I blog, the more that will come out.

Local readers, of course, know me more well. I am still banned from MassLive and still don't know why. As much as my views differ from most of the MassLive posters, the Springfield forum is still a community of sorts, with the opportunity (even if frequently squandered) to share information and build a collective knowledge. I am, however, one of the very few people to post under my name, so I don't know much about my fellow forum members-- and I don't comb their posts looking for clues, either. Still, it doesn't feel good to get cut off. from that community.

The two pictures in this post are two sides of me.

Blogging life is bizarre

and I suppose I don't know the half of it, having been blogging for only a few months.

Last night my nephew turned up at Wendy's to go to work and found the store closed. I wrote about this last night.

First weirdness: I got more hits on my blog for this post than on any single subject I've posted on before, including the death of a homeless man.

Second weirdness: I discovered this morning I'm blocked from MassLive, our local forum. Think I figured out it's because I used the Wendy's logo on my story about Wendy's. Guess I was tired and not thinking about the logo being copywrited. Usually I am very careful. Don't know how long this banning will last. I have since removed the logo.

My estimate of the number of employees affected by Wendy's closing was way under-- 250 is more like it.

Why today?

Why today, of all days, am I finally giving in to the impulse to start a blog?

I've started a new job which takes me away from the minute to minute life of the organization to which I belong-- Arise for Social Justice-- and I'm finding I need a way to share what I see in the everyday life of this city and this country.

I went out today-- Sunday-- to buy food and shades for my windows and as I was driving through Six Corners, I saw in the sky ahead of me what I thought was a bald eagle. I pulled to the curb to watch and soon I could see his white head and and broad black wings. Two guys were walking by, one young and one not so young, and I opened my car door and said, "Hey, you guys, that's a bald eagle!" and pointed up. After a split second of hesitation (Hey, who is this woman?), they looked up and we all watched for a few seconds. "Is that the one nesting on the Memorial Bridge that I saw on TV?" Then he corrected himself. "No, that's a falcon."
I drove on, they walked on, in my rearview mirrow I saw them look up another time.

I've seen three bald eagles in my life, all in the last two years-- one at the Arise office on Rifle St., across from the Mill River, one a quarter mile away on Allen St., and the one today.

I guess Six Corners would be considered one of the "bad" sections of the city. The people who live in Six Corners struggle to live decent lives and are the same people mocked and stereotyped by posters on MassLive who hide behind made-up names.

Under the circling arc of the eagle
we are all free to look up.