7.02.2008

Big Granny Cane & a DOG Chain!!




Meet Big "Granny" Kane



Back Story:
  • Granny walks in on teenage lesbians having sex
  • Non-familial lesbian exits
  • Granny commences to beat the crap out of familial lesbian

  • Granny THEN takes familial lesbian (limping)
    • To non-familial lesbian’s house to make sure HER parents know too.


If this wasn't the content of my worst nightmare comin' up I don't know WHAT is. I used to have these dreams of someone walking in on my while I was “doing the do.” And I was one of those kids dreamt in color and surround sound. I felt my dreams so deeply that, unfortunately it meant I woke up sobbing, scared or on my bedroom floor (falling dream) more than once. Reading the story, I could almost feel the sting in the back of my legs.


Thankfully, I had a little more common sense at 16. No matter how oppressive or unfair certain things felt, I complied until I provide a space of my own. As such, I wouldn’t be caught dead having sex, hell having thoughts, in my grandmother’s (or any of my relatives’ house) for fear that my life would end shortly thereafter. Unspoken rule …


But STILL! Joyce Bedell is all KINDS of wrong!


She is perhaps the personification of what queer youth of color fear when determining whether or not, and when to come out of the closet. Coming out, or being pulled out (as I was) many times can mean homelessness, defamation, and even (as in this case) violence. “BGC” is just one of the reasons why some of us feel there is no choice but to lead inauthentic lives; hiding parts of ourselves in deep closets with padlocked doors.


I’m thankful to those who can be critical of this story in context. Like Renee at “Womanist Musings” who dropped this story a couple days ago, talkin’ bout “Lock Her Damn Ass Up.” She be breakin’ (LOL) but always spits truth! To date she is also the only blogger thus far that has managed to do the story a level of justice. Addressing both bL-aKtivist and womanist perspectives on it.


In an article for the Amsterdam news, Alton H. Maddox wrongheadedly argues that the “White prosecutors destroying Black life,” offering a legal explanation for what makes this case (and others) patently racist. The article is all over the place, but he takes an extra side swipe at gay and lesbian people when he writes:

"Same-sex advocates argue that the struggle for same-sex marriages has a kinship with the civil rights struggle. Wrong! There may be parallels in the two struggles, but there are different rationales. Moreover, many same-sex couples are racist to the core."

First of all, how did BGC become a beacon of "Black life?" She's was hard working, providing a home and beat the crap out of a teenager with a cane. Second, what different rationale is there? Bigotry is bigotry is BIGOTRY. Third, that there are racist same-sex couples is of no consequence, there are racist opposite-sex couples too, your point? It's like saying "Moreover, many black peolpe are sexist to the core." AND? It doesn't make those black people suffer any less from racism because they still manage to inflict oppression on folks -- so goes the argument for same-sex couples that are racists. Furthermore... I'm bLaK! And I am one half of a same-sex couple, HELLO! Black folks that overlook that we are among the same-sex population kill me.


Maddox goes on to mention slave culture and how that may have had an effect on Bedell as well as the existing justice system. Asserting that she was taught" “if you spare the rod, you spoil the child.” Cool, I can deal with the analysis but we need to stop forwarding this myth that abuse equals discipline.


Renee makes a great point about corporal punishment doing little more than creating fear resentment and low self esteem. I believe it. Maybe if we stop beating our kids we can influence them to make better decisions, and build a rapport with them that will encourage dialogue around sex and where respect is earned.


This story is ripe with complexity. So much so that I have a hard time organizing my thoughts on it. But Beth's comment struck a chord:

“That’s so sad, and unfortunately not at all uncommon. -- Even more common are the ‘quieter’ abuses; the daily verbal and emotional diatribes and weights levied (sic) against children and teens who fall outside the narrow confines of the middle road. -- Maybe one day the world will change.”

I was one of those teens and perhaps it ‘hits’ a little too close to home. I am thankful for finding the space, and subsequently the courage, to live more authentically each day.


