Archive for the 'rape' Category

rants, musings (& some link love) b4 the end of yr

b. medusa 10 December 2007 8:07:35 am

today is International Human Rights day. so let’s begin shall we…

EDIT: just found this after completing the post:

Seven Year Old Alexis Goggins Shot Six Times Protecting Her Mother

A 7-year-old-girl is being hailed as an “angel from heaven” and a hero for jumping in front of an enraged gunman, who pumped six bullets into the child as she used her body as a shield to save her mother’s life.

Alexis Goggins, a first-grader at Campbell Elementary School, is in stable condition at Children’s Hospital in Detroit recovering from gunshot wounds to the eye, left temple, chin, cheek, chest and right arm.

“She is an angel from heaven,” said Aisha Ford, a family friend for 15 years who also was caught up in the evening of terror.

The girl’s mother, Selietha Parker, 30, was shot in the left side of her head and her bicep by a former boyfriend, who police said was trying to kill Parker. The gunman was disarmed by police and arrested at the scene of the shooting, a Detroit gas station. Police identified him as Calvin Tillie, 29, a four-time convicted felon whom Parker had dated for six months.
[...]
Ford said she dialed 911 on her cell phone as she walked into the station.“The first operator clicked off and I dialed again and told that operator a guy with a gun was holding me hostage with a mother and baby and threatening to kill us. I told her the name of the gas station and then she said they didn’t have a unit to send.”Ford said she paid for $5 of gas and slowly returned to the vehicle, stalling for time as she handed Tillie the change. She said she kept stopping and starting the pump, hoping the police would show up.“I told him I needed more gas and took money out of my purse and went back into the station,” she said. The attendant, Mohammad Alghazali, 30, said he noticed Ford was crying and she told him what was happening. He called 911 as he heard shots coming from the vehicle.
[…]
Alghazali said a police car on a street nearby arrived in less than a minute after his call.

an update on her condition can be read here. a fund has been set up for Alexis, checks should be made out to the Alexis Goggins Hero Fund & sent to the following address:

Campbell Elementary School
c/o Alexis Goggins Hero Fund
2301 E Alexandrine St
Detroit, MI 48207

for information, call (313) 494-2052

ADDITIONAL INFO (courtesy of all about race): Alexis is a special needs child, due to a massive stroke she suffered as an infant. she walks with a limp & has a weak left eye. her right eye was just removed.

Alexis, who walks with a limp, slipped momentarily on the icy sidewalk and as she helped the girl up, she saw the man and recognized him as Tillie. He was holding a gun.
[...]
Before Tillie could fire again, Alexis jumped over the seat between her mother and the gunman and begged him not to shoot her mother.

The police report said Tillie “without hesitation” pumped six shots into the child.

G*TD*MN M*THAF*CKIN SORRY *SS PIECE OF SH*T!!!!!

(i don’t usually bleep myself here, but i don’t want to be excessively disrespectful to my readers. all 2 of them.)

also contact the msm & ask them why they’ve ignored this story.

CNN
Phone: 404-827-1500

Fox News Channel
Phone: 212-301-3000

ABC News
Phone: 212-456-7777

CBS News
Phone: 212-975-4321

NBC
Phone: 212-664-4444

MSNBC
Phone: 201-583-5000

Newsweek
Phone: 212-445-4000

Associated Press
Phone: 212-621-1500

Reuters
Phone: 646-223-4000

United Press International
Phone: 202 -898-8000

i don’t have to tell you why this is a human rights (as well as police brutality) issue do i?

i can’t believe i missed this story until now. much respect & gratitude to Sylvia, Nez, Carmen D., Ann & all other bloggers covering this.

Continue Reading »

a veteran’s day recap

b. medusa 12 November 2007 7:29:54 pm

posted the day after because we vets are so easily forgotten. how many times have you seen “Support Our Vets”?

UPDATE: Military demands return of bonus pay from wounded vets (h/t to pudgyindian)

Wounded Vet Told To Pay Back Bonus
Partially-Blinded In Iraq, GI Billed For Army Signing Bonus; Pentagon Admits Mistake

Veterans more likely to be homeless

WASHINGTON (CNN) — More than 25 percent of the homeless population in the United States are military veterans, although they represent 11 percent of the civilian adult population, according to a new report.

