Your Black Bloggers » Kathy Henry

Kathy Henry: Memories of Pickin Greens With My Momma on Sundays

Kathy Henry — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 19:47:57 +0000

By Kathy Henry

Although you have been gone out of my life for almost six years, you are never far away from my thoughts. Although I weep when I think about you, I have decided to concentrate on my wonderful memories of being a little girl who was so spoiled and pampered that I did not realize how poor our family really was until I got older. I never did without and I will always honor you for being the type of mother who made things happen against great odds.

My fondest memory of us is pickin’ greens with you on Sundays. Cooking a large Sunday dinner for your family was a tradition you brought with you from Mississippi and you used to throw down!! On Sundays, you and I would go to the local corner grocery store and you would choose your items carefully. More often than not, chicken would be the meat dish because it was delicious and cheap. For greens, you would get the salt pork or the ham hocks, to season then. I used to beg you to make Kraft Macaroni & Cheese just so I could lick the can.

Your favorite greens were a combination of mustards and turnips with turnip bottoms thrown in for added flavor. I can clearly see myself standing next to you in the kitchen helping you pick the greens while you told me stories of haunts and skeletons. I used to play with the leftover stems, pretending that I was cooking Sunday dinner for my Barbies and, depending on your mood, you would either make hot water corn bread, fried on the stove, or you would bake the corn bread in the oven. I used to love when you made crackling bread smothered in butter.

WGN Channel 9’s Sunday Matinee would be in the background and the house smelled of deliciously fried chicken, greens, and love. Sometimes relatives and friends would drop by and discuss everything from politics to relationships. You and Cousin Cleo thought ya’ll was slick, spelling out words to try to keep me from understanding ya’ll conversations. I used to memorize the letters and went into the next room to write them down. I was always a smart one.

I am so happy to have these memories of you to sustain me on these cold dreary nights when life can look so bleak. When I am filled with despair about my job situation, I think about you, the strongest woman I have ever known. I know that my time is coming. You came up here from Berclair, Mississippi, a town so small I can barely find information about it on the Internet, to Chicago, as a teenage girl to attend George Washington Carver High School in 1948 and you made a life for yourself in a city where only the strong survive. You were a sharecropper’s daughter who picked cotton as a little girl younger than my eleven-year-old daughter and I am so proud that your blood flows in my veins.

Well, Ma I have to say goodbye for now but not forever. As long as I have my memories, I have you. Last year in June, your Nu-Nu graduated from college and the year before, Anthony graduated from high school! Your grand-babies are doing fabulous and it is all thanks to you. Because I was a baby having babies, without your assistance, we would have been lost and I love and honor you for that. Without you, there would be no Kathy, Noelle, Anthony or India and although we had our differences, I am proud to be your daughter.

Love Always,
Your Daughter Kathy

About Kathy Henry

I am a woman. I am an African-American. Belonging to two minorities has shaped my viewpoint on life in more ways than I can count. It is not easy being a woman in a inherently sexist society. Add skin color to the equation and you have me. This is my world and my viewpoint. You do not have to agree with my thoughts but in the end, you will respect me.

Kathy Henry: The Case for Male Virginity

Kathy Henry — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:04:15 +0000

By Kathy Henry

I cannot speak for other cultures but I do know that in Black culture, in America, there is a lot of pressure for young men to be ladies men with several women scattered in every zip code. From the time they are five-years-old, many young black boys are asked this question by various male relatives and friends: “Do you have a girlfriend?” Not about their college or career aspirations but about how many girlfriends they have. I believe this mentality is one of the reasons why our community is plagued with fatherlessness since young black boys are socialized to be pimps and players; not husbands and fathers.

In many cultures there is intense pressure for females to remain chaste and pure but men are encouraged to spread their seed with as many women as possible without any ramifications. This paradigm of thinking is dangerous, particularly in the black community. During a time when black marriage is considered outdated and on any inner-city street one can see a parade of young mothers on the “Carriage Stroll”, I think there needs to be a movement towards embracing the idea of male virginity in the black community. Too many of our brothers are walking away from their responsibilities as men and placing the bulk of birth control and child-rearing on women and it is not working. It disgusts me to listen to grown-ass-men, over forty, still bragging about their women. Rather than bragging about their stock options or the new property they just purchased, they brag about some random chick.

