India and China's Disappearing Women

The situation that’s now unfolding in China and India is a perfect example of what happens when people decide to fuck with Mother Nature in the wrong way. China and India are experiencing a shortage of women by the millions and while each country has different circumstances that caused them to arrive at the point they are at now, the result seems clear, women will be the victims of the major societal pit falls that result from such a calamity. And if you think it isn’t a calamity when there is a noticeable shortage of women present in society I think this post will render you a different perspective.

China has a population of a billion plus and it has put a strain on their economy and the resources needed to provide for them. In fact, the world population of seven billion that exists and grows every day is putting a strain on the Earth’s resources, animal species, environment and mankind’s ability to provide for everyone period (but that's a whole other post). China initiated population controls to deal with this pressing dilemma by passing a law in 1979 where couples could only have one child and if they had more they would have to pay for going beyond the one child limit.

While the law did in fact prevent the births of over 250 million Chinese the social consequences were catastrophic. With boys being the preferred sex within the Chinese culture, the practice of female infanticide became rampant and was assisted by the availability of ultrasounds, which details the sex of the baby before a woman gives birth, and abortions. Because of the 1979 law combined with a gender preference for boys China now has 32 million more boys than they do females. This means 32 million men will not have a wife and those who are poor will be the first to be shit out of luck since their lack of money will make them undesirable as husbands. Other unforeseen social consequences resulting from the one child policy in China are the buying of female children by wealthy couples to ensure their sons have daughters, the kidnapping of teenage girls for wives (since women have become scarce), the selling of children by people who have more than one child and cannot afford to pay the government's extra tax and many more consequences I cannot name. A documentary called China’s Stolen Children effectively captures these problems.

However, India does not have such policy restrictions and are aborting their females since the prevalence of ultrasound has also allowed them to discover the sex of the baby before birth. In India female children are deemed more expensive because of the dowries that have to be paid to the groom’s family when she is married and also because, just like China, the culture prefers male children. Because of female infanticide Indian men now outnumber women by 40 million. An ABC 20/20 special called India's Disappearing Daughters and a book by the same name documents India's gender imbalance. So once gain like China, some 40 million men will be without wives and poor men will suffer because they lack the financial resources to be more desirable by mates. The practice of wife-sharing is rearing its head in India, where women are being forced to have children by multiple men in one family because there is a shortage of women. India also faces the problem of higher incidences of rape, kidnap and trafficking because there are not enough women.

The patriarchal presence in both societies that do not recognize the value of female life is what continues to degrade the livelihood of women (if they're lucky enough to be born) and men in these countries. It is not surprising that women bear the burden of exploitation by the same consequences that brought about the shortage of so many of their female counterparts. Thus Chinese and Indian women are victimized twice by a society bent on their destruction (gendercide) and then by the men who exploit them because of the consequences stemming from practices of male primacy. These women are left powerless over cultural institutions and laws that have rendered their bodies as something that can be sanctioned by the state (in China) or by their husbands (India). These cultures are not initiating a strong enough change in the cultural practices or laws that are systematically erasing the female citizenry of both their countries. Sadly, the social fallout being reaped upon both societies to accommodate the shortage of women does not ring a bell to how important women are.

It's unconscionable how no one is thinking, “Well, hey, if we abort millions of females how will we repopulate the Indian race or how will our Chinese sons have a wife to marry.” They obviously are not thinking (since they love boys so damn much) about how one day their little princes will not have a bride because of the sexual imbalance that will occur because they're killing the shit out of females. I guess they will fix this problem by wife swapping and trafficking teenage girls as wives for the men who cannot find them. I’m a firm supporter of different cultural practices by other societies because we are not all the same but some practices are just plain wrong and fucked up and the practice of male pre-eminence is one that should be done away with. I hope they realize the error of their ways before it’s too late. Or maybe it already is.

Un-Love and Hip Hop

Yes, it’s true. I am a reality TV. show watcher. I love shows such as Basketball Wives, Love & Hip-Hop and the Real Housewives series. People say it’s detrimental to the portrayal of black women and women in general, etc., etc. While I completely understand this argument, I believe that reality TV distorts the portrayal of anyone Black or White who participates in it but of course with Black women the images carry different stereotypical meanings. After these shows are over, white women still have the privilege of being characterized as beautiful, feminine and desirable no matter how many times they make an ass out of themselves on national television but that is another story.

On the show two weeks ago, Ms. Chrissy Lampkin (the spouse of rapper Jim Jones) finally received the engagement ring she had been looking for after dating Jim for seven years. My question to all of my female peers is, how long would you wait? I’m going to be honest here and say that after the third year, if I was Chrissy, I would have been ready to pack my bags. Of course, age factors into this as well. The younger you are the longer you can be in a relationship of that length but what if you are  Chrissy’s age, 30+, and the space for you to have kids diminishes every year after thirty, then the luxury of waiting seven years waiting for a man to propose is not an option.