On any given night last year, nearly 196,000 veterans slept on the street, in a shelter or in transitional housing, the study by the Homelessness Research Institute found.

“Veterans make up a disproportionate share of homeless people,” the report said. “This is true despite the fact that veterans are better educated, more likely to be employed and have a lower poverty rate than the general population.”

[...]

Veterans such as Jason Kelley find themselves in a Catch-22, not able to find a job because of the lack of an apartment, and not being able to get an apartment because of not having a job, The Associated Press reported.

“The only training I have is infantry training, and there’s not really a need for that in the civilian world,” the AP quoted Kelley as saying in a phone interview. In addition, he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, he told the AP. Kelley served in Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard, the news agency said.

full article (h/t to ABB)

Military Sexual Trauma

Roughly one in seven of America’s active duty military soldiers is a woman, but a NOW investigation found that sexual assault and rape is widespread. One study of National Guard and Reserve forces found that almost one in four women had been assaulted or raped. Last year alone, almost 3,000 soldiers reported sexual assault and rape by other soldiers.

In one of the only national television broadcasts of the issue, NOW features women who speak out for the first time about what happened. One woman recounts her ordeal of rape by her superior officer. Many more don’t report the incidents for fear of how it will affect their careers. The shocking phenomenon has a label: military sexual trauma, or MST. NOW meets women courageously battling to overcome their MST, bringing light to an issue that’s putting the Army in shame.

read the transcript
watch the video

Veteran Dies After VA Refuses Treatment For Days

Since Walter Reed is considered the military’s premier medical facility, many are now questioning the condition of military and veteran facilities around the country.

Today we look at the story of a 58-year-old Vietnam veteran named Willie Dougherty. He died in October after suffering two pelvic fractures. His family says he died because he was refused treatment.

full transcript

Monsanto’s Agent Orange: The Persistent Ghost from the Vietnam War
Meryl Nass, MD

From 1962 to 1970, the US military sprayed 72 million liters of
herbicides, mostly Agent Orange, in Vietnam. Over one million
Vietnamese were exposed to the spraying, as well as over 100,000
Americans and allied troops. Dr. James Clary, a scientist at the
Chemical Weapons Branch, Eglin Air Force Base, who designed the
herbicide spray tank and wrote a 1979 report on Operation Ranch Hand
(the name of the spraying program), told Senator Daschle in 1988,

“When we (military scientists) initiated the herbicide program in the
1960s, we were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin
contamination in the herbicide. We were even aware that the ‘military’
formulation had a higher dioxin concentration than the ‘civilian’
version due to the lower cost and speed of manufacture. However,
because the material was to be used on the ‘enemy,’ none of us were
overly concerned. We never considered a scenario in which our own
personnel would become contaminated with the herbicide.”

quoted by Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, 1990
[...]
By 1983, 9170 veterans had filed claims for disabilities that they
said were caused by Agent Orange. The VA denied compensation to 7709,
saying that a facial rash was the only disease associated with
exposure.

Congress passed the Veterans’ Dioxin and Radiation Exposure
Compensation Standards Act of 1984 in response. It required the VA to
appoint a ‘Veterans’ Advisory Committee on Environmental Hazards’ to
review the literature on dioxin and submit recommendations to the head
of the VA.

According to Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, “The VA.directly contradicted its
own established practice, promulgating instead the more stringent
requirement that compensation depends on establishing a cause and
effect relationship,” improperly denying the bulk of the claims.

full article

fast forward to DU

Military may ease standards for recruits
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Faced with higher recruiting goals, the Pentagon is quietly looking for ways to make it easier for people with minor criminal records to join the military, The Associated Press has learned.

The review, in its early stages, comes as the number of Army recruits needing waivers for bad behavior — such as trying drugs, stealing, carrying weapons on school grounds and fighting (hate crimes? – b. medusa 1) — rose from 15 percent in 2006 to 18 percent this year. And it reflects the services’ growing use of criminal, health and other waivers to build their ranks.

