| Author |
Message |
    
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2011
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 01:16 pm: | 
|
How the Democrats and black leaders left her to twist in the wind on this flap with a cop. That cop probably knew what he was doing and then all the racists jumped on her, talking about her hairdo, calling her a ghetto slut and once again Democrats and black leaders laid back in the cut and let a black woman take the weight.
Come on people. How many black women--black people have strapped bombs on themselves and blown anybody up.
Say what you want about McKinney--do you think any policeman would put his hands on a blonde white woman under any circumstances?
No wonder Black women are so pissed off--they can't get no respect and they own black men won't defend them. |
Rastafurious
Newbie Poster
Username: Rastafurious
Post Number: 12
Registered: 02-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 01:43 pm: |
|
We suppose to defend her when she repeatedly acts like a fool??? |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2016
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 3 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 01:56 pm: |
|
How has she repeatedly acted as a fool--and since when does acting like a fool allow somebody to put their hands on you.
What if somebody puts their hands on your mama saying she's acting like a fool.
Sauce for the goose I'm saying. If it had been Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, you name them he wouldn't have put his hands on her. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2017
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 02:03 pm: |
|
Weekend Edition
April 7--9, 2006
"Invisibility Looks Good on You"
The Rebuking and Scorning of Cynthia McKinney
By DAVID VEST
A Washington press corps that stood idly by while Bush and Cheney plundered the country, wrecked the environment, spied on Americans without a warrant, tortured civilians and lied the country into a war that will only get worse, woke up one morning and collectively decided: "Let's all play Get Cynthia!"
Let's get her for being too outspoken, bringing up the wrong issue at the wrong time, failing to get with the program, becoming a distraction, leaving House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi beside herself with rage.
Let's get her because, hell, she practically volunteered for it, and besides, she's an easy target, standing practically alone, fired upon at will by Republicans -- who seem to think her story cancels out DeLay, Abramoff, Katrina and Iraq -- and virtually undefended by Democrats, except by the rolling of eyes heavenward, as though to say, "Oh, please! We're not responsible for HER!"
Rep. Cynthia McKinney has now apologized for her part in the face-off at Checkpoint Cynthia. It was not enough to stop the cartooning of the coverage. Already the news wires are spinning her statement as a complete about-face, an abandonment of everything else she has said about the incident. Look, she said there was racial profiling in Washington! Look, now she's apologizing!
Journalists are reporting this story as though it were their job to "get" her, breathlessly revealing that the woman who receives more hate mail than Teddy Kennedy employs a part-time bodyguard, as though it proved something about her mental state.
But note, please, Rep. McKinney did not take back anything she has said about racial profiling in the nation's capitol. And the fact remains that, while each day's mail brings a new wave of personal threats, some of the people charged with protecting her affect not to recognize her. A Republican colleague offered the suggestion that she could announce "I am a Member of Congress" each time she passes a security checkpoint. But McKinney has served for eleven years, not eleven minutes.
Here's a test of media fairness: how many times, over those eleven years, have you seen Rep. McKinney on CNN, NBC, ABC, or CBS, asked to explain her views on Iraq and the Middle East? Not once, you say? Read on for the "why come" of it all.
The leaders of her own party turn their backs while she endures the most vicious racial stereotyping I've seen, since the last time I looked at that old KKK rag called the "Thunderbolt" when a fellow college student stuck a copy in my face back around 1963. "I know it's probably racist," he said, "but it's funny," as if that would have made it all right.
It wasn't funny, it was disgusting, and I don't think what's happening to Rep. Cynthia McKinney is funny now. Much of the commentary seems to have been written by the same sort of people who say they don't agree with Rush Limbaugh, they just listen to him for "entertainment." (Anybody out there who listens to Rush for entertainment, please get your eyes off of my words, I've got nothing to say to you and I sure as hell don't want to "amuse" you.)