Many times women don’t ask their men the right questions and are sometimes left stuck between their desire (the ring) and the reality of the situation (being with a man who isn’t ready to get married). I’m not saying you should talk about marriage on the first date but after two or three years of dating a man (this applies to women in their late twenties and older) you have a right to ask where the relationship is going. In a relationship, if you are loving, supporting and caring for someone unselfishly then you have a right to ask for what you want. There are many women who do not do this because they are scared of being alone or don’t know how to be alone and while that is understandable, one must eradicate the feelings of a devalued self-worth in order to correct this. Because if the only time you feel whole is when you are with a significant other then that is a problem. I am fortunate enough to be one of those people who was never bothered by not being in a relationship (I’ve never been in a serious relationship). However, if my partner was not ready for marriage in the short future after we’ve been together for three or more years then I would be ready to throw in the towel and put up the deuces. I deserve to be with someone who will fully appreciate and reciprocate the level of commitment I am willing to give to a relationship.

I don’t blame Chrissy for making threats of walking away because if she was not getting what she thought she deserved, which is a marriage attached to stability and security, then she needs to walk away. Another thing, I feel that if I am not a wife then I will not be performing the duties of a wife. I’m sorry, but if a man doesn’t want to make the commitment of marriage then he doesn’t get the benefits that comes from being married such as children, living with me, certain sexual privileges, etc. It is important to ask your partner about marriage (if that's what you want) when you have been in a relationship for a certain amount of time so you won’t be clinging to a reality that is non-existent. Everyone has different thresholds of toleration and it is up to you to determine yours but being in an unhappy relationship that's a one-way street to nowhere should be a low threshold for anyone.

If you don’t want marriage or are indifferent to it then you never have to worry about presenting ultimatums on this basis because you view your relationship as something that maintains significance whether or not you are married, but for those of us who do, like myself, we will definitely be asking the question, "Um....Just where the fuck is this relationship going?"

Families, Feelings & Regret

Today’s blog is about family and communication. A lot of times in our lives we want to speak and communicate with our family in ways that we are afraid to do and this procrastination may often times leave many important things left unsaid. The important things I speak of are our feelings and emotions about events that have taken place in the past. Closure is needed in order for people to move on with their lives or to just be happier about the relationships within their families. A lot of times when people finally do decide to communicate it is either too late because the person is deceased or on their death bed. And when a person finally does communicate and does it successfully they regret not doing it sooner and chide themselves for all the time wasted by not facing their family members.

My father told me a very heartfelt story about him and my grandfather. And to make a long story short my father regretted not telling my grandfather, before he died, about his feelings of disappointment about something he felt my grandfather should have done after he was wounded in Vietnam. My father also discovered later from my grandmother that my grandfather had some feelings too about certain topics he had never communicated to my father. The story really touched me and made me realize how hard it is to discuss things with people you love and it hit close to home for me because I have a hard time communicating with certain family members who I want a closer relationship with. The main person who I would like to have a closer relationship with is my grandmother but every time I talk to her I am always fearful of not knowing what to say to her. I have this horrible fear of not having enough to say to people and it is something that plagues me deeply. My fear is the awkward silences that can result if I don’t have anything meaningful to say or can’t carry the conversation and while it is very cowardly of me, nonetheless, it is an anxiety I have.

 My grandmother sometimes tells me she is surprised when I call and I feel bad because I know my inability to communicate with her stems from my weaknesses but my fear has been stronger than my will to have a relationship with her. In this New Year I will try harder to communicate with the people I love and who have helped me get to where I am today. I have a lot to lose by not cultivating familial relationships and sometimes it is painful to think about how my fears keep me from doing it. Hopefully, for my sake, my fears are not as powerful as I think it is.

Newt Gingrich and the Racialization of Povery

I'm sick and tired of your Welfare Queens!

Well, it’s that time of the year again folks. Yes. The time when you begin to hear the bullshit spewing from your nice flat screen television sets in the form of political campaign advertisements. Although, this will be my third presidential election as a registered voter in this great country we call the United States of America, I loathe the circus that accompanies presidential campaigns and it really gets on my damn nerves. Every election year I get the privilege of hearing some presidential candidate or their political asshole counterparts disparage African-Americans in their presidential speeches, debates, or interviews. In every presidential election (or any other election for that matter) to no avail, some politician puts his foot in his mouth. I’ve always appreciated a little honesty in my politicians so it disheartens me when they recant or try to re-conceptualize any racist and/or ignorant remarks they are confronted about.

