Different Day, Same Shit.

I read somewhere that roughly 95 percent of blogs wind up abandoned after a short span of time. Sometimes, I feel as though this place is on the verge of abandonment. Not saying that DDSS is done for, but something has to be done to keep this place alive or it's gonna end up like a lot of other blogs that have been abandoned for various reasons.

Mine? I've had a lot on my plate, as I've hinted in one of my previous updates. My day job and the never-ending struggle to maintain a reasonable standard of living for yours truly means that updates are often sparse and sporadic. The fact that DDSS is a one-man show also means that updates are often sparse and sporadic. It takes a lot of time, effort and energy to create a quality post that I feel is worthy for DDSS. Unfortunately, my day job also involves the literary arts and that also takes a lot of time, effort and energy. At the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is jump from one energy sink to another. I hate to describe DDSS that way, but there it is.

Then there's the pace at which news travels. I realize that a ton of shit happened this year. I read it on news sites, other blogs and the good ol' Twitter feed. But it's hard to actually blog about since I simply don't have the time to actually sit down, pore over the details and offer a uniquely interesting take that passes muster for yours truly. Add on the fact that trying to absorb all of the news of the day causes information overload, which causes my brain to just lock right the hell up and suspend itself in a crippling limbo of indecisiveness and inaction.

So between the lack of time, the Twitter/Internet ADHD/overload and my own vicious perfectionist streak, things haven't been looking so good here. Which is probably why I haven't bothered to make a rundown of all the shit that's happened in the news during the year. And that's probably why I haven't made as many updates as I should have.

I'm not a pundit and I don't get paid for this shit (although I wish I did). I did this as an outlet and as a place where people who find what I write interesting can read it, draw their own conclusions about things and perhaps leave their own comments. If I were a professional blogger getting paid good money to blog about political and social issues, this place would be livelier. But as it stands, I do what I can whenever I have the opportunity to get it done.

And as I've also mentioned before, I'm seriously rethinking my approach to DDSS. I still have no idea what format I should pursue or how to get it done. Suggestions are welcome. I'll do my best to maintain the Tumblr blog for short vignettes, but even that's running into the same problems as the main blog. Nevertheless, yours truly will continue to see things through and not end up like those aforementioned 95 percent of blogs.

Although it wouldn't hurt if DDSS was whisked up to the rarefied air of the upper-crust 1 percent blogs, sans the attendant loss of principles, of course.

By the way, Happy (soon to be) New Year.

How was your Christmas? Comments are free.

"She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000."

Ronald Reagan's infamous "Welfare Queen" mythos shaped and defined the way conservatives and many ordinary Americans saw - and continue to see - public assistance and "big government," as well as those who rely most on both. It's a sweet siren song that tantalizes the baser natures of the conservative constituency while serving as a cautionary tale to taxpayers when rendering unto Uncle Sam that which is Uncle Sam's.

Reagan, who began weaving this narrative into his speeches throughout his 1976 candidacy bid for president, never mentioned the identity of the woman behind the story, nor did he ever make mention of any ethnic background. In fact, the narrative sounded so patently ridiculous that many liberals assumed he made the whole thing up just to discredit welfare and curry favor to voters' racial resentments in the process.

For decades, few bothered to learn the true story of the "Welfare Queen." It was more than enough for most to use her illustrated escapades as outrage porn fodder for straitlaced conservatives and purported proof of indolence and sloth among a particular ethnic group.

Josh Levin's extensive Slate report finally pulls back the curtain on the "Welfare Queen" mythos. As it turns out, there's a lot more to the life of the woman starring as Reagan's "Welfare Queen" than meets the eye.

Of course, there were few things that stood out in my mind about this story and the woman at the center of it:

• Linda Taylor was a profoundly broken individual and a poster child for psychopathy, judging by her actions and the way she treated others and even her own children.
• Much of Taylor's life was based on ambiguity, lies and conjecture. Documents proved a relatively unreliable way of pinning down truths. Even her death certificate stood as proof that things were never as they appeared.
• Taylor's ethnic background was equally ambiguous and fluid. The commonplace caricature of the dark-skinned, heavy-set and weave-donning EBT/SNAP cheat gives way to a woman who was considered white by most and able to switch ethnicity based on her needs and whims:

It’s possible that Taylor’s biological father—identified by Hubert Mooney as a man named Marvin White—was black. Or perhaps a family secret was buried a few more generations back. No matter her bloodlines, the more persistent truth was that Martha Miller—who would later shed her childhood name for a nearly endless set of aliases—was a racial Rorschach test. She was white according to official records and in the view of certain family members who couldn’t imagine it any other way. She was black (or colored, or a Negro) when it suited her needs, or when someone saw a woman they didn’t think, or didn’t want to think, could possibly be Caucasian.

