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Women and our Rights : past present future …challenged everyday

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oh yeah, it’s a rant … tweaked many many times

keepabortionlegal

So,  here we are in the 21st Century, Women have a constitutional right to have an abortion yet secret bills are being passed as if they(republicans) know what is best for all Women, just think about that and ask yourself … why is a healthcare panel made up of men considering women’s health who keep making strange comments about our lady parts while throwing ALL Women into one basket then under a bus?

Remember when trump said,  women should have some sort of punishment for exercising their rights while conservative lawmakers, governors, and mayors continue to puke on the Constitution by passing lawless bills that restrict the right to have an abortion. The idea the reducing the number of clinics will change the mind of any Woman wanting an abortion is going to make them stop… What does this say about those politicians who need some sericous vetting, maybe censuredand or removed as they continue to put constituents at risk.

The fact is Women lead very different lives, make individual decisions every minute of the day ~just like men … an abortion, like any other procedure is just one of several health care issues Women may have to encounter.  The best solutions: Birth Control in all its forms as well as a safe affordable legal constitutional right to an abortion. I find it beyond offensive to hear Republicans infer that abortion is chosen carelessly and for those who seem to think birth control in all its forms is a federal or states right issue actually use it as a Republican political football.  The fact is, Republicans with Women in their lives forget that their position pushes up against 98% of those who use birth control and they need to stop forcing their “family values” on women, focus on Jobs, Immigration, ending any idea of income inequality and Climate Change among just a few issues at the moment. Honestly, it doesn’t look possible for republicans to come to their senses, so vote for the Democratic Party that supports upward mobility as well as the middle-lower classes and the poor = equality for all…

Call on your favourite republicans and ask why they assume Women are ill-equipped, silly, naïve, and or would put up with abortion bans without a fight? least we talk about how hard a decision like an abortion is: It is NOT easy or done willy nilly! and while they seem to forget it conveniently …women DID use coat hangers, went to folks who were NOT in the medical field but took their money,  performed abortions, and some women, this ended up being a fatal decision.

Hey, whatever happened to ” liberty” under the Bill of Rights and “freedom” under Civil Liberties? Seriously, does this only apply to certain men?

While we were deep in the era of trump, never forget that on Sunday, January 22, 2012, President Obama released a statement letting Women know that he was reaffirming his promise to protect a woman’s right to choose.    Announcing that  “After evaluating comments, we have decided to add an additional element to the final rule  Nonprofit employers who, based on religious beliefs, do not currently provide contraceptive coverage in their insurance plan, will be provided an additional year, until August 1, 2013, to comply with the new law. Employers wishing to take advantage of the additional year must certify that they qualify for the delayed implementation. This additional year will allow these organizations more time and flexibility to adapt to this new rule. We intend to require employers that do not offer coverage of contraceptive services to provide notice to employees, which will also state that contraceptive services are available at sites such as community health centers, public clinics, and hospitals with income-based support. We will continue to work closely with religious groups during this transitional period to discuss their concerns.”

There were changes to the announcement above as well as big changes to health care for women … It was a time for hope and audacity because of the new health care law women looked forward to less discrimination.  We know some in the insurance field, doctors and or hospitals will try to beat the system, but the law is there to refer to now and covers All Americans not just some. It is hard for me to believe pro-lifers do not understand that every part of a woman’s health is subject to being penalized and that includes our reproductive health care, which includes a wide range of health care issues.  Isn’t bad enough that lawmakers actually would subject women to demeaning practices like a transvaginal scope; make them wait for 72hrs, but to make doctors liable and or do jail time too.  I have to say that among other ridiculous laws that need a vote in Congress, such as The Hyde Amendment.  Please ask yourself and your member of Congress…  why does it require a vote . It is time to Codify the right to choose.

…   the Hyde Amendment is a legislative provision barring the use of certain federal funds to pay for abortions with exceptions for incest and rape.[1] It is not a permanent law, rather it is a “rider” that, in various forms, has been routinely attached to annual appropriations bills since 1976. The Hyde Amendment applies only to funds allocated by the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services. It primarily affects Medicaid.     wiki

I also admit that it pisses me off that the latest group of people in congress are still getting away with saying one thing in front of a camera yet voting another way on the floor of congress, which includes spewing and or forcing their “family values” platform/ideology on what I thought were free Americans. What year is it again?  If the Republican Tea Party now the Nationalist party truly wants smaller government, they should stop trying to control women, their bodies and or change laws for the sake of that “family values” platform or whatever the claim it is now, and whatever it is now, it is definitely the epitome of big government and an invasion of privacy.