One politician who has been very truthful this past week is our good ole friend, Republican presidential frontrunner, Newt Gingrich. Although, the label of Republican should have been enough of a harbinger to warn me of the ignorance to come I believe in giving all people the benefit of the doubt. Newt Gingrich informed America (and he’s not the first or the last) of just how little he views Blacks, in the form of productive employed citizens who contribute to the prosperity of America, by his comments from two days ago. Gingrich stated:

"And so I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. And I’ll go to them and explain a brand new Social Security opportunity for young people, which should be particularly good for African-American males — because they’re the group that gets the smallest return on Social Security because they have the shortest life span."

Translation of Newty's words: “I want to talk to the NAACP (because this is somehow the only Black organization in the U.S. which addresses the concerns of Blacks) about why Blacks don’t get up off their lazy asses and work and not be content with draining the American economy by settling for food stamps.” Sigh. Oh, Newty Newt Newt Newt, your poor feeble ill-informed and adulterated mind needs some refreshment of the facts. I’m so sick of Republican presidential candidates placating the racial stereotypes of white Americans at the expense of Blacks to get elected or re-elected. They do it in every presidential election but then turn around and wonder why Black people won’t vote for their racist asses and they are completely comfortable with it because it allows them to continue to be racist since they can pretty much count on not getting Black votes.

To set the record straight White people receive more food stamps than Blacks in this country so I’m confused (not really) as to why Gingrich chose to single out Blacks, implying that we somehow value food stamps over paychecks. In fact, there are more poor Whites in this country than poor Blacks but of course Newty would not dare challenge the reigning racial narrative of poverty being linked with minorities, specifically Blacks, by stating the truth because he wouldn’t get elected. Also, Newty would never address the discrimination, the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries, the slow economic recovery in Black communities and the elimination of public sector jobs that allowed a middle-class existence for Blacks as crucial elements in the high Black unemployment rate.

The racialization of poverty and public aid has given politicians the luxury of denying Blacks the benefits of citizenship, a citizenry whose needs should be addressed, by implying that we are complicit in bringing about the circumstances which cause our unemployment or impoverished status. It’s because Blacks are lazy, incompetent and content with being leeches of society as reasons why we are unemployed and on food stamps; it is never because of the laws put in place by a fucked up Congress for the past 30+ years that allowed for lax business practices, corporate tax loopholes, and fickle banking and financial institutions that caused an economic recession. Nope, those reasons are only reserved for White people because it’s the government’s fault whenever unemployment is high for Whites, as the members of the Tea Party so kindly reminded us. Newty is a very desperate man at this point in the race, maybe someone will throw him the lifesaver of truth but if not I'm content with watching him and his draconian views of poverty drown.

Is Jay-Z and Beyonce's Daughter Going to be a Part of the Illuminati Too?

Although, I usually don’t engage stupidity in everyday conversations or debates (because it gives me a headache and I don’t learn anything new) I have no qualms about talking about the outrageousness of other’s absurdities on this blog. We’ve all come across people who have said something dumb ass hell at one time or another in our lives and a lot of times we ourselves were the ones spewing the dumb shit. Today the idiocy I am going to discuss involves some of our favorite stars and their involvement in a satanic cult named the Illuminati, which is supposedly so powerful it gives fame and fortune to people willing to engage in their satanic practices and coerce the masses into doing the same. Beyonce, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Kanye West are some of the stars who have been unfortunate enough to have their names besmirched and associated with Lucifer, which I gather is not a compliment amongst anyone who doesn’t consider themselves evil. But now the Illuminati supporters are accusing Jay-Z and Beyonce’s newborn child of being a spawn of the Illuminati. Really people? I guess there’s no purity in infancy anymore.

I can’t help but link this type of irrational thought, connected to religion and emotion instead of rational thought-based principles involving physical evidence, to the Salem witch trials that took place in colonial Massachusetts during 1692 and 1693. And we all know how that ended, with nineteen innocent people being hanged (a lot of whom were wealthy) because of accusations levied against them for being witches, with the only evidence being the verbal testimonies of those who say they were afflicted by evil demons and spirits brought about by witch craft. The accusers said they were haunted by the apparitions or shapes of the accused. The court eventually concluded that the devil needed a person’s permission in order to use a person’s shape or form to haunt another and this is how the accused were linked to practicing witch craft. It sounds real crazy ass hell to you huh? Well, that’s exactly how it sounds to me when people start talking dumb shit about satanic cults involving some of today’s biggest stars. Can you imagine Jay-Z, Beyonce, Rihanna, etc., being put on trial and executed for rumors of being linked to a satanic cult without any evidence in the same manner of those in Massachusetts? Thank God we as human beings experienced the Age of Enlightenment which promoted the power of reason linked with scientific and intellectual knowledge separated from superstition…..Oh wait….this didn’t filter down to everybody or else I WOULDN’T BE TYPING THIS POST!