Overall, about three in every 10 recruits must get a waiver, according to Pentagon statistics obtained by AP, and about two-thirds of those approved in recent years have been for criminal behavior. Some recruits must get more than one waiver to cover things ranging from any criminal record, to health problems such as asthma or flat feet, to low aptitude scores — and even for some tattoos (spider webs? swastikas? – b. medusa 2).

full article

1, 2Hate Groups Are Infiltrating the Military, Group Asserts

just fuckin’ stop it, ok

b. medusa 4 November 2007 1:36:16 am

this shit frickin annoys and/or sickens me:

  • infantilizing women

    • Why is is blogging for justice the same thing as “protecting our women”? Who do black women belong to in this case? Why do we assume that the person/people doing the protecting aren’t rapists themselves? Why is the answer to a rape culture to “protect” women rather than changing a rape culture?
    [...]
    And why are Megan Williams and the Dunbar Village victim the only survivors of sexual violence being talked about in this campaign??? Does violence against black women not count when it is black lesbian women being violated and imprisoned for protecting themselves?

    some of the same questions/trepidations i’ve had. bfp articulates them beautifully.

  • victim blaming

    • Why did Megan Williams go out with this white guy, let him beat her, and then go back for more, only to be taken hostage by him and his family? Didn’t she know that one of these people had been convicted of killing his own mother or something? (via vox ex machina)

    • women enabling or engaging in patriarchial boyshit isn’t bad enuf, some of them have to take it to the level of excusing rape?

    now that fuckin infuriates me. it also hurts me.

    vox has the best comeback i’ve seen yet:

    It doesn’t matter what her IQ is. It doesn’t matter that she had a previous relationship with her tormenters. It doesn’t matter if a woman is a single mom, unemployed, a sex worker, walking alone after dark, or “dressed like a slut.” (or what some refer to as “groupies”, or “golddiggers”; where did you get those fucking terms from anyway? – b. medusa)

    Believing any woman “deserves” to be abused, assaulted, raped, tortured, or murdered because she is “stupid” or “should have known better” or “was asking for it” is reprehensible.

roundup (the hate crime edition)

b. medusa 20 September 2007 4:45:23 pm

like every other site i have visited online regarding this story, i am disgusted, sickened, horrified. paralyzed into silence even for more than a few days by the horror of it (but sadly not shocked or surprised). since first encountering the initial story via Black Amazon & Vox ex Machina, the Anxious Black Woman has also weighed in on the DV aspect & the release of the victim’s name w/ some extremely thoughtful commentary . Black & Missing provides comprehensive coverage of the case. Elle, phd & Prof Black Woman bring us the news of the latest outrage of this case.

Vox ex Machina has several posts documenting hate crimes:

thanks to Tom @ Automatic Preference, i found the very comprehensive & detailed summary of the Jena 6 case over @ Black & Missing. She details what has been going on, who has documented the case up to this point, what strategies have been employed, who’s doing what, what folx can do to help, & provides links. all this in addition to her usual mission of documenting missing poc & making sure the missing receive the attention they deserve.

if you aren’t in Jena today (20 Sep), hopefully you have signed up & are participating in the Virtual March, wearing black, sporting an armband or @ the very least passing the word on. hat tip to Yobachi @ Blackperspectives.net for the word that Mychal Bell is still sitting in jail & heads up on the virtual march.

for those who’ve been shocked by what happened in Jena, here are a couple of perspectives on why some of us aren’t:

two very informative posts on hate crime in general (XP’s), and from up close & personal (Zuky). both posts are cited in Vox ex Machina’s post on Hate Crimes on the Rise (linked above)

finally, getting away from hate crime for a moment (or am i?), i’m sure you heard about the unnecessary use of force @ u of fl (student tasered @ event where john kerry was present). less known about is the beat down Lennox Yearwood got @ the capitol (the man will be on crutches for weeks), & like Cindy Sheehan i’d like to know why so many “fellow activists” silently stood by & watched while it was happening. i think i know, but i’d like to hear someone try to explain it w/o sounding totally fuckin’ lame. especially those who’ve wondered why the antiwar movement is so “white”.