Two-party collusion in the destruction of a reputation is the story here, folks. For Pelosi, the affair is "not something we need to focus on." Judging by Dennis Hastert's comments, Checkpoint Cynthia was the biggest national security event since 9/11.
Rep. Tom DeLay called McKinney a racist. Nothing DeLay said would surprise me, and that comment was no exception. What did surprise me was that I couldn't find any stories quoting any Democrats saying, "Tom DeLay called somebody a racist? Tom DeLay?!"
Oh, I know. They didn't want to take the bait, fall into the trap, keep the ball in the air for another news cycle. But really, how can they stand this? How can anybody?
Right wingers, aided by Democrats, are spinning McKinney as "arrogant," "haughty," a "nut-case," even "the madwoman McKinney" -- a woman who, just between us pros, wink wink, doesn't understand how "the game" is played.
She understands the game all right. She just refuses to play it. When CNN's Soledad O'Brien, trying to take control of an interview, said to McKinney, "Let me stop you there," what came back on her was something spoken in a tone rarely used toward a TV personality: "You can't stop me, Soledad."
And you can't control me, she might have added, and you can't dictate your own framing of the issues with me.
How easy it is for people who don't have a history of having their right to be present challenged, to counsel others to be more "calm" and "sensible" when provoked.
How easy it is to imagine a senior party member sitting down with Rep. McKinney, patiently and paternalistically explaining that politics is the art of compromise, sweetie. We all know what's supposed to be meant by that, but what kind of compromise do we really want our elected representatives to make with racial profiling, warrantless wiretapping, torture, and a war founded on lies?
The Democratic Party has already compromised this country into desperate straits, going along to get along with Bush. It has been so long since one of them stood ground on anything, we're all shocked when it happens.
Cynthia McKinney is standing firm, with little visible support, but then she has stood alone before. Like that time when she actually voted to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, when given the chance. She was joined by only two other members of the House. The Republicans dared the Democrats to vote for withdrawal, and the Dems all frantically denounced the maneuver as a trap. McKinney seized the moment and called their bluff. Is that what her critics have in mind when they call her a "nut-case" or even worse names?
If she's a nut-case, then maybe we need to send some more crazy people up in there.
She stood alone in 2002, when power brokers in her own party recruited a Reagan Republican stalking horse to defeat her, after McKinney expressed support for Palestinian rights and was among the first to call for an investigation of the Bush Administration after 9/11. The party line at that time was that "we've all got to stand behind the president" in the Wonderful War on Terror.
And then, when McKinney rose from the political dead and returned uninvited from the oblivion they had consigned her to, and reclaimed her seat without anyone's special blessing, other than the voters of her district, the Democrats in the House celebrated her historic comeback by refusing to restore her seniority.
That was Nancy Pelosi's way of saying, "You will comply."
They wanted to keep Crazy Cynthia away from the microphone, of course they did. Out of sight, out of mind. Can't have our elected officials running around saying the same things the public is saying about the war on Iraq! Makes us look bad! And thus it comes to pass that we get news stories saying things like, "Since returning to Washington, McKinney has kept a lower profile until last week's incident," as if keeping quiet on public matters was her own idea.
The incident with the Capitol Police wasn't about her hair. It wasn't about the identity pin. It's about the fact that when you are female, black, antiwar, and militant, invisibility looks good on you, from where the pro-war Dems sit.
Some of us are old enough to remember that many Democrats accused Martin Luther King, Jr. of "ingratitude" when he began to speak out against the Vietnam War. That was the very moment when, in the eyes of many who had previously and publicly despised him, he was transmogrified into the Great Civil Rights Leader, who had now "gone too far" and "risked" damaging the wonderful "reputation" he had earned, not to mention all the "progress for his people" that (hint, hint) could be rolled back if a "backlash" were provoked.
Vestiges of this view persist today in some quarters. William F. Buckley has said (recently) that he regrets that National Review opposed Civil Rights. He has not, insofar as I am aware, expressed a hint remorse for not supporting King in trying to stop the war in Vietnam.