The right seems to be aligning their demands for stricter abortion laws one state at a time. I cannot be the only one tired of the “Do as we say Not as we do Political Party of NO. It has my blood boiling. Now, Tea publicans running for President and some media folks are saying it is time to move on from nasty politics. I say if you want to become President of the US of A give Americans full disclosure. Women need to know if you support unnecessary procedures like a transvaginal scope  … Yet; the same people accuse President Obama of withholding information from the public or being un-American get offended when asked to provide personal information.  We are their constituents; we all deserve to know how these people will vote on issues of religion, race, gender, and or abortion. The beliefs of members of Congress dictate to how the vote will affect our constitutional rights. If you were listening, for three years conservative politicians, some conservadems ramping up of vitriolic “family values” rhetoric pushing the discussion of women’s rights, religion, race, and gender preference up to the surface to rile their base. It is obvious now that Republican Governors had a plan to take the rhetoric a step further by passing anti-abortion legislation all over the country in fact as stated by NWLC – “Ninety-two. That’s the number of anti-abortion measures passed into law across the U.S. in 2011. In addition, in case you are wondering, yes, that is a record — in fact; it is over 2.5 times the previous record. “

Bad enough that Women must continue to fight for our rights for equal pay, daycare, medical leave let alone for safe affordable access to reproductive health care.

Now, as we move toward the end of the trifecta that is trump and both chambers of Congress, controlled by Republicans who decided to vote on a right to reproductive rights on the anniversary of Roe V Wade in 2015.  This move by men in Congress was and is always incredible since there are more female members of Congress now and yes, a lot of right of center members who say they are fiscally conservative, want less government in their (our) lives.

Yet, topics like abortion, stem cell research/experiments and religious freedom get them flustered, put their undies in a bunch about abortion funding and seem to prefer that abortion be outlawed altogether if possible. I could not vote for a woman who feels I am not qualified, and or mature enough or have a “right to choose” no matter what side of the political aisle they sit. The fact is, women who choose to have an abortion, do so with great trepidation not because they are heartless but based on options given by qualified medical teams or if the fetus is not viable or at risk or both mom and fetus are at risk. FYI! the decision is discussed with a counselor and a doctor before any procedure happens. The choice to have an abortion is not an easy one and offering a safe place, an affordable procedure is better than having a woman or women desperate enough to take actions that could put their lives at risk like they did prior to roeVwade should always be on the minds of any member of congress…  it is the right thing to do. The idea that any member of Congress would want to control a woman’s body is ludicrous at best and again, the epitome of BIG Government; they should make something like the Hyde only better a law. The conservative ideology, clearly barbaric; spews old school dogma and not only crosses the line on numerous occasions, but it has also solidified a need, a call for an unprecedented effort for a grassroots movement to keep our Democracy safe

If you live under a Republican-controlled State and need or know someone in need of safe affordable healthcare with limited funds, your life has got to be beyond difficult.    Now, imagine the impact that repealing, replacing, and eliminating access would have on ALL our families, friend’s or co-workers. Let alone the idea that some Republicans want to go back to a time when women and people of colour had no rights; seen but not heard and yes it sounds silly but before you laugh, take some time and listen to congressional members led by republicans and those running for office closely.

Just when I thought we were all moving into the 21st century … sigh

Resource: the internet

Nativegrl77

… the issue of choice is important and taken for granted in this era of trump …. Don’t let this guy turn the clock back on women because…  for women who lack resources things could go bad quickly … folks in restricted states need to help each other out and NOW, since trump only held one term… thank goodness, we need to help move our Democracy forward keep it intact and support push the Biden/Harris adminstration while putting more DEMS into both Chambers of Congress!

Be a Seed for Change

~ Culture & History, ~ In the Library

in the Library ~ The New Jim Crow – by michelle alexander… Best Seller


The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition

so, i read this review of a book that took me back to information given to us in class at the UW  …stunning, sad and eye opening information yet this book review revealed much more …

By Leonard Pitts Jr. / Syndicated columnist

Michelle Alexander’s ‘The New Jim Crow,’ a troubling and necessary book

Columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. suggests reading “The New Jim Crow,” by Michelle Alexander, who contends that the mass incarceration of black men for nonviolent drug offenses, combined with sentencing disparities and laws making it legal to discriminate against felons in housing, employment, education and voting, constitute nothing less than a new racial caste system.

Syndicated columnist

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“You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not appearing to.”