• Taylor wasn't just a con artist and a fraudster - she was also a suspected murderer. It's likely that she's responsible for killing Patricia Parks and possibly had a hand in the deaths of Sherman Ray and Mildred Markham. In the case of Patricia Parks, Taylor positioned herself as a friend and caretaker, feeding Parks a steady diet of barbiturates while draining the Trinidadian native's finances dry. She wasn't above setting other people against one another to get what she wanted. In the case of Ray, it's said by many that she fueled a mutual conflict between Ray and another man, Willtrue Loyd, eventually leading to the death of Ray by Loyd's hand. Taylor later married Loyd.
• Taylor was also a suspected kidnapper and child trafficker. During the 1960s, she was arrested twice for kidnapping, but was never charged since the children were returned safe and sound. She was also suspected in the 1964 kidnapping of Paul Joseph Fronczak, who has yet to be found. Some thought it was part of a scheme to better substantiate fraudulent welfare claims, but her son offered a far more troubling explanation:
  

  Given Taylor’s ability to fabricate paperwork, acquiring flesh-and-blood children seems like an unnecessary risk if all you're looking to do is pad a welfare application. Her son Johnnie believes his mother saw children as commodities, something to be acquired and sold. He remembers a little black girl—he doesn’t know her name—who stayed with them for a few months in the early 1960s, “and then she just disappeared one day.” Shortly before Lawrence Wakefield died, Johnnie says, a white baby named Tiger showed up out of nowhere, and then left the household just as mysteriously. I ask him if he knew where these kids came from or who they belonged to. “You knew they wasn’t hers,” he says.

• The ultimate motive in Taylor's acts was always money. In the cases of Parks, Markham, Ray and Loyd, Taylor stood to gain financially, whether through veterans benefits, life insurance payouts or, as with Parks, a steady drain her finances and assets until there was nothing left.
• The mainstream media either glossed over the above exploits or treated them as mere sideshows for what was considered the main event - her outsized penchant for welfare fraud. Even law enforcement officials and the courts were more concerned with her conviction as a welfare cheat than bringing her to justice as a murderer or kidnapper. After her trial and conviction for theft and perjury, the politicians and media lost interest in Taylor. However, the political narrative created from her exploits lived on.
• While many of the details offered by Reagan's Welfare Queen narrative seemed true, there was also plenty of room for fudging on his part. The oft-quoted $150,000 figure came about as estimates from various reporters. In really, Taylor was only charged with bilking $8,000 in welfare benefits, since it was all the hard evidence that officials could find. Nevertheless, bigger numbers make for larger guffaws of indignation among voters.

One of the most notable exploits of Jamaican-born leader Marcus Garvey, aside from the formation of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the cultivation of Pan Africanism and black nationalism throughout the 1910s and 1920s, was his attempts to encourage black Americans to return to their continent of origin by way of Liberia. The African nation had already been established during the early 1820s by the American Colonization Society as a sanctuary of sorts for black freedmen.

Opposition from European leaders, a lack of interest from black Americans and Garvey's own troubles with the proto-FBI and the initially successful but ultimately troubled Black Star Line put an end to those efforts. It didn't help that Garvey, a firm believer in black nationalism and separatism, and W.E.B. DuBois, who believed his "Talented Tenth" would lead blacks into an era of prosperity and eventual inclusion into the mainstream, were constantly at loggerheads with one another. You just don't call someone a "Supreme Negro Jamaican jackass" for nothing.

The underlying premise of pulling up stakes for greener African pastures was simple - if America is so bad for blacks, why stay?

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Mychal Massie must had thought that the spirit of Marcus Garvey was moving through him as he wrote his latest column for World News Daily, the virtual hangout for washed up, past-prime conservatives like John Stossel and Walter Williams. Whereas Garvey posited his question as a response to the systemic, institutionalized mistreatment and subjugation of people only decades removed from actual slavery, Massie's question comes as a condescending sneer towards a people seen as, for the lack of better words on the part of yours truly, a bunch of whiny titty babies:

If America is so bad, blacks - why stay?

The entirety of Massie's column is a finger-wagging admonishment of the so-called "race baiters" and "angry black militants" who dare speak out about America's on-going racial injustices. In short, the entire piece screams "America - Love it or Leave it" to an audience Massie sees as ungrateful and unwilling to forgive their white counterparts for age-old injustices and current "misunderstandings."