I realized how important this issue is last year when my son and his cousin spent the night with their uncle. He had found them a possible job in New Jersey, doing disaster aid after Hurricane Irene, and they needed to spend the night at his house in order to go to the office. While at his house, he verbally harassed these young brothers about the fact that “they don’t have no hoes and that they are some pussies”.

My son came home pissed off as hell! Fist of all, the job did not work out and he was verbally assaulted. He said, “He has two children he does not want by two women he does not like. He has a lot of nerve trying to give me some advice”.

I thought his words were so profound for a nineteen-year-old. At his young age, he is bright enough to understand the pitfalls of having s*x with any chick with a willing hole, unprotected, unlike his fertile as hell thirty-seven-year-old uncle.

Unwanted pregnancy = years of child support.

At this time, my son is an unemployed college student and it is my opinion that unemployed men do not need girlfriends because they need to be trying to make a dollar. He has no money and he is living off my largesse. If he should get some young ninny pregnant, she would be burnt up because he does not have squat and neither do I. There will be no diapers and milk coming from this quarter!

We need to teach our young brothers that all that looks good is not good and just because she has a nice body does not mean her wig is on tight. In the area where I live, it is quite obvious that these young women are not using any method of birth control because I see too many damn babies. I would hate for my son to get caught up with some clueless young girl with no ambition just because she happens to be fertile as hell.

Virginity is the most priceless, yet precious gift that God gave us and most men give it away quickly, trying to live up to tired, played out stereotypes about what a man is. A real man is one who can live up to the responsibilities he created, not by the number of dizzy broads he is currently having sex with. As desperate as some women are these days, if I wanted to switch sides, I could have a harem of females, but that is too much drama for me.

About Kathy Henry

College Educated Black Woman Living in a Garbage Can

Kathy Henry — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 15:31:00 +0000

For the past three years and two months, I have resided in a garbage can. The smells of old garbage, urine, and human funk permeate the air of my surroundings, and stray cats yowl in the middle of the night. The garbage can where I live actually has a name and it is Parkway Gardens Apartments, a federally subsidized low-income housing unit on the South Side of Chicago.

How did a college educated individual like me end up living in a garbage can? After getting laid-off in August of 2007 from my job as an administrative assistant, it seemed like the Furies of Greek mythology were after me. Other than temp work, I could not find a job, full or part-time, and I could not afford the rent at my previous residence. I decided to look on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) website for subsidized housing.

This is my second stint in subsidized housing. The first stint was from 2002 to 2007. During that time, I went to college, received a Bachelor’s degree and maintained a 3.6 average, obtained a full-time job and my eldest daughter graduated from high school with a 4.2 grade point average, and then I moved. While receiving help from the government, a multitude of men did not live with me, nor did I have any more children, the stereotypical things that those poor, trifling black single mothers who receive government assistance are supposed to do. There is a concept amongst the common consensus that low-income housing is not supposed to be permanent, but rather a stepping stone to a better life and that is true. However, I did exactly what society told me to do (bettered myself and my children) and I almost ended up homeless. I was faced with the choice of residing in a shelter or Parkway Gardens, and I chose Parkway.

I have resided in some real flophouses during my lifetime but Parkway Gardens takes the cake. As a native South Sider, I have known about Parkway Gardens my entire life, but one has to live here to understand the madness that is Parkway. The stuff that goes on in Parkway is unbelievable, considering that it is right down the street from the University of Chicago. Drug dealing, gang-banging, whoring – everything goes in Parkway Gardens! The filth is insidious and pervasive; the kind that follows you because no matter how hard you clean your apartment, the smell is there. At least it is to me. My son says that our apartment is fine but I am so paranoid, it is ridiculous.

But this story is not about me, but about how HUD is the biggest slumlord in the United States. There is no accountability for the owners of the properties that HUD gives monies to for rent payments. These owners are receiving millions of dollars from the government but put very little of said money into the general maintenance of the properties, leaving people to live in abject squalor at the taxpayers’ expense.