So now, today, we have Rep. McKinney calling Israel to account, demanding justice for Palestinians, questioning what happened on 9/11, giving no quarter on racial profiling, and voting against the war in Iraq.
How are the do-nothing Democrats supposed to get the benefit of the antiwar crowd, if there are people running around actively voting against the war?
They act as though they believe all the country really needs is not to end the disaster in Iraq but to let the "good guys" run it.
The noble John "Nobody Spins Me" Kerry writes an op-ed calling for not one but TWO deadlines in Iraq (top that, Hillary!) and the whole party has a conniption fit because all anyone can talk about is this uppitty Black woman who won't let security or anybody else, including party leadership, manhandle her.
Nancy Pelosi had her party theme all picked out: we were all supposed to be talking about Tom DeLay and this "Republican culture of corruption," and if anyone pressed us on Iraq, we were to demand, with one mighty voice (are you ready? all together now ...) "that 2006 be a significant period of transition" in Iraq.
The Democratic Party, in splendid unison, calling upon American sons and daughters to hurl their bodies into the immolating fire, for the sake of "a significant period of transition" -- who could resist?
How different from that other voice, that Black voice from Georgia, joined by a handful of others, saying "Bring the troops home. Stop this war. Now."
You begin to get a pretty clear idea why the Democrats have never asked McKinney to give the rebuttal after a Bush State of the Union.
And as for the Republicans, with few exceptions, they don't ever intend to let another person of color claim to be a victim of racism without attacking her credibility. Not one more. (Recall how patiently they explained to us all that what happened in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina "wasn't about race.")
Let them convene their grand jury and push their polls. Maybe one day a polling agency will call you, to ask what you think about white folks telling people of color that they're wrong to feel that anything, anything, is ever about racism.
Before judging Rep. McKinney, ask yourself, what kind of person would still be in public service, after setbacks and sabotage attempts like these? What kind of person would keep reporting for duty after being consistently disrespected, and repeatedly challenged to "identify" herself after 11 years in Congress? And then to be mocked and attacked for her refusal to meekly "comply" when physically prevented from going to cast a vote.
You got a bit of the answer if you saw Rep. McKinney on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. I liked it when she refused to let him control the conversation, but I have to tell you, we stood up and cheered at my house when she told Blitzer, "Don't even begin to twist my words."
Among the comments at our table that evening was, "Why can't SHE be president?"
Singer-songwriter David Vest can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com.
His CDs includes Serve Me Right To Shuffle and Way Down Here (Live).
|
Doberman23
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 276
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 03:10 pm: |
|
jumpin jesus! i almost got a cramp in my finger trying to scroll down all of that stuff!
anyways, i am thinking that this was more of a person with an elitist attitude being pissed off because someone didn't know who she was as opposed to this be racial. sort of like she's the new zsa zsa gabore. |
Moonsigns
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Moonsigns
Post Number: 1081
Registered: 07-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 03:14 pm: |
|
Though I think the man who called her a "ghetto slut" should be fired, she should have never hit that officer. Period. |
Doberman23
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 277
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 03:21 pm: |
|
i wasn't commenting on the ghetto slut part, just the slapping incident. by the way whats up with your name... is that because your into astrology do u like to moon people, what's up with the name? if u don't want to say that's fine ...but i've been wondering. |
Rastafurious
Newbie Poster
Username: Rastafurious
Post Number: 13
Registered: 02-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 03:31 pm: |
|
Face it the woman is whack. |
Moonsigns
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Moonsigns
Post Number: 1082
Registered: 07-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 04:59 pm: |
|
Doberman,
I feel, for the most part, the same as you regarding this incident.
