hello everyone,
Evelyn here,
reflections589@yahoo.com is now the official email address for "The Woman Within" blog. The purpose for my opening this email is so that those wanting reach me about an entry on my blog or a question that they do not want to enter into the comment section of the blog. the email will be posted at the end of each entry and is displayed of the "About Me" column of the blog.
Evelyn out.
Hello everyone,
Evelyn here,
with latest news on HBO's newest and highly phenomenal series - ROME. If you have seen to series and/or read my past entries on it, then you know that Rome is HBO newest and highly praised series about the turbulent years of Rome and its dying Republic. All the regular Roman players (Caesar, Brutus, Mark Antony and Cassius) are present. However, the series has a couple fictional characters named Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo.
Vorenusare and Pullo are two battle worn soldiers who want nothing more than to fade into the background of Rome and resume their normal lives after years of warring for Caesar and of course Rome. However, instead of fading into the normalcy of Roman life, the two men are quickly enmeshed into the city's political dogma and the ultimate rebellion of the Senate against Caesar and his ensuing assignation by them.
Enough said on the storyline. For those of you (like Me) who are hooked on series the news is that HBO has release "Rome" on DVD and below is a link to the HBO's store. Check it out.
Hello everyone,
Evelyn here,
It would appear that regardless of the fact that no one has posted any commits on this bog in regards to my entries, I do have a following of readers. My readers seem to be pretty large and diverse group of peoples. This phenomenon is cool in itself. However, it would also appear that some of the people who read my blog are not wrapped as tight as they should. I say this because within the last week or two I have been getting a few tailgaters as I drive to work, come home from work, go shopping or otherwise moving around town.
This being the case I have taken the precaution of notifying someone with the police department of where I am or where I am expected.
The reason for this latest assault might be sparked by my recent entries on racism and the experiences my family and I have dealt with here in Saint Petersburg, and/or the battle I am pushing forward to keep illegal drugs off the street where I live and particularly that corner. Sorry but, this city not filled with angels.
Whatever the motive of the people who are tailgating me, they have chosen a bad way of letting me know that they do not like what I write or what I am fighting against. Moreover, their demonstration (illegal stalking and tailgating) of dislike for me and/or the issues, which I believe important to address, is not stopping my actions or helping to stop the illegal activities here. They are acting foolish and I believe that is most accurate way that I can express what I have witnessed while out on the road and about the town.
In addition, I want to remind the readers that this is a private blog and that I gave its addresses to a few chosen people. Yet, somehow, the address has spread to a wider audience. This in itself does not trouble me. However, those of you think harassing, or tailgating is going stop me from writing on these issue -- you are wrong. I highly, if not strongly, subject that you stop reading. If you continue read, act responsibly and be assured that acts of harassment are reported and that some are posted here where the peacemakers of this city can also view it.
Finally, I am happy about watching police officers role-playing. This has occurred a few times and I do not know what they trying to convey to me. Even as a kid I was never been good at pantomiming, and more importantly, I do not like assuming what a person is doing. There are enough people being heard out there who to appear as to think they know what others are thinking, saying and/or doing. I simply do like such games.
So, if you really do not like what you read. Do not read it! Find a less complicated and less controversial blog.
Evelyn out.
Hello everyone,
Evelyn here,
Below is the latest news release (June 8, 2006) from Charlie Crist, Florida's Attorney General. The article deals with the sentencing of a Lee County man for trafficking in heroin and cocaine.
In the article is a quote of Mr. Crist that a very similar to a statement I made in an earlier entry. In his quote, the Attorney General makes it clear that there are consequences awaiting those trafficking in the illegal drug trade.
We, the residents of this community, have the right to have our streets free of the illegal drugs trade and all the crime associated with it.
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Lee County Man Sentenced For Trafficking Heroin, Cocaine
TALLAHASSEE - Attorney General Charlie Crist today announced that a Lee County man was sentenced to six years in prison fortrafficking in heroin and cocaine. Domingo Molina pled guilty to trafficking in more than $3,000 worth of drugs. The case was prosecuted by Crist’s Office of Statewide Prosecution
An investigation that began in April 2005 identified Molina as the source of heroin that was being trafficked in Ft. Myers. With the help of a confidential informant, authorities conducted four controlled buys with Molina, purchasing more than half an ounce of heroin worth approximately $650.
"This sentence sends the message that peddling illegal narcotics has consequences," said Crist. “The battle to remove this poison from our communities will go on."
After the fourth controlled buy, the source informed investigators that Molina had both heroin and cocaine in his truck and wanted to sell it as soon as possible. The investigators followed Molina to a grocery store in Ft. Myers, where he was arrested. Authorities found approximately 15 grams of cocaine and five grams of heroin inside Molina’s pickup. The investigation was conducted by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Unit.
Molina pled guilty to three counts of trafficking in heroin, a first-degree felony, and two counts of sale or delivery of heroin and one count of possession of cocaine with the intent to sell or deliver, both second-degree felonies. In addition to his prison sentence, he was ordered to pay $50,000 in fines as well as investigative costs. The sentence was handed down by Lee County Circuit Court Judge Thomas S. Reese.