I have called the multihousing unit hotline number that HUD has on its website, several times, to complain, but I was told that HUD has nothing to do with the upkeep; all they do is pay the rent. It is up to the owners and property management to take care of everything. I just want to know what stupid individual came up with the idea to take accountability from HUD and give it to the property owners who just want to make a buck.

The Tea Partiers and the Republicans are constantly carrying on about government waste and trying to slash Medicare and Medicaid, but they need to look into the budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development because millions of dollars are going to waste. And by the way, Parkway Gardens Apartments was sold for forty million dollars last year. Yes, forty million dollars for a 694 unit garbage can that houses over one thousand people. It is also rumored that Parkway makes over eight million dollars a year from rental subsidies, all thanks to the largesse of HUD. Rather than looking for ways to cut and divert our attention to systems and programs that, while not always perfect, provide a benefit for the public good and well-being, politicians should actually take a closer examination of programs and systems (e.g. HUD) that need to either be amended or gentrified or the management carved and served in time for Thanksgiving.

About Kathy Henry

Working for Pennies – The Harsh Realities of Being a Welfare Recipient

Kathy Henry — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:58:07 +0000

By Kathy Henry

One of the biggest misconceptions in American culture is that welfare recipients are living large at the taxpayer’s expense, receiving thousands of dollars per month while driving Cadillacs and other expensive cars. This myth is so not true. How do I know? Because for the past two months, I have been on welfare and let me be the one to tell you: being on public assistance sucks!

August 3, 2011 will be a day in infamy I will never forget because it was on that date that I received my last unemployment check and officially became one of the 99ers, a term for unemployed people in the United States, who have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits, including all unemployment extensions. After applying for over two thousand jobs, I found myself in the position of having to apply for Public Aid or be faced with disconnection notices and phone calls from bill collectors who cannot speak English. If someone had asked me five years ago if I would be in this position, back on welfare, I would have laughed because I went back to school and received a Bachelor’s degree. I thought people who have degrees are supposed to be protected from economic turmoil. I graduated five years ago, from Roosevelt University, with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and a 3.6 grade point average and I am proud of myself for that accomplishment. I know that some folks turn their noses up at people who pursue a liberal arts degree but I learned valuable critical thinking skills, how to analyze and solve problems in a creative manner, and most importantly, about social stratification and inequality and I have no regrets. I also have over ten years of transferable experience in the administrative/clerical field and an ability to work with all types, fools and all. However, even with all those wonderful qualities, I cannot find a job to save my life.

When I made the decision to apply for welfare, I tried to keep positive about my situation. Millions of Americans are suffering from either being unemployed or underemployed so at least I was not alone in my troubles. But I cannot lie: Feelings of self-loathing and inadequacy run through my veins on a daily basis and a rage is building in me. A rage against a society that tells individuals that a college degree is the path to economic prosperity, but does not disclose how centuries of social inequality have kept and will continue to keep some of the best and brightest out of the workforce. A rage against rich, clueless politicians who believe that recipients of unemployment and welfare benefits are sitting on their butts swigging alcohol and smoking dope. A rage against myself for waiting so long to get my life together and having to deal with the consequences of perhaps being considered passé in the workforce.

I was a teenage mother who did not get my GED until I was twenty-six and my Bachelor’s degree until I was thirty-five. The entire time before both these changes took place, I was told by society that if I educated myself, I would get myself and my children out of poverty. Guess what? It did not work because I am back on welfare receiving $318 dollars per month. I did everything society told me to do and I am in the same position I was in nine years ago when I made the decision to attend college and that is a shame.

If I did not have children, there is no way in hell I would have applied for welfare. But when you are a mother, one has to make sacrifices, so I swallowed my pride and applied for cash benefits. By signing the Personal Responsibility contract in return for public assistance, a welfare recipient in essence signs her rights to being an adult away. Recipients must work for their cash and going to school is not an option.