About the name. Although I can't say I'm "into astrology, my username (obviously) has something to do with astrology. Ones moon sign reflects their personality. Everyone has a moon sign.
|
Libralind2
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Libralind2
Post Number: 343
Registered: 09-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 05:07 pm: |
|
I agree with Chris..1000%
LiLi |
Shemika
Regular Poster
Username: Shemika
Post Number: 41
Registered: 02-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 4 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 07:16 pm: |
|
I think black women are expected to be humble and lowly by nearly everyone else on the planet. Anything else is met with resistance, contempt and hate. However others are free to expect recognition for their so called 'accomplishments'. Especially whites who love to haughtily boast about how they 'worked their azz off', never mind all the centuries’ of economic favor they've received at the expense of hard working, uncompensated blacks. And if any one dares challenge their assertion that they deserve respectful treatment at all times they retort with a vengeance. And can do so freely without being attacked, accused of being uppity or made a spectacle of. No, in their case they are praised for being assertive and confident. All are noble characteristics for them but are off limits and threatening when observed in a black female. They resent seeing a black woman being treated in any other manner but marginalized. And this little episode is their way of doing just that. |
Shyfox
Newbie Poster
Username: Shyfox
Post Number: 20
Registered: 04-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 07:27 pm: |
|
She hit a cop. What else was going on. Details please. |
Rastafurious
Newbie Poster
Username: Rastafurious
Post Number: 14
Registered: 02-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 07:51 pm: |
|
She did not hit a cop she punched a cop. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 4290
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 08:12 pm: |
|
The rambuctuous Ms McKinney has done an about face and rescinded her accusations of "racial profiling", subsequently attributing her run-in with a police officer to a "misunderstanding". She has offered an apology for her reaction to this encounter as grand jury charges of assault are pending, and her black colleagues continue to distance themselves from her. My only editorial comment is that there are a lot of dynamic female members of the Black Caucus which has not extended its support to McKinney. |
Shemika
Regular Poster
Username: Shemika
Post Number: 42
Registered: 02-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 - 09:48 pm: |
|
I keep hearing different versions of what took place. On the radio I heard all she did was remove his hand from her shoulder. Now on here someone else said she punched him. I believe whatever occurred is being exaggerated. Supposedly he touched her inappropriately. Someone also said there was a video but it wasn't released immediately or something. Did they ever release a video of what occurred? What this article says happened sounds pretty petty:
"McKinney said she was rushing to a meeting and that most members of Congress expect Capitol police to recognize them. She reportedly poked the officer with her cell phone when he stopped her."
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/04/1419259
|
Nels
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Nels
Post Number: 334
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 08, 2006 - 12:26 am: |
|
The woman's an idiot. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 4513
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 08, 2006 - 05:36 am: |
|
This incident happened in a security area. Shouldn't there be some video/audio tape of what ACTUALLY occurred...somewhere?
I mean, I'd like to see/hear what such might reveal before I make a final judgment of what I think/feel about Congresswoman McKinney's and the Capitol security's actions.
But if I understand this correctly, McKinney was stopped because she was not wearing her Congressional pin eventhough she did present a photo ID of herself. Now, it seems to me that if she presented a valid ID of herself immediately after she'd been accosted by security, they should have allowed her to proceed.
Because I can't see how the hell a friggin' PIN can provide more persuasive proof of identity than a photo ID. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 988
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 08, 2006 - 01:42 pm: |
|
True, AMB--about the security video and pin/ID part. I haven't been following this too closely. From what I heard of her "apology" it sounds like she made it ambiguous to cover either her behavior, or the officer's or both.
I think many of us have been in situations where we are not recognized by folks who should recognize us. I do not find it elitist. Maybe she was just p'ed off cuz it happened one time too many! LOL |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 989
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 08, 2006 - 01:45 pm: |
|
Oh, and never fear about the where-abouts of our leaders: McKinney? Duke rape case? No, true victims are in danger and need their attention:
NEW YORK - The Rev. Jesse Jackson says Major League Baseball and San Diego police failed to protect Barry Bonds and should be trying to find out who threw a syringe at him in the Giants’ opener.