— Richard Nixon as quoted by H.R. Haldeman, supporting a get-tough-on drugs strategy

“They give black people time like it’s lunch down there. You go down there looking for justice, that’s what you find: just us.”— Richard Pryor

Michelle Alexander was an ACLU attorney in Oakland, preparing a racial-profiling lawsuit against the California Highway Patrol. The ACLU had put out a request for anyone who had been profiled to get in touch. One day, in walked this black man.

He was maybe 19 and toted a thick sheaf of papers, what Alexander calls an “incredibly detailed” accounting of at least a dozen police stops over a nine-month period, with dates, places and officers’ names. This was, she thought, a “dream plaintiff.”

But it turned out he had a record, a drug felony — and she told him she couldn’t use him; the state’s attorney would eat him alive. He insisted he was innocent, said police had planted drugs and beaten him. But she was no longer listening. Finally, enraged, he snatched the papers back and started shredding them.

“You’re no better than the police,” he cried. “You’re doing what they did to me!” The conviction meant he couldn’t work or go to school, had to live with his grandmother. Did Alexander know how that felt? And she wanted a dream plaintiff? “Just go to my neighborhood,” he said. “See if you can find one black man my age they haven’t gotten to already.”

She saw him again a couple of months later. He gave her a potted plant from his grandmother’s porch — he couldn’t afford flowers — and apologized. A few months after that, a scandal broke: Oakland police officers accused of planting drugs and beating up innocent victims. One of the officers involved was the one named by that young man.

“It was,” says Alexander now, more than 10 years later, “the beginning of me asking some hard questions of myself as a civil-rights lawyer. … What is actually going on in his neighborhood? How is it that they’ve already gotten to all the young African-American men in his neighborhood? I began questioning my own assumptions about how the criminal-justice system works.”

The result is a compelling new book. Others have written of the racial bias of the criminal-injustice system. In “The New Jim Crow,” Alexander goes a provocative step further. She contends that the mass incarceration of black men for nonviolent drug offenses, combined with sentencing disparities and laws making it legal to discriminate against felons in housing, employment, education and voting, constitute nothing less than a new racial caste system. A new segregation.

She has a point. Yes, the War on Drugs is officially race-neutral. So were the grandfather clause and other Jim Crow laws whose intention and effect was nevertheless to restrict black freedom.

The War on Drugs is a war on African-American people and we countenance it because we implicitly accept certain assumptions sold to us by news and entertainment media, chief among them that drug use is rampant in the black community. But. The. Assumption. Is. WRONG.

According to federal figures, blacks and whites use drugs at a roughly equal rate in percentage terms. In terms of raw numbers, whites are far and away the biggest users — and dealers — of illegal drugs.

So why aren’t cops kicking their doors in? Why aren’t their sons pulled over a dozen times in nine months? Why are black men 12 times likelier to be jailed for drugs than white ones? Why aren’t white communities robbed of their fathers, brothers, sons?

With inexorable logic, “The New Jim Crow” propounds an answer many will resist and most have not even considered. It is a troubling and profoundly necessary book.

Please read it.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.’s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: lpitts@miamiherald.com

~ Culture & History, ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

He Had a Dream – Celebratin​g Martin Luther King Jr. Day ::Black History

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mLKjrDr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of the American Civil Rights Movement achieved more genuine progress toward racial equality in America than the previous 350 years had produced. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest leaders in world history.

Our country is celebrating his birthday.  Check out these classroom resources, activities, and lesson plans to learn more about him:

~ Culture & History, ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Lawrence Guyot : a Civil Rights Leader, in memory of – Black History

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WASHINGTON November 25, 2012 (AP)

Guyot was born in Pass Christian, Miss., on July 17, 1939. He became active in civil rights while attending Tougaloo College in Mississippi, and graduated in 1963. Guyot received a law degree in 1971 from Rutgers University, and then moved to Washington, where he worked to elect fellow Mississippian and civil rights activist Marion Barry as mayor in 1978.

“When he came to Washington, he continued his revolutionary zeal,” Barry told The Washington Post on Friday. “He was always busy working for the people.”

Image result for lawrence guyot

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton told The Post in 2007 that she first met Guyot within days of his beating at a jail in Winona, Miss. “Because of Larry Guyot, I understood what it meant to live with terror and to walk straight into it,” she told the newspaper. On Friday, she called Guyot “an unsung hero” of the civil rights movement.

“Very few Mississippians were willing to risk their lives at that time,” she said. “But Guyot did.”

In recent months, his daughter said he was concerned about what he said were Republican efforts to limit access to the polls. As his health was failing, he voted early because he wanted to make sure his vote was counted, he told the AFRO newspaper.