Yes, welfare recipients must WORK for their cash benefits. I know that people believe in the myth of women laying up on welfare, eating bon-bons and spitting out a baby every year while collecting those fat government checks but that is a load of malarkey.

On August 22, 1996 in the Rose Garden of the White House, President William Jefferson Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, better known as welfare reform, dismantling the sixty-one year program of federally guaranteed cash assistance to needy families or what is known as welfare. Welfare recipients have five years to receive cash assistance and after that, it is a wrap. The debate surrounding welfare reform was dominated by white male politicians and journalists and focused predominately on minority women and their families living in poverty because minority women are the only ones in America who received Public Aid (sarcasm). Although President Clinton had the right idea, he and others did not take into account what would happen if the economy collapsed and finding a job would be the equivalency of hitting the lottery.

It burns my soul that I am back on the dole, working for $318 per month, which is equal to $79.50 per week at six hours per day, after everything I went through to better myself. If I refuse to go to any of the job sites my caseworker sends me to, I will be sanctioned, meaning that my monthly benefits will be cut in half to $159. So the next time a hardworking tax payer complains about welfare recipients and how they are living well, eating lobster and sh*t, think about me, the college educated single mother who took care of her children, saw two of them graduate from high school and one from college, only to find herself and her youngest child still poverty-stricken and broke as hell.

Also, if anyone knows of any job opportunities in the Chicago-land area, please let me know.

About Kathy Henry

Homophobia in the Black Community

Kathy Henry — Sun, 13 May 2012 01:11:28 +0000

By Kathy Henry

The Black community is filled with hypocrisy. Recently, I had a raging debate about gay marriage with a friend of mine who is a Christian and “holier than thou”. He feels that gay people should be put on an island somewhere away from the God-fearing, good, self-righteous heterosexuals. He compared homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia, which is the silliest sh*t ever since it is illegal to have sex with children and animals. He also called me a bleeding heart liberal and suggested that I am going to hell unless I repent from my evil, wicked ways .

My counter argument was that marriage is a basic civil right that should not be denied based on sexual orientation and that Blacks who are homophobic need to be ashamed for aligning themselves with bigotry. I also reminded him that, according to the bible, I was already doomed for hell since my mother was not married when she gave birth to me. “A bastard shall not enter in to the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord.” Deuteronomy 23:2

Naturally, he took offense at my words and hung up the phone. However, that backwards, overtly religious thinking about homosexuality in the African American community is one of our many problems. Many Black people become automatic Christians when it comes to equal rights for gays while ignoring the many social ills that are plaguing our people.

The Black church has jumped on the homophobia bandwagon full throttle. It is always nice to have someone to feel superior to, especially if you are not that superior yourself. And it is certainly a great way to get into the power and money racket—”gay people are gonna get you and destroy everything you love”—the same rhetoric that White conservative Christians have been using for decades. Why should only White people get to tap into that? Eddie Long, anyone?

And it is certainly a great deal easier to rage against the gay community than doing something about the fact that in the African American community approximately 70% of children are born out of wedlock. Our children are growing up without fathers and running amok without any guidance but the Black church does not want to talk about that. Our communities are plagued with rampant unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse, crime, and poverty but these issues are ignored because it is so much easier for all concerned to beat up on gay people.

What is truly sad is that marriage equality could totally benefit the Black family. Stable gay couples could get married and hopefully adopt Black children, considered the least desirable in the adoption world. The same children who linger in the foster care system until they age out because of the sexual irresponsibility of Black heterosexuals could benefit from gay marriage. There could be fewer men on the down low trying to prove they are not gay by fathering children they have no interest in raising or financially supporting. God help my people because it is a sad day in Black history when it is more acceptable for a man to have ten children by ten different women than it is for him to be gay.

About Kathy Henry

10 Ways to Find Out If You Are a Brainwashed Negro

Kathy Henry — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:32:18 +0000

By Kathy Henry

Brainwashed Negro: A Black individual who has internalized every negative stereotype about Blacks and their culture and is seething with self-hatred and low self-esteem. This person usually believes that the only path to success and true happiness is to marry or assimilate into White culture, hoping to escape the sins of being born Black.