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Evelyn out.
Evelyn here,
This entry and following three entries should be read in sequence.
As you know, I have been posting entries on the subject of the most ominous social problem within America’s borders and that is racism in some its forms. Before I continue let me state that I was borne and bred right here in the U. S, and regardless of all social problems I have witnessed in my half century of living, I truly love this country. However, I am not blind to or proud of some of its less than worthy attitudes of the past that persist today.
When I was a naive teen in the late 60’s I was caught in the middle of few race riots at the high school that I attended in my home town, (not in Saint Petersburg). I learned from those experiences that racism (in any form) was a detestable thing and that the hatred when stirs is never constructive but destroys some part of everyone it touches whether they were innocence bystanders or active participants. No one walks away the same person. Some are broken, many are more enraged, but all are losers.
The people who have been harassing my family and me surprised me by using the race issue to cause us additional problems by twisting my words and the actual situation I did not think they would go this route, and I knew it the wrong path follow. However, I have since learned that some people when seeking revenge are nothing but evil minded. Still the situation proved that for some reason it was a taboo to describe a black male antagonist of being black (at least it seemed that was a taboo for me to call a black male antagonist black). To do this was considering as racist. However, I consider it accurate.
I could not possibly describe a black male as anything else but a black male. Yet, many blacks in this small community took statement as an affronted. As renege to prove, God only knows what, whenever they saw and/or heard me conversing with someone of another race, or reading, writing, viewing anything about another racial background, these revenge seekers would flat out lied to the to people of other racial background about my beliefs about and motives. Keep in mind that some of these harassers are among those I have reported as possessing and selling illegal drugs as well as the occasional unwelcome womanizers.
Revenge is what it has all been for, and the truth has meant nothing. These antagonists went from place to place trying the cause trouble, and no matter how often I report their actions, they manipulated their way out of it. Manipulating people into thinking what was not true of me appeared to become a sick kind game.
Ideas like, I was “uppity” and “reaching to far above my “place”, “needed to learn my place my place” began to become a frequent theme to undermined everything I have ever learned about self-esteem, personal image, assertiveness, upward mobility and race relations. As a former psych. nurse to know that this was happening around me was grating.
It was also horrifying to learn that my son was hurt out there by persons unknown and that he had been told that he was not “college material”, an idea that he would have never obtained in our household. He had also been manipulated into believing that I had lied to him and he was manipulated into doing things that he would never have done had not their influence effected him. I prayed that he would see through all the lies.
When I searched for him and asked people about his whereabouts, absolutely no one would tell me anything, nor did I not know if he dead or alive. Not even the police department helped me and I believed some of them knew where to find him. Although, my son does not like to talk about what has happened to us, I know he believes me now.
Making me suffer for some un-nameable or imagined crime appeared to be on the harassers mines. Had I committed a crime? No. However, they appeared to want to find something to justify their wrath toward me, and since I have not committed a crime they would try to create trouble for me which brings us update.
I read an article in the AG Newsletter that drug people are dangerous, but I know that standing up against them is the only way the combat what they are doing. The illegal drug sell here is a big issue with them and I believe they are apart of the gang or group youth and adults who are running a ring in this immediate area. Although it appears quiet out there, it is not and I can hear to boom-boom cars as I write. I do not believe they have stop selling or using illegal drugs. I believe that others who are a part of their group are carrying on where they have stopped. In addition, they are still very active in trying the cause me problems on my job and elsewhere within the city. This brings up another problem that I believe needs be brought into the light, privacy among friends.
The privacy of my home family and I is almost non-existence. Our lives have been exploited all during this situation, and even a simply and enjoyable conversation with a friend has become material for misused. However, one evening a friend and I weretalking about the celebrities that we liked. This friend likes certain blonds’ actresses and singers, as do I. My friend knows who I like, and the two of us compared who we liked the most and why.
A very innocent conversation to me; however, our conversation was overheard by an unknown individual or individuals who took what we discussed and turn is into a racial situation. They twisted the truth and circulated a lie around town that has been circulating off and on for these past six years. Their horrendous act has had an ugly effect on some of female I come in contact and many of these women I do not know. This is just how bad these women have been manipulated. What these women were told, I am certain that I do not want to know either.
Nevertheless, one must also keep in mind that this city is a racially charged community and that over the last ten years it has had its share of racial conflict within certain areas of the city. Some youth seem to want me to believe that the city is trying to punish me and that parading multiple blond female in my presence wherever I sought help from the police department and/or other authority figures was hurting me in some way.
As I stated early this display of blonds occurred off and on for six years, and it took half of the first years for me come with an answer as to why people I did not, do not know would present themselves to me whenever I was seeking help. I did come up with two answers and both are terrible, but I believe after six years of this behavior from total strangers that one or both of my answers contain the seeds of truth.