~ Culture & History, ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Cherokee Freedmen Facts – by Marilyn Vann – Black History

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Cherokee Freedmen Facts – by Marilyn Vann – President – Descendants of Freedmen

www.freedmen5tribes.com

1) Who are Cherokee freedmen and their descendants?
Cherokee freedmen are people of African descent who have rights to Cherokee citizenship since 1866 (and in some cases
prior) based under a treaty between the US government and the Cherokee nation, the amended 1839 constitution and the
present 1976 constitution. The freedmen were either former slaves of the Cherokees or were free mixed black Cherokees who
generally did not have citizenship rights prior to 1866.

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2) Who has the right to Cherokee citizenship now?
All persons who were listed on the Dawes Rolls and their descendants, during the early 1900s have the right to Cherokee
citizenship based on the 1976 constitution. The Dawes rolls of the Cherokee nation have several sections – Delaware,
Cherokee by blood, Cherokee Freedmen, etc.

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3) Didn’t the Freedmen lose their tribal membership and voting rights for a few years?
In 1983, the freedmen people were voting against Chief Swimmer, the registrar sent out letters canceling their tribal
membership cards and the freedmen were blocked from voting at the polls. In 1988, under Chief Mankiller, the tribal council
approved the registration policy of requiring all tribal members to have a CDIB card to keep tribal membership. A tribal
court in 2006 ruled that the tribal council could not pass additional requirements to bar any segment of Dawes enrollees from
receiving tribal membership cards or voting.

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4) If most of the freedmen have Cherokee blood, why cant they get a cdib card?
The current BIA policy is to only give the card based on the blood degree listed on the Dawes Rolls. The Dawes
Commissioners had the sole authority to place people on any part of the Dawes rolls they wanted to. Because Congress had
decided that people listed as Freedmen would have unrestricted allotments, Commissioners were encouraged to list as many
people as possible as Freedmen with no blood degrees listed rather than as Cherokees with blood degrees even if the person
was listed on previous rolls as blood Cherokee or received payments earlier from the US government as a Cherokee by
blood. An example was Perry Ross who had a Cherokee mother and black father. Perry Ross, was listed on the 1852 Drennan
Roll proving Cherokee by blood, received a 1908 Guion Miller payment for having Cherokee blood, but yet was listed as a
freedmen citizen on the Dawes Rolls. Some Freedmen did get CDIB cards in the past based on other records, but they
stopped giving them out. The tribe never kept degrees of blood records and anything on the Dawes Roll is just guesswork so
far as a true degree of blood. To determine blood degrees for freedmen one must look at Dawes testimony and other records.

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5) Chief Smith and Councilman Jackie Bob Martin have called for a special election to see if the freedmen people
should keep their tribal membership rights. What’s wrong with that?
Whats right about it? There something wrong about trying to take away the rights of people who have had them for more than
100 years. The court held that the people had been wronged, and now, instead of accepting that, these people are to be more
wronged? Would you not fight a president who wanted to put the US citizenship rights of Cherokee people on a ballot to the
people? Whose next to lose rights? Also, the people who are being asked to vote on the freedmen citizenship rights are not
being told that the freedmen have had rights since at least 1866, have served on the tribal council, generally have Cherokee
blood, and voted between 1971 and 1983 (between 1907 and 1971 there were no elections at all). When did Cherokee people
ever kick people out of the tribe? And why kick out only freedmen who came before Delaware and Shawnee – all 3 have
treaty rights to citizenship? Does anyone sitting here wonder if the movement to kick out the freedmen is fear that they may
not vote for some people now serving in office? Hardly any freedmen will be able to vote in such election because of the
slow process to register tribal members and even freedmen people with old 1970s membership cards must reregister. Is this
justice? Is it right for Cherokee leaders to break the promises made to these people by previous chiefs such as Lewis
Downing and WP Ross – just as the whites have broken their word to the Cherokee people time after time? What if the white
people say, if the Cherokees can break their treaty at will, we will do so too and demand back the Arkansas Riverbed money?

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6) Won’t the freedmen take away from the rest of the Cherokees so far as benefits?
The Chief and the tribal council can request additional funds from the US government and supposedly are working hard on
economic development. Stop and think – Would you want your US citizenship rights to be taken away because white people
don’t want you to have rental assistance or such the same as them? Freedmen wont cancel medical insurance to go to I H S.

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7) Did Freedmen get the same rights as Cherokees by blood previously?
Yes, all citizens including freedmen received 110 acres of tribal land equivalent when tribal lands were allotted, they received
the 1912 payroll, and the per capita payment given out in 1962. Freedmen held office between 1866 and 1907 – One
freedman Frank Vann even served with Redbird Smith on the council. Another freedmen councilman was Stick Ross.