The object was thrown near the San Francisco slugger as he came off the field following the eighth inning Monday night in San Diego. Bonds picked up the syringe — about the size of a fat cigar — and carried it off the field.
“That fan should have been arrested,” Jackson said. “That object could have had a needle in it. It could have hit him. The commissioner of baseball must be outspoken in protecting any players whose lives are in jeopardy, whose security is at risk.”
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12157758/)
|
Renata
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 895
Registered: 08-2005
Rating:
Votes: 4 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 08, 2006 - 03:20 pm: |
|
People just don't like her because she says what's on her mind and won't back down from it.
When she said the White House knew about the 9/11 incident beforehand (and it was TRUE), they re-drew her district lines ...... so NONE of her constituents could vote for her. That would hardly needed to have been done, if it wasn't KNOWN that those she represents KNOWS how she supports them and all that she does for them. Even though she lost that year, her constituents from her OLD DISTRICT tried their best to help her by campaigning for her in her NEW district.
That nothing woman who replaced her lasted ONE term. She came in, did absolutely NOTHING, but take trips to India and promise to try to get customer service jobs in her area sent to India. Every couple of months, she either was in India, or had some Indian official visiting her. But the people wanted CYNTHIA back. And got her.
Interestingly, her father was MUCH MORE outspoken than she is....but he isn't admonished for it on the scale that she is.
The only reason I don't vote for her is because I'm not in her district.
And anyone thinking this isn't racism is fooling themselves. A white woman was arrested at Hartsfield a couple of years ago for refusing to remove her car from an area where parking wasn't allowed. They asked her repeatedly to move it, she said that she wouldn't and they arrested her. She sued, won, and had the officers fired. If you think a black man could have done the same, had the officers feel the need to SHOOT him, and have any consequences for the officers, I'd like to live in your America. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 4300
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 08, 2006 - 04:47 pm: |
|
If McKinney is so courageous and noble why did she back down? Why doesn't she stand up and fight for her cause if indeed, she has one. There are a lot of outstanding black female congresswomen and state reps out there. Why haven't they spoken up for this loose cannon? |
Shyfox
Newbie Poster
Username: Shyfox
Post Number: 21
Registered: 04-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 08, 2006 - 05:14 pm: |
|
"There are a lot of outstanding black female congresswomen and state reps out there. Why haven't they spoken up for this loose cannon?"
Wish I knew. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 4518
Registered: 04-2004
Rating:
Votes: 3 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 09, 2006 - 01:42 am: |
|
Cynique,
I think McKinney was persuaded by important supporters, constituents, the Congressional Black Caucus and the Democratic party to put this mess aside fearing it might be used by the GOP as a tool to thwart the Democrats reclaiming control of Congress come this November.
She apologized to, in effect, take one for the team. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 4303
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 09, 2006 - 11:37 am: |
|
Yes, we know, ABM. Or how about the tapes showed that McKinney did in fact hit the cop and the grand jury was about to indict her. If this wasn't the case, then the Republicans couldn't have exploited things, and McKinney would've been embraced by the Black Caucus and the Democratic party as a "Cause Celebre". If a "mess" has merit, then it isn't "set aside".
. |
Msprissy
Newbie Poster
Username: Msprissy
Post Number: 22
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 09, 2006 - 12:07 pm: |
|
Sorry, but not sorry, McKinny creates her drama for attention, always has. I lived in Atlanta, worked in the City Council Communication office, heard the inside skinny on the lady. I've worked in 2 city halls, know the security rules, and was never given a pass, although my face was known to both security stations. McKinny knows the rules.
I do have a grudge, however, so take my comments as you choose. When I first arrived in Atlanta from the mayor's office in San Franciso, I wrote a letter and called Ms McKinny for help in getting a job. After 3 calls to her office I was sent to her father, at that time he was in politics, too. He spent more than 10 minutes trying to explain his daughter's "very busy schedule" to me and said not to be offended that she didn't return my commnications. No solution or suggestion to my problem was offered. I did obtain a job, without her help, in communicatons as a freelancer.