When a piece starts out like this, you know you're in for a treat:

A fact in retail is that there ultimately comes a time when you are unable to satisfy a customer who insists on being irrational and/or is unwilling to accept what is being done for him or what is being offered to him. When you have exhausted all efforts to accommodate said customer, you apologize and politely offer that it is apparent, despite your best efforts, that you are unable to satisfy him. And you suggest that perhaps his or her interests would be best served elsewhere.

If America were a restaurant, black America would be the party of five who had to wait an hour and a half for the table next to the men's restroom and then wait around for a server who studiously ignores them while taking everyone else's orders, only to be told to kindly piss off and dine elsewhere if they don't like the service shortly after wondering aloud if that server would ever stop to take their order.

Massie's apparent ideal is for black America to patiently wait and wait and wait until its almost closing and the server finally takes their order, but most of the menu items are gone and whatever's left is half-cooked and unceremoniously dumped into a takeout bag, which is then plopped down on the table by a now-smirking server whose smirk disappears when black America rightfully refuses to leave a tip. "How typical," she says...

"It is THEIR OWN FAULT they decided to show up without a reservation," mutters the conservative couple a few tables over, nevermind how black America spent hours trying to get one only to be told again and again that there weren't any tables available, even if the restaurant is huge and half-empty nearly all of the time. "They did it to themselves. Besides, it was years ago they couldn't even set foot in the joint, so why are they complaining now?" say the libertarians across the aisle. "It's all in the past - they should be grateful."

I've come to grips with the fact that a lot of the beloved icons Americans take for granted have been given the acceptable veneer of Anglo-Saxon normalcy. In a country where folks largely of British and European descent not only make up the majority of the population, but also dominate in the socioeconomic sense, it's expected of us to see icons like Santa Claus mirror the appearance and expectations of the majority, nevermind how an icon's supposed to be enjoyed by all.

Sadly, whenever someone attempts to overturn the apple cart that is the sacrosanct vision of whiteness for beloved icons, it invariably upsets a lot of people.

Take Megyn Kelly, for instance. Fox News' bleached-blonde fantasy trophy wife and designated eye candy for male conservative viewers took offense to a recent essay by Aisha Harris challenging the status quo of St. Nick's ethnic heritage, as seen in the above video. Kelly's response to an age-old assumption rooted in cultural privilege being challenged by some uppity minority was to firmly reinforce that sacrosanct vision of whiteness:

Santa just is white … Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change, you know?

Translation: Santa is white, Jesus is white and why can't these uppity minorities just shut up and accept our vision of what they look like?

But why should we?

And that's what Aisha Harris asks in her essay. Why not turn Santa Claus into an anthropomorphic entity that can be genuinely enjoyed by all? A penguin works just as well - they're cute, adored by all (seriously, have you seen Ice Age?) and the mythos surrounding Santa Claus stays the same albeit with a few small tweaks - swap the North Pole for South and you're golden. Considering how much the big guy's been appropriated and transformed over the ages, losing his human form in favor of a cute and friendly penguin isn't much of a stretch.

Yes, Santa Claus is Nordic in origin, but his evolution into an anthropomorphic entity won't entail throwing his heritage down the memory hole. And by suggesting a species change instead of a "colors of Benetton" version of Santa, Harris does her best to sidestep the age-old accusation posited by the Fox News crowd - that [add person here] is angry because [add figure here] isn't black.

In the meantime, scores of black, Asian, native and Hispanic kids are assumed and expected to overlook the jolly red giant's complexion, while attempts to transform Santa Claus into a more relatable figure are considered cheap dime-store knockoffs that aren't worthy of real consideration:

My father replied that Santa was every color. Whatever house he visited, jolly old St. Nicholas magically turned into the likeness of the family that lived there.

In hindsight, I see this explanation as the great Hollywood spec script it really is. (Just picture the past-their-prime actors who could share the role. Robert De Niro! Eddie Murphy! Jackie Chan! I smell a camp classic.) But at the time, I didn’t buy it. I remember feeling slightly ashamed that our black Santa wasn’t the “real thing.” Because when you’re a kid and you’re inundated with the imagery of a pale seasonal visitor—and you notice that even some black families decorate their houses with white Santas—you’re likely to accept the consensus view, despite your parents’ noble intentions.

Having your culture considered second-best and second class wears on a kid's self-image and self-esteem. It's bad enough that adult minorities have to deal with the constant drumbeat of mainstream media deeming their culture as fundamentally worthless by having the most negative aspects of it played up and assumed the norm.