The first answer is that I, a non blond and black to boot, could never get help from the authorities here or elsewhere unless I turned white and blond. The second answer is I could never have a white male lover unless I was and here it again, white and blond. In truth, both answers stink, but what am I to think after seeing this behavior repeatedly and only when trouble was brewing or thought to be brewing.
What do I believe? I believe that as long as I, and the others who are being harassed directly or indirectly (third party) these individuals, should continue stand up for ourselves and not drive these harassers towards civil justice to answer for their crimes. I, for one, intend to keep continue help from the authorities no matter how aggravated the situation.
Whatever lie was told has circulated (and there were some truly malicious ones), hurt many people. Whatever was said to caused such negative reaction raised the question of just how racially tolerant are the citizen of our city (especially in my neighborhood since this is where it began). Moreover, why would strangers believe lies about a woman, who the harassers did not and do not even know themselves?
Nevertheless, this phenomenon of trying to make a black woman feel and/or believe she is a lesser woman to a white woman is not new. It has occurred throughout the decades and had probably proven more effective during the years where black woman were in slavery and thought of as nothing more than property.
I have never believed such lies or myths, and I was very surprised when this type of racial profiling began and continued. I do not want to come off as if making a obvious joke, but this is the 21st century folks, and with the battles for minorities rights and the feminist movement of the past decades, I would sincerely think that the last thing any woman would want to do is put on an open display to degrade and/or diminished another woman in public regardless of her age or racial different.
However, it happens but I am not alone. Below are two excerpts in from an article written by De Clarke entitled, “Why is beauty on parade?” The first excerpt defines the charactrics was thought to be a woman. The second excerpt subtitled, “3 RACISM” looks at how racism have further encouraged the myth that being white and blond was only the true characteristics of a beauty woman.
I have also provided a link. If you should venture to the site to read the entire article you will discover that it sums up many of ideas that have been a great source of the racial injustices towards women of color. It also offers insight into the author own experiences. I high recommend reading the entire article.
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Defining Beauty
A beautiful woman, by the U.S. Standard of Beauty, should be Caucasian (but able to tan); she should preferably be blonde, and her hair should be long enough to provide a secondary fetish (after her body). She should be under 5’8” but definitely over 5’3”, and somewhere between the ages of 16 and 25. She should have no visible hair on her legs or thighs, or under her arms, or on her face (except for eyebrows, but even those may be plucked or waxed away). She should smile a lot. She should not frown, unless in cute exasperation (a la Doris Day); if she cries, she should do it silently and without spoiling her makeup. She should not look noticeably physically strong, though her legs and stomach must be in good muscle tone; she should be slim and long-legged. She should have large eyes, long lashes, abundant and shiny hair (only on her head), red lips, poreless skin, small white teeth, a small Anglo-Saxon nose, small clean ears, and no body odor at all. She should not sweat or exude vaginal secretions of any kind. Her hands should show no evidence of hard manual work.
If she conforms adequately to this list of requirements. she may be called “a doll.” She may regard it as a compliment.
“DREAM GIRL”—Title of a poster. Widely available in the late 60’s, showing a 10-or-12-year-old girl child with large adult breasts airbrushed onto her torso.
The last passage presented a confusing hodge-podge of requirements for beauty, but several main themes stand out.
3. RACISMAmerica is a land built on white colonial violence, the violence of white men against everyone else. Racism, in a land with this history, will underlie every social institution, saturate the culture. It is no coincidence that the American beauty is blonde--no more than that it is women who are supposed to be beautiful.
When Playboy magazine first ran pictures of Black women, readers wrote in large numbers, demanding that the editors "get those niggers out"--of the centerfold.
Blackness was (and in some sense probably still is: more later) considered of and by itself ugly in the American superculture. It was not long ago that drugstores in Black neighborhoods sold hair-straighteners, skin-lighteners, and so forth--mostly to Black women!--because beauty could only be white.
A number of factors mentioned previously enter into this situation. Certainly the use of Black people as slave labor precluded any association of Blackness with leisure that is a part of beauty. The history of dark/light value judgments dates back at least to the early Indo-European invasions of the ancient world. (The 'Indo-Europeans' are the warlike, patriarchal people we later know as the Greeks, Romans, and Brahman Indians. They were generally taller and lighter-skinned than the indigenous people they met in their invasions, whom they subsequently slaughtered and enslaved. Their earliest writings reflect their belief that tallness, lightness, and maleness weredivinely ordained to be better than smallness, darkness, and femaleness: they tended to destroy anyone who believed differently. We are still living with the damage.) The association of darkness and dirtiness, femaleness, animalism, and 'primitiveness' is that ancient. All those qualities are held as bad by patriarchal culture; they were the qualities of the losers and the enslaved--and, in a triumph of circular reasoning, they were good excuses to enslave and kill.
Darkness and ugliness are well established by the time of Shakespeare, when black-haired women were ridiculed in public and "fair" lady meant exactly that. The blackness of the enslaved African people in America was ugly because they were slaves; because blackness was bad; they were said to be "naturally" slaves because they were ugly and black; only bad witches were old and ugly, and God must have disliked them to make them that way . . .