McKinny is a politician and when the ratings get low, she pulls a GWB. Feel me? She is not well liked in Atlanta, just tolerated for her "years of service to the community."
I found that Alanta politicians would rather support a "bad" black politicians than a white "good" one. They are still fighting the civil war.
|
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 341
Registered: 01-2006
Rating:
Votes: 3 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 09, 2006 - 01:17 pm: |
|
Rep. Cynthia McKinney was the butt of two separate skits on SNL last night and they replayed her interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien on this morning's Reliable Sources, so she's receiving plenty of negative attention. I think she apologized to save her own a$$ - no other reason. If she cared about the Democratic party then she would be on her best behavior, maintain her composure and treat law enforcement officials in a cordial and respectful manner - in the same way that we ordinary citizens are expected to conduct ourselves. If any one of us hit, punched or kicked an official we'd have been taken straight to jail. She is not above the law and I wish she would try to set a better example, as she is doing a great disservice to Black ppl and Black women in general. And she really does need to do something about her ridiculous hair. I'm all for the "natural" look, but she's taking it too far. She looks unprofessional, ungroomed, unkempt and just plain idiotic.
  
Why a Hairstyle Made Headlines
By Robin Givhan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; C01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006040602341_pf.html
When Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) summoned the media to Howard University last week to tell her side of the story in an altercation with a Capitol Police officer, she assumed the traditional news conference position behind a podium and a bank of microphones.
She stood there wearing a coral-colored jacket and dangling earrings and raising the serious issue of racial injustice. But it was impossible not to stare at her hair. As your plainspoken mother might say, it appeared to be standing all over her head.
McKinney, perspiring lightly, talked about having been stopped, touched and disrespected by the officer. The congresswoman, who is African American, suggested that the police officer, who is white, had engaged in racial profiling. He has alleged that she struck him with her cellphone.
The incident evolved into a hullabaloo. By yesterday she had apologized on the House floor, expressing her "sincere regret" over the incident. She still may be prosecuted for her part in the dispute.
Aesthetically speaking, it was not one of McKinney's better moments. Her hair, which she had for years worn in thick braids, seemed to be in a limbo between a polished Afro and a head of funky twists. Had the humidity gotten to it?
In an investigation into her personal styling techniques, a call went out to her Washington office. McKinney started wearing her hair loose in January, according to spokesman Coz Carson. When asked whether the new style had been done by a professional or by the congresswoman herself, Carson shouted, "That's a woman's question!" Which is to say, he did not know the answer, nor did he respond to a subsequent e-mail assuring him that the question was asked in all seriousness.
Hairstylist Christine Kendrick, who does not work with McKinney, provided a few general insights. As far as she could tell, McKinney's new style is a "twist-out." "You can keep the look for about three days," says Kendrick, who owns Artistic Expressions Natural Hair Salon in Camp Springs.
"But if it gets wet, it's just all over. . . . And when it hits the elements, it dries out." At the news conference, it looked as though McKinney's twist-out had passed its expiration date.
In January, at a commemoration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta, McKinney was at the pulpit in Ebenezer Baptist Church. Her hair was loose and a flattering shade of brown. It spiraled out and away from her head in a mane of tight coils. It was an example of the kind of controlled chaos that defines a fresh twist-out. It looked good.
Everyone has a bad hair day, whether it is straight hair that goes limp, curls that turn frizzy or kinky hair that becomes unruly. So it would be reasonable to think that McKinney's hairdo should not have elicited anything more than a shrug or a knowing and sympathetic whisper among black women, "Girrrl, did you see her head?"