Meanwhile, Megyn Kelly's reaction mirrors the fear-induced response of a culture that believes itself to be under siege. It's the zero-sum assumption that moving away from a white-dominated point of view represents a grievous loss of societal power and prestige for whites and a victory for whatever brown hoard is at the gates at that moment. It's a POV that drives the average Fox News viewer into an epileptic fit when confronting anything that happens to give minority groups a helping hand.

That feeling isn't just limited to the Fox News crowd. See the controversy surrounding Amandla Stenberg's role as Rue in The Hunger Games, the guffaws over Idris Elba as Thor or the shitfest that happens anytime anyone asks what if a black guy was cast as James Bond. When characters and icons are firmly established as white, it's hard introducing a non-white perspective without incurring a backlash.

On the other hand, white Americans are curiously silent when it comes to whitewashing ethnic icons and characters. The disastrous U.S. live-action adaptations of Street Fighter and Dragonball come to mind. Traditionally ethnic icons, roles and holidays wind up lightened up and made safe for general consumption.

The Fox News crowd wants us to shut the hell up and accept things as they are right now, because doing otherwise makes them feel uncomfortable and threatened. The rest of us just want to celebrate the holidays without being reminded that we're forever stuck on the outside looking in when it comes to culture.

After seeing George Zimmerman lurch from crisis to crisis, I figured it's only a matter of time before he eventually finds himself behind bars. In the meantime, he's found new notoriety as a fledgling artist of sorts:

It appears George Zimmerman has turned to painting, and is selling his own, original artwork on eBay not one week after prosecutors dropped domestic violence charges against him.

Now the painting has a bid of almost $100,000.

The canvas painting appeared on the auction website Monday. A picture of the artwork shows a U.S. flag painted only in various shades of blue, with the words "God, One Nation, with Liberty and Justice for All," stamped in white letters on the flag's darker blue stripes.

Zimmerman's brother, Robert Zimmerman Jr., has confirmed the auction is real, and said the painting is, indeed, the work of his brother, who was acquitted of murder in July for the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford.

The painting's starting bid was set at $50, plus an additional $40 for expedited shipping from Sanford, according to the auction page. As of 10:50 p.m. Monday, the winning bid was $99,966. Bidding was set to end early Monday, Dec. 22, at 12:55 a.m. EST.

However, I can't help but feel that I've seen that image before...



Oh.

I've seen people paint and draw from reference pictures. Under normal circumstances, this would likely be lauded as a great effort from a freshman-level high school art class. It certainly isn't worth a hundred grand in dead presidents.

But that's not the point. These days, plenty of designated bad guys turn to art for stress relief and a quick buck. Paul Bremer, for one. Then there's the contemplative shower scenes of a certain George W. Bush. Guys like Charles Manson have all the time in the world to create works of art.

Not that they shouldn't make art, but Zimmerman's efforts smack of profiteering based on his notoriety, even though the man himself says differently:

First hand painted artwork by me, George Zimmerman. Everyone has been asking what I have been doing with myself. I found a creative, way to express myself, my emotions and the symbols that represent my experiences. My art work allows me to reflect, providing a therapeutic outlet and allows me to remain indoors :-) I hope you enjoy owning this piece as much as I enjoyed creating it. Your friend, George Zimmerman

Or your worst nightmare if you happened to be a 17-year-old black kid on a dark suburban street. It just irks me that a man who wantonly chased down and eventually murdered a young man for the crime of being a minority in a place he supposedly didn't belong is not only allowed to walk the streets a free man, but also gets the chance to play up a sympathy angle, create a "kinder, gentler" image and profit immensely by tapping into the arts.

And the reason for the very first picture of this post? It describes exactly how I feel about George Zimmerman.

The man on the right is Earl Sampson, a 28-year-old employee of the 207 Quickstop on 207th Street in the suburban city of Miami Gardens, Florida. There's not much remarkable about Earl - except if you ask him how many times he's been stopped and questioned by the city's police department. The answer? 258 times in four years - or at least once a week. He's gone through 100 pat-downs and was arrested and jailed 56 times.

Earl Sampson's depressing familiarity with local law enforcement isn't due to his supposed innate criminal nature - possession of marijuana is the only serious charge he's ever faced. A close look at his rap sheet reveals the answer: trespassing - 62 instances of it, nearly all of them at the 207 Quickstop. So how does a guy get yanked up on trespassing charges on a weekly basis at the very place he's supposed to be?