One of the biggest problems in the Black community is a lack of unity caused by years of self-hatred. Self-hatred in the Black community is due to centuries of brainwashing by the dominant culture into believing that Blacks and their contributions to mainstream society are worthless and that Blacks themselves are worthless and ugly. Self-hatred has caused some Black folks to demean themselves and other Blacks in many hurtful ways that are not productive to anyone. Here are 10 ways to find out if you as a Black person who has been brainwashed by the dominant culture:

10. If you are still running around claiming that your family has “Indian Blood”, particularly, Cherokee. I wonder why the only Native American tribe some Black folks can name is Cherokee as if Iroquois, Mohicans, Seminoles and others do not exist.

9, If you believe that all Black NBA players are married to White women. Actually, 86% of married African American NBA players are married to Black women.

8. If you deny the African within by stating that your descendants are from the Caribbean. How in the hell did you think all those Black folks ended up on those islands?

7. If you believe that all White people are rich, beautiful, educated and are endowed with special magical powers.

6. If you tell a dark-skinned Black woman, “You are so pretty to be dark”.

5. If you give an automatic pretty pass to light-skinned women just because they are light-skinned and have long hair.

4. If you refuse to frequent Black-owned businesses because you believe that their services are sub-par as compared to White-owned businesses.

3. If you believe that “Good Hair” consists of hair that is long, flowing and silky; not kinky.

2. If you believe that all educated, wealthy Black men and women are married to people outside their race. As of 2007, only 4.6% of all married Blacks in the United States are married to a White partner or other races.

1. If you make statements such as “Black women have too many problems” or “I cannot find a Black man that is on my level” to justify dating outside your race. There is nothing wrong with interracial dating unless you are using it as a way to escape the deep psychological problems of hatred for one’s race. Perhaps the the problem is not Black people collectively but YOU personally and all YOUR issues and burdens of being Black in America.

Please join Our Newsletter

About Kathy Henry

I wish I was White, Female and Privileged for One Day

Kathy Henry — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:16:36 +0000

By Kathy Henry
First of all, before I write this essay, I would like to state that I love being a black woman. I love the beautiful brownness of my skin, my hair, which is a crown that has anointed me Queen of my universe, my full lips, slanted eyes, and the strength of my ancestors, who have dealt with much adversity during their journeys here to America and whose blood flows proudly in my veins. But I have to admit, I wonder what it would be like to be a white female, just for a day, to see what it would be like to be considered Aphrodite rising from the sea, because at times it is hard being a black women in a society that is sexist and racist and has placed women who look like me on the fringe of every ladder in American society, from economics to beauty and beyond.White Privilege is a critical race theory I came across in college during an African American history class. I had to read an article entitled, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh and it opened my mind to some concepts I had never thought about before. According to the article, white privilege can be defined as unearned advantages enjoyed by white people beyond those commonly experienced by people of color in the same social, political, and economic spaces (nation, community, workplace, income, etc.) because they are white.

White privilege is a topic some whites do not want to talk about because in admitting they are privileged, because of their skin color, they would be admitting that racism still exists and is not a figment of black folks’ imaginations. But I digress. It must be nice living in a world where almost every image of your kind is thought to be good and pure. I would like some of that privilege just for one day.

Just for once it would be nice to go to a job interview and not have to worry about the texture of my hair and wonder if the person I am interviewing with has a problem with afros, two-strand twists, or any other “black ethnic” hairstyles I might be wearing that day. If I were a white woman, I could toss my silky, long hair around with no problems.

Just for once, it would be nice not to be labeled an angry, bitter, black female who is filled with hatred just because I happen to have an opinion different from the common consensus. If I was a white woman, I could be uncompromisingly argumentative and be told that I am merely feisty. Black men would swim through a river of snot for me and tell me that black women are just too combative to be considered “wifey” material and that is why 40% of African American females remain unmarried. As a white woman, I would be able to date freely and not be told by my peers to lower my expectations of finding a man on my level or else die a lonely and miserable spinster with five kids with five different fathers.