Instead, talk turned ugly on blogs about her news-conference hair. It became the impetus for all sorts of racially driven insults about her locks and their natural texture. A black woman's hair is an easy, timeworn source of racist mockery. It has become an exhausting cliche of self-loathing whether it is kinky, hot-combed, braided, locked or chemically relaxed. (Indeed, plenty of black folks see all kinds of dire race-traitor undertones in Condoleezza Rice's smooth, controlled cap of hair.) A black woman's hair is a bottomless source of inspiration for essays, books and documentaries.
But for McKinney, hair is part of her politics.
And dismissing queries about it seems a bit disingenuous, since so much of her public persona, from the moment she arrived in Congress in 1992, has been based on her hair. Up until this year, she wore it in two thick braids wrapped around her head -- often held together by a large bow -- despite suggestions from her own advisers to change it. It was a hairstyle sometimes seen on elementary school girls, but rarely on professional women. The braids made her look as though she should be hiking up the Alps wearing a gingham dress and carrying two milk pails.
Most women tend to choose a hairstyle based on some combination of its flattering effects and ease of maintenance. Susan Taylor, editorial director of Essence, for instance, wears braids that suggest sophistication and polish. McKinney's agenda seemed to combine ease with something else entirely. The style seemed calculated to portray her as the underdog. It was purposefully out of fashion. Aggressively not slick. Ostentatiously humble.
Anyone who has the smarts and the tenacity to be the first black woman elected to Congress from Georgia clearly understands the visual politics of wearing milkmaid braids and gold tennis shoes into the corridors of power. Her choices drive home the point that she is exceptional. She rolls hair, clothes and race into a tight ball. And it becomes impossible to talk about one without getting tangled up in the others.
Among the many talking points repeated over the past week was the suggestion that the police officer did not recognize McKinney because she had swapped her signature braids for a loose -- and much more flattering -- style. She countered that even though her hairstyle was different, her face was still the same.
"Katherine Harris, Nancy Pelosi changed their hair. The thing that doesn't change is the shape of your nose, your eyes, your forehead," Carson said.
It doesn't require much of a leap to think that the police didn't see the details of McKinney's face. To think that they saw only blackness and braids. Without the braids, the "blackness" didn't belong; it wasn't familiar. It was undistinguished and suspicious.
But McKinney also made her hairstyle into such a symbol that it was hard to see the person behind it. Who could notice the cheekbones, the nose and the smile with the loaded distractions of that washerwoman crown of braids?
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
|
Shemika
Regular Poster
Username: Shemika
Post Number: 43
Registered: 02-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 10, 2006 - 07:44 pm: |
|
I see nothing wrong with her hair. I don't see having black textured hair as being unkempt. But I guess it's more acceptable for a man to dress in drag than for a black female to wear her hair like an authentic black person, because in white America that’s the meaning of ugly, but they don’t define me. I'm so sick of that flat look and the weaves emulating white people. Nothing about white people empresses me.
I notice the Maury show promotes that concept in makeover shows by having every black person come on the show with an afro complaining/crying about how ugly they look. And then they get it straightened and all of a sudden they are considered beautiful. They even show all the white people getting makeovers with their hair in an afro looking texture first. That's so racist.
|
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 2228
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 10, 2006 - 11:15 pm: |
|
That's racist?? Have you been checking out some of the people on this site? They put "Ihateanigger.com" to utter shame, no lie. Yet we excuse them just because they're black, not realizing that they pose a bigger threat. These people are the mothers and fathers of black children. They control our future. |
Rastafurious
Newbie Poster
Username: Rastafurious
Post Number: 19
Registered: 02-2006
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 12:08 am: |
|
R U blind the womans hair is crazy nuts she needs to put some cocoa butter on it |
Doberman23
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 302
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - 11:49 pm: |
|
her hairstyle is an automatic deal breaker!!!! it is a style worn by crackheads, how dare you try to defend that shit. you don't see any brothers on here defending don kings fudged up hair-do .. you know why? because we know that shit is fudged up! some you chicks on here are str8 up silly asses.
yvettep ... barry bonds need someone to have his back, do u see how the man is being attacked? |
|
Email This Page