Transgendered Female Takes a Beating

Things are getting ugly here in Memphis, Tennessee.

What is the world coming to when a woman can’t walk down the street without being picked up and beaten by the police?

Duanna Johnson, a 6-foot-5-inch transgendered woman, was arrested in February on a charge of prostitution. What ensued next is a nightmare that Johnson, 42, will never forget. For 18 minutes, Memphis police officer Bridges McRae beat Johnson because she refused to stand up. The whole incident was caught on a security surveillance video and was released last week by Johnson’s attorney.

The raw footage of the beating has outraged Memphians and the gay and lesbian community. The FBI has been called in to investigate and civil rights organizations vow to seek justice. They want the officer fired. Instead, for the past four months, McRae has been assigned to desk duty pending an administrative hearing.

Johnson is suing the City of Memphis Police Department for $1.3 million.

Johnson said she wasn’t “working” that night but was just walking down the street when McRae approached her and took her in for solicitation.

Johnson was born a male but has been living life as a female for the past 17 years. She said she is used to people staring at her but she has never experience such blatant disrespect and humiliation. She said McRae kept referring to her as “he/she” and “faggot” and she refused to answer him. When she told him that her mother did not name her “he/she” or “faggot,” that's when McRae lost it. He struck her several times with his fist and gloved handcuffs. Another officer restrained her while McRae beat and pepper-sprayed her.

The video shows other officers standing around watching the incident. Johnson said she called for help but no one came to her aid. A few minutes later, a nurse is called to the lobby. Johnson said the nurse repeatedly ignored her pleas for help.

Shelby County Sheriff Mark Lutrell, who oversees the jail, said that the nurse didn’t ignore Johnson, but performed a visual assessment of Johnson and determined the injuries weren’t life-threatening. A few minutes later, the nurse tended to McRae while Johnson rocked back and forth behind them.

Police Director Larry Godwin says he was sickened by what he saw on the videotape. “I was infuriated. I notified the FBI because they needed to investigate to see if this person’s civil rights were violated.”

An administrative hearing is scheduled for McRae next week.

I'll be keeping my eye on this case. Truly amazing. Had the videotape not been released, would the public have known about this incident? Most likely not.

How many corrupt cops and millions of dollars spent on lawsuits will it take before the city of Memphis and Shelby County government clean up its law enforcement agencies?

Teen Girls Make Pact to Become Pregnant

Thirty miles outside of Boston, Massachusetts in a small fishing town part of Cape Ann Peninsula, sits the city of Gloucester, America’s oldest working seaport. Known for its beautiful harbor, famous beaches, historic inns, ancient lighthouses, legendary painters, and fresh seafood, Gloucester can now add to its lists of attractions: Gloucester High School Teen Pregnancy Club. This strange club boasts a membership of 17 girls from Gloucester High School.

TIME first reported the story earlier in the week, reporting 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But Principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town. School officials started looking into the matter as early as October after an unusual number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant. By May, several students had returned multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and on hearing the results, "some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Sullivan says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," the principal says, shaking his head.

According to Guttmacher Institute, each year almost 750,000 women ages 15-19 become pregnant. In general, states with the highest number of teenagers had the highest number of teenage pregnancies. In 2000, the states with highest teenage birthrates were Mississippi, Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, and New Mexico. The states with the lowest birthrates were New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Dakota, and Maine. Although Massachusetts is ranked as one of the states with the lowest teen birthrates, the sudden rise in pregnancy among Gloucester High School teens is alarming.

What would cause 17 adolescent women to make a pact to become pregnant while in high school? And how can we prevent more teenagers from “joining the club?”

Please share your comments.

If Walls Could Talk, What Would They Say?

Ask Scott McClellan. That's what he's doing today before a congressional committee. The former White House press secretary told Congress on Friday that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney wanted him to say that Cheney's chief of staff wasn't involved in the leak of a CIA operative's identity, an assertion that turned out to be false.

Scott McClellan, Bush's spokesman from 2003-2006, said he had reservations about publicly clearing the name of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff at the time. Later, Libby was convicted of obstructing the investigation of the leak of Valerie Plame's CIA identity.

McClellan told the House Judiciary Committee that he doesn't know if a crime was committed in efforts to cover up the leak.

But he had harsh words for the White House, suggesting that the administration is continuing a cover-up in the Plame case. Read the article to learn more.

Ramdom Thought for the Day

Congratulations to the Boston Celtics for winning the 2008 NBA World Championship. I'm so glad that Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen (as well as Paul Pierce and coach Doc Rivers) finally got a ring! And they did it up big, too: 131-92.

Sorry, Lakers, maybe next time. But June 17, 2008 was Boston's time to shine.

http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?categoryId=2459788&brand=null&videoId=3449933&n8pe6c=1

Tim Russert of "Meet the Press" Dies of Heart Attack

Journalist Tim Russert of NBC's "Meet the Press" fame, died of a heart attack on Friday. Tim, who was only 58, apparently died suddenly while preparing for his weekly broadcast. Resuscitation efforts failed and Mr. Russert was pronounced dead at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC.

My deepest sympathy for his family, friends, and a nation's loss.

R.I.P.

Okey Dokey Friday Jokey

I really do love this country, but . . .

1. Only in America . . . can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

2. Only in America . . . are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink.

3. Only in America . . . do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

4. Only in America . . . do people order double cheese burgers, large fries, and a diet coke.

5. Only in America . . . do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

6. Only in America... do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.

7. Only in America . . . do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone we didn't want to talk to in the first place.

8. Only in America . . . do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

9. Only in America . . . do we use the word 'politics' to describe the process so well: 'Poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'.

10. Only in America . . . do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille.

- From the website, Lots of Jokes

NASCAR in Blackface

When I think of NASCAR, I think of redneck-beer chugging-tobacco spitting-Confederate Flag waving-foul mouthed white men. Never would I have placed a black face with NASCAR, even if there are a few token blacks in the industry. So you can imagine my surprise when I read the attached article about a sistah-- yes, I said a SISTAH!--suing NASCAR.

Thirty-two year old Mauricia Grant, a former NASCAR official (and only black female official) is suing her ex-boss for $225 million. According to Ms. Grant's lawsuit filed on June 11, 2008 her white male co-workers repeatedly flashed their genitalia, made sexual overtures and innuendos, compared the KKK to the NAACP, and used the word nigger like it was going out of style. In the 40 page filing, Grant said she was repeatedly exposed to a racially hostile work environment and subjected to racists comments and a sexually hostile work environment. When she complained to NASCAR officials, Grant said that she was told to "deal with it."

Wow! Just when you thought it was safe to go into the office. I bet NASCAR will look to quickly settle with Grant to avoid the appearance of racial discrimination.

Cha-Ching!!! A sistah's about to get paid! Read the article and let me know what you think.