Since humans are highly complex individuals with an extraordinary capacity to reason (I’m going to give mankind the benefit of the doubt and say most of the time), one has to evaluate their fears, loves, thoughts and actions within a veil of intricacies attached to humankind and the realities of the world in which they live. America has been experiencing a recession for the past four years and it has devastated the American economy and stagnated growth in employment and decimated the housing market. Millions of Americans were left broke, unemployed and/or lost their houses due to this recession and the fact that it was brought about by the careless lending practices of banks and financial institutions did not add to anyone’s joy. It is no secret that the wealth gap continues to widen with the top 10% owning more than half of the country’s wealth, so there is an attitude of animus against the rich and wealthy in America (and some of it is indeed warranted) with the belief that it has been gained on the backs of the bottom 90%.

Some people can’t see Beyonce, Jay-Z or Kanye West becoming rich because they actually worked hard for it but because of nefarious factors at play such as belonging to an international cult built upon worshipping the devil and influencing fans to do the same (which I feel is an extreme form of nefariousness but what the hell). It also can also be a mirror into traces of envy, dislike and how people internalize their own financial failures by seeking to debase other people’s hard work because they are more successful than them. Hopefully, deep down, this is a part of the reason why people believe in the Illuminati, because if a person believes in the Illuminati because they think the devil is recruiting celebrity minions on Earth to do his bidding then you’re just delusional and should join the psychological ranks of the prosecutors and jurors of the Salem Witch trials who convicted and executed nineteen innocent people.

A YouTube video of this bullshit is below. You be the judge.

There's Racism Lurking in Your Math Problems! (Gasp)

Yes, that’s right. Racism is somewhere hiding within the numbers of your children’s math problems. Okay, maybe not racism but insensitive stupidity was definitely present within the minds of those who prepared homework for a third grade math class.

Parents of Gwinett County, GA got a history lesson when they viewed their children’s arithmetic homework after school last Wednesday but it was probably one they weren’t expecting. Some of the math questions asked; If each tree had 56 oranges and eight slaves had to pick an equal amount how much which each one pick?” You would pray to God that it would stop there but the descent into madness continued with other questions such as, “If Fred got two beatings per day how many did he get in one week?” And another which dealt with how many baskets of cotton Frederick filled?  The school superintendent explained that the teachers were attempting a “cross curricular activity” between Social Studies and Math. I wholeheartedly support the discovery of pedagogical techniques in which students can learn content that is outside that of traditional forms but as one can see this was a major fail.

I ask the question of why teachers picked slavery as the topic to test this technique and why in the manner that it was discussed. It’s funny that there were no questions such as, “If the slave master raped eight slave women and they each had five kids, how many biracial kids would be the result of this act?” Or “If the slave owner sold 3 children each from 5 slave families how many children would be separated from their parents because of this sale?” Because if one were to think about it, these types of questions could have been included as well and it exposes the type of slippery slope that these math problems represent. It was not a coincidence that the teachers decided to focus on the slave performing the degrading acts of chattel slavery instead of incorporating questions that put the slave owner in a debased position similar to that of Frederick getting beat or picking oranges off of a tree.

But the final caveat in this whole situation is the lightheartedness of the treatment of slavery to the point where one would find it acceptable to shove them into a children’s math problem without any historical context. It was easier for the teachers to carelessly use the system of slavery in this homework assignment since their ancestors do not have a direct link as victims to such an abhorrent institution. The children certainly could have learned multiplication, subtraction, division and addition in these problems without the insertion of slavery so I’m confused as to how this technique was introducing anything new or exciting to the study of math within the framework of this “cross curricular activity.” I know one thing; if this is the collaboration of Social Studies and Math to create some new hybrid form of curriculum it’s best to teach them separately. Like the old cliché goes, if it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it.

My Introduction

So! I’ve finally done it! I’ve finally started something that has been on my to do list for the last couple of years, a blog to rant on and post my grievances about society. But before I begin my weekly or monthly diatribes about how fucked up people in this world are let me explain the title of my blog. The phrase hood proper is a term I created to describe how I feel sometimes. While I’m actively propelling myself into the upper levels of the educational elite (whether I become a part of it remains to be seen), I cannot hide the fact that I was born and raised on the Southside of Chicago and this has contributed to my outlook on the world, how I view myself within it and how I interact with people. Every part of the Southside of Chicago is not the hood but the hood mentality is definitely present whether you live in Hyde Park or the Wild 100’s. No matter how much education I attain I have not been able to eliminate my hood mentality. It may not be on display while I’m discussing history inside the classroom but it is still there and while I’m arguing in an eloquent manner against my peers I might be thinking inside my head, “What the fuck is that dumb shit you just said?” The hood is a main part of my mentality and my education is what’s proper and that is where I get the term “hood proper” from to describe myself. The term represents the dichotomy of how I feel sometimes but I manage them very well. And so this blog begins……