Just for once, it would be nice to see someone who looks like me, on a regular basis, on the covers of high fashion magazines or playing the role of the leading lady in movies and television shows. As a black woman, I am constantly scolded by the media and some of my people for being too dark, too nappy, and too fat and told that women who look like me will never be placed on that anointed pedestal as the standard of beauty and loveliness for American society. If I were a white woman, this problem would be null and void because I would be considered the crème de la crème.

But alas, I am a black woman and that is nothing to shirk at. The strength and tenacity of black women who can make something, literally, out of nothing is something to be admired rather than scorned, and I am proud to be one. I actually feel sorry for white women sitting upon that fabled pedestal because it is a lonely tour of duty filled with unrealistic and shallow expectations and most fall swiftly and hard from that same pedestal. Better to be me with all my flaws, real and imagined, than to be a paragon of impossible beauty and virtue. But I can keep it real; sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a white woman. In my world, black women are called everything but a child of God, and for once it would be nice to be the anointed one.

Please join Our Newsletter

About Kathy Henry

A Letter From a South Side Apartment

Kathy Henry — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:33:58 +0000

A couple of years ago, I read Dr. Martin Luther Kingâ€™s A Letter from a Birmingham Jail and I was mesmerized by the passion and anger in his words and although we are in the second decade of the 21^st century, his words still resonate. This letter I am writing is my tribute to him for giving his life for me and other disadvantaged and disrespected groups in America. It would sadden him to no end that nothing has really changed in American society in regards to race and economics. Perhaps one day, we will be truly free from the chains of racism and economic selfishness that enveloped America since its inception.

18Â March 2012

My Dear Mr. Gingrich & Other Republican Presidential Candidates who believe that the Poor Blacks are the Scum of the Universe:

While confined in my lower class existence, I cannot help but think about the words you put into the universe about Black people who receive unemployment compensation, food stamps and other government benefits, people whose lives have been touched by the mean specter of poverty. Until recently, I was stressed out about receiving $318 per month in public assistance, so I normally would not have time to ponder on your condescending self-serving words since I was too busy trying to find a job in a dying economy but your words offended me so greatly I had to speak to you about this. Although I am now employed with a job title that is much fancier than it pays, I still cannot afford to move to a decent area because rent prices in Chicago for a three bedroom apartment would take most of my monthly salary, but a man as wealthy as yourself would not understand my dilemma. The current public discourse on the lives of poor Blacks in this country has been taken over by White, well-dressed, well-fed career politicians like yourself and I thought you needed some enlightenment.

First of all, no one wants to be poor. I know that you believe that little Black children spend their time discussing ways to be indigent and homeless by the time they are eighteen but the children I know have big plans for their future. My ten-year-old daughterâ€™s plans for the future change daily: One day she wants to be a fashion designer, the next a mad scientist who is going to take over the world. The one thing she has made clear is that she does not see motherhood in her future because in her words, â€œBeing a mother takes too much work.â€

I know that you like to believe that the children of poor Blacks are a drain on society but you are so wrong. I was a teenage mother at the age of sixteen and had two children by the age of twenty-one.Â If one was to believe statistics on single mothers, I should have been a grandmother at thirty-two and putting money on my son’s prison commissary. Â Not!Â My daughter graduated from college last year with a Bachelorâ€™s Degree in Business Administration and will be going back to school in April to purse a MBA and my son is college studying History. My children watched me work for various corporations who paid me very little money and proudly watched when I walked across the stage at the age of thirty-five to receive a Bachelorâ€™s Degree in Sociology with honors.

But I realize that you probably do not know too many Black people personally so when you chose to discuss them among your constituents, you like to use tired, worn-out stereotypes about them. According to you, Blacks have no work ethic and like taking baths in the piles of food stamps they receive. Blacks have been in this country since 1619 and still have not made any progress although White people have given them everything! What is wrong with these trifling Black people?

It is very easy for you and your kind to sprout these words, snugly enveloped in your cloak of White male privilege but what you do not realize is that although Blacks are no longer slaves, they were never made equal, financially or mentally.Â Throughout the years, American society had every opportunity to make amends to African-Americans by giving them same economic advantages as Whites, but it never happened because that would mean Blacks would be on the same economic playing field as Whites and that is a no-no.