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The guy on the left might have a few answers. He's Alex Saleh, the 36-year-old owner of the 207 Quickstop. Three years ago, Saleh signed up with the Miami Gardens Police Department for a "zero-tolerance" program to help combat crime. Back then, the city's violent crime and property crime rates were 77.64 percent and 38.05 percent higher than the state's overall respective rates. In response, the police wanted to apply a bit of the "broken windows" theory Rudy Giuliani used to powerwash New York City, so it seemed like a good idea at the time to sign up.

What Saleh didn't expect was three years of seeing his black customers harassed, harangued and arrested by Miami Gardens police for the most minor of infractions. According to the Miami Herald:

Miami Gardens police officers, he said, began stopping his patrons regularly, citing them for minor infractions such as trespassing, or having an open container of alcohol. The officers, he said, would then pat them down or stick their hands in citizens’ pockets. But what bothered Saleh the most was the emboldened behavior of the officers who came into his store unannounced, searched his store without his permission and then hauled his employees away in the middle of their shifts. He finally told them he no longer wanted to participate in the program and removed the sign.

The officers, however, continued their surveillance of his store over his objections. The officers even put the sign back on his store against his wishes, he said.

This is chilling.

In June 2012, Saleh installed 15 surveillance cameras in and around his store. Not to safeguard his store from robbers, but to safeguard his customers from the behavior and actions of police:

The videos show, among other things, cops stopping citizens, questioning them, aggressively searching them and arresting them for trespassing when they have permission to be on the premises; officers conducting searches of Saleh’s business without search warrants or permission; using what appears to be excessive force on subjects who are clearly not resisting arrest and filing inaccurate police reports in connection with the arrests.

“There is just no justifying this kind of behavior,’’ said Chuck Drago, a former police officer and consultant on police policy and the use of force. “Nobody can justify overstepping the constitution to fight crime.”

Saleh finally had enough and is now making preparations to file a civil rights suit against the police department. However, doing that has likely made him an even bigger target for police harassment:

Since Saleh has served notice that he is going to sue the city, Sampson hasn’t been arrested, and police are not as active in the store’s parking lot.

But Saleh is mindful of his David vs. Goliath battle with the city’s police department. He worries about his safety, and carries a licensed firearm.

In December, Saleh was followed out of his parking lot by a Miami Gardens police officer, who stopped him after a few blocks. The officer, Carlos Velez, said he stopped Saleh because his tag light was out.

Two other squad cars arrived at the scene, bringing the total number of officers on the scene to six. A police dashboard camera captured it all.

“I thought, you know, there is a lot of serious crime in Miami Gardens,’’ Saleh said. “Why do they need six police officers on a car stop with a burned-out tag light?’’

Another officer, Eddo Trimino, approached Saleh’s passenger side, opened the door and removed a gun that was in a bag containing the store’s money, Saleh said. They ran a check on the gun, which Saleh was licensed to carry.

They cited him for having a bad tag light, tinted windows and bald tires.

Before leaving, the unit’s then-sergeant, Martin Santiago, allegedly told Saleh:

“I’m going to get you mother-f-----,’’

The next day, Saleh viewed video of his truck as it pulled out of the parking lot the night before.

His tag light was working.

If they weren't wearing badges, we'd call them mobsters. But even the mafia would blanch at this sort of behavior.

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According to the CATO Institute's National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project, there have been 4,861 unique reports of police misconduct that involved 6,613 sworn law enforcement officers and 6,826 alleged victims, based on information gathered for the 2010 calender year.

Seeing instances of police misconduct for yourself is piss easy thanks to the proliferation of cameras, from cell phone cameras to dash cams and body cams a la GoPro and the like. The footage from most encounters often ends up on LiveLeak, YouTube and other popular video sites. Law enforcement officials often argue that such footage is illegal to take. Time and again, the courts have ruled otherwise, although you might end up getting cuffed and booked if an officer doesn't want his face or actions on video.

For the average black American in most major cities, seeing instances of police misconduct is as easy as stepping out of the front door.

Stories like Earl Sampson's and those like him hint towards an even bigger problem lurking under the surface, one that's institutional in nature and thoroughly embedded within the nation's bedrock. It has a lot to do with the relatively unchecked powers of law enforcement and the implication that those powers can be exercised on undesirable groups with as much vigor as possible in the name of safety and crime prevention. It also speaks to the ongoing evolution of the police department into a paramilitary force largely concerned with revenue generation, politics and protection of those well-to-do or those closely linked to law enforcement.