All that said, I am sympathetic to Joyce Y. Bedell even if thoroughly enraged. Sympathetic because she is a 61 yr. old woman, presumably being held in a correctional facility, no matter how foul her actions against her granddaughter were. Sympathetic because she is now subject to a criminal justice system that was never built to serve her or people who look like her. Joyce doesn’t just need punishment, she needs HELP.


I don’t doubt the possibility this story could turn into some eff-ed up sketch in somebody’s stand up show. There is a level of irony that black folk will relate to without considering the problematic homophobic overtures.


The story is heartbreaking. And I am disturbed that it hasn’t gotten more mainstream press, they wasted no time reporting when two lesbians in Los Angeles were abusers. Why not value all black lives the same? I am not surprised, even if I am still disappointed; black lesbian lives have proven time to be thought of as dispensable. Think Sakia Gunn, Khadijah Farmer, and Tanya White.





Other Stories:
http://www.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=97132
http://www.dallasvoice.com/artman/publish/article_9228.php

The Good with the Bad:
http://boards.blackvoices.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=ti-lesbian&tid=9879
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message563304/pg2

What I Like to Call "Ignant":
http://nativenotes.net/2008/06/20/grandma-jailed-beat-yo-damn-kids/
http://wordizz.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-would-you-have-done.html

This foolishness might take the cake:
georgiamama's Avatar
georgiamama georgiamama is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: GA
Posts: 2,795
Quote:
Originally Posted by goodgood4u View Post
LOL @ THIS GIRL LETTING THIS OLD WRANKLE HEFFA BEAT HER. GRANDMA WOULD HAVE HAD HER LIFE TAKEN RIGHT THERE ON THE SPOT.

georgiamama says: WOW that's harsh. The elderly should be respected.

3 comments:

  1. Smh. I don't even know what to say about this one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Things like I saw in the video of the woman from beverly hills happened a lot to me when I was still using the womens restroom. I was lucky to choose for myself to use the males', not because I feared the discrimination, but because it was part of my transition. I have mixed feelings about that, maybe because I am a person that tries to view things from different perspectives, so I can be sure not to "trick" myself when I think that I have been thinking "tolerant" and then experience that I have been discriminating somebody else, just because they didn't share my "tolerant" view.

    So here is what I see:

    - The behaviour of the security guard is BY NO MEANS tolerable, it is not only discriminating it is a grammatical MESS also. I am a lot into language science, so hearing that makes my grammatical nerves BOUNCE up to the ceiling. (And if you find any missspells in this text it's because english is not my first language) I was close to tears when I saw the video, because I can SO relate to it.

    - On the other hand I can understand that the security guard first tried to keep Miss T. out of the women's restroom. Still, his RESPONSE on the solution of the matter [the other women telling him that SHE is supposed to be there because she is biologically a woman] is not right.

    I understand how he came to this claim - he thought that she didn't look like a woman, nor is she supposed to be a man so she must be called something that is off from "he" or "she". But he forgot that "it" is never a way to call a human beeing, BUT, it is not his fault only. His only fault was to be rude and maybe also say it in a wrong situation at the wrong time.

    I see the real fault in our language, that isn't ready for our new understanding of BEEING. We definitely need to make a change in that! And it's not an annoying fundamental-feminist kind of view (not saying that in a discriminating way), I really think that there should also be "shades of grey" in the world of personal pronouns and such.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Everyday I am sure that I am both a man and a woman to some people that see me. I think it's kinda stupid though that you can just be arrested for using the bathroom not assigned to the opposite sex.

    It gets cloudy because, what about unisex bathrooms, what's the difference? Or even waht about intersex people.

    I mean when we try adn stop someone from using a bathroom, it for one tells that person that we don't trust them to know which bathroom to use OR if we do, we don't respect their cognitive ability to in fact CHOOSE.

    Gender is a game sex is arbitrary, and people should be ale to be who the hell they are.

    Clay do people ever stop you when you go into the mens room? I went in once with a friend of mine. I felt fine. I'm sure people were like "huh" but they really didn't care that much. I get all kindsa passive aggressive shit in the women's restroom. It's all just a mess.

    ::smh::

    ReplyDelete

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