It is funny how you like to blame the media for everything wrong in your world but the media in all actuality is your best friend. Â The media, owned by the ruling class, has played a major role in distorting views about social economics by pretending the ruling class does not exist and poor Blacks are the dregs of society. The media with its ‘magic’ can make the historical legacy of slavery and later Jim Crow laws vanish by pretending it is their fault that they are poor. By doing this, upper and middle-classed Americans learn to fear and loathe poor Blacks and refuse to understand the connection between systematic racism and high poverty levels among African-Americans.

The dominant culture has succeeded in making African-Americans subhuman to other groups, who passively accept these bigoted views. In your speeches and in the Republican debates, the message that you and others have given is to degenerate Black people at all costs and to keep poor working-class Whites in a constant tizzy about the so-called advantages given to them.

Mr. Gingrich, I feel sorry for you and wonder what you would do if Blacks did not exist in this country. Race and class was socially constructed for the advancement of Whites and the making up of a social class of poverty-stricken African-Americans who could be blamed for everything wrong in society. Take away the pretensions, the feelings of superiority that comes with having the “right” skin color and people like you in this society would be loss. No more scapegoats to blame and you would have to face up to the fact that you have no plans for making the economic system in America more equal. But it is easier to blame Blacks, who unlike your ancestors had no choice when they were brought to this country as chattel and broodmares to make the lives of the White ruling class easier.

Sincerely,

Kathy M. Henry

Please join Our Newsletter

About Kathy Henry

Ghetto Nation

Kathy Henry — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 09:06:46 +0000

Ghetto:Â A section of a city to which an entire ethnic or economically depressed group is is restricted; as by poverty or social pressure.

Life for Blacks who live in the inner-city has never been easy but in the years since crack cocaine hit, things have most definitely taken a turn for the worst. A new breed of Black woman and manhood has arisen and they behave rather badly. It has become absolutely normal to be ignorant and ghetto and sadly, this behavior is celebrated with glee.

Take a stroll in any inner-city neighborhood. On any given afternoon, you will see groups of able-bodied young men lounging carelessly on street corners, smoking marijuana boldly on street corners bragging about their bitches, whores and baby mammas. Although these young men show clear shiftless tendencies, throngs of ride or die chicks, sometimes with several children in tow, surround them — talking loudly while dressed in pajama bottoms and dingy white wife-beaters complete with the proverbial head scarf.

These words are not stereotypes but real truth. Too many times, Blacks complain about their dirty laundry being aired publicly instead of fixing the problem and it is time to discuss an issue that is plaguing us as a people: the acceptance of ignorance. Although racism is, has been, and will always be a part of American society, social behaviors once deemed deviant are embraced and accepted by some Blacks.

Urban terrorists have hijacked urban communities throughout America, but calling the police is considered â€œsnitchingâ€ and murderers walk around unafraid and unrepentant. Mothers hide the guns of their gang-banging sons and little children are left at home unattended with an empty refrigerator while their parents party in the streets. There are so many examples of this behavior that I could go and on but that would be redundant. However, one thing rings true, regardless if some folks do not want to face it: gutter, hood-related anti-social behavior is running amok in some Black communities.

Where did it all go so terribly wrong? The decline of the inner-city Black family can be traced to the crack cocaine era. Black families throughout America were decimated due to drug abuse and drug dealing and the children became collateral damages. An entire generation of Black children has grown up seeing their parents either use or sell drugs and it has destroyed their psyche.

For these young adults, the only thing worth living for is the mass consumption of expensive designer clothing, alcohol, drugs and sexual escapades with multiple partners. They have no goals or ambitions but to live for the day. An education is scorned as being nothing more than a worthless piece of paper and disputes are settled by gunfire, regardless of who is around.

The blame for this generation of inner-city hood-rats can be laid at the feet of Black Generation X, my generation. Blacks born between 1965 and 1976 were the first recipients of the gains that the Civil Rights Movement had battled for and we squandered it by getting caught up in the â€œGreed is Goodâ€ era of the Eighties. We ran the streets instead of taking care of our children, shoving the responsibility of child-rearing on our weary, overworked parents. We were more concerned about outer appearances, spending money on a bunch of stuff instead of saving money for better educational opportunities and now our children still lag behind every ethnic group when it comes to reading, writing, and arithmetic. Instead of being parents to our children, we became their friends, smoking blunts with them and allowing their boyfriends and girlfriends overnight privileges, creating the next generation of out-of-wedlock children.

We planted the seeds for mass destruction and now we have a garden full of weeds. It saddens me to write this but it is my opinion that little can be done to correct this hood-related behavior. These days, you cannot tell anyone anything bad about their children because it might cause a physical confrontation. The US government could put trillions of dollars into every inner-city in America but this ghetto mentality will still exist because being absolutely nothing is accepted. An entire generation of Black young adults have accepted their caste in society as the lowest of the low, trapped by the narrow confines of their minds and neighborhoods.

Please join Our Newsletter

About Kathy Henry

There Are No Daddies Here – The Consequences of Growing Up Fatherless

Kathy Henry — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 03:14:07 +0000

American fathers are more removed from family life today than in any other time in American history. There are two approximate reasons for this recent outbreak of fatherless families: recent research suggests that a sharp increase in the divorce rate and the fact that it is more socially acceptable for women to conceive children outside of marriage are the reasons why fathers are not in the lives of their children. Fathers leave for many reasons. These reasons can range from repeating the cycle of their own fatherless childhoods, to low self-esteem, and the want to start a new life with another woman who does not want his “baggage”. Whatever the reason may be, the effects of not having another father leave a scar on a child for the rest of his or her life.

Families without fathers in their household suffer in many ways. One of the universal effects on children when a father abandons his family is a decreased standard of living. Children with a missing father are five times more likely to be poor. Statistics show that the household incomes of divorced or separated families instantly decline by about twenty-one percent on average and will stay in a steady decline afterwards. The main breadwinner is now the mother who usually earns considerably less than the father did. The courts can award child support but it is usually not enough to support the same standard of living.

In the case of unmarried mothers, the financial picture is usually worse. Single mothers start out with only one income, usually low paid and if the father is not working or if he is working and decides to quit his job because he does not want to pay child support, the mother is stuck in a difficult situation. If the mother is receiving public assistance and turns the father in for child support, it is a good chance that the child will become an adult before he or she gets any type of financial support.
Fathers who live in a separate household tend to become economically selfish in caring for the children and distrustful of how the money they give is being spent. A decreased standard of living affects the child in many aspects. In some cases, families are forced to move to low income housing. The quality of education declines and the money for after school activities and childcare are almost nonexistent. Children in these cases suffer a kind of “culture shock” and most are two young to understand what is happening.

Children with a missing father are two times more likely to drop out of high school or get a higher education. A college education can be problematic for two reasons. The first is the inability of the mother to afford the costs of a college education. In addition, it also common for absent fathers to refuse to pay for a child’s higher education, even if they have paid regular child support . The second reason is relevant to daughters than to sons. In search of a lost sense of security, women tend to forgo college and enter the workforces. Earning money of their own gives them a feeling of independence from men. Young women who have watched their mothers beg for money in court for child support vow to never be put in that situation. They view neediness with disgust and see a paycheck as freedom from those chains. Unfortunately, most of these young women do not realize that in today’s society, a higher education is necessary to meet career success and monetary compensation.

When a child’s father abandons him or her at whatever age, he sends the message loud and clear that the child is not worthy and if he makes little or no attempt to continue the relationship, these children will find the road to adulthood hard. Young boys tend to get involved in gang activity and young girls tend to become sexually active at a younger age. Many become teenage mothers and raise their children alone without fathers, continuing the cycle. They have a greater than average for male attention and tend to seek men who will ultimately disappoint them. When these women do find a mate, the often need to reciprocate the unmet needs of closeness and communication they did not get from their fathers. When these needs are not met, they either retreat or prove irrational behavior. The term for this repetition compulsion; the need to get out our unconscious conflicts, to keep replaying the unfinished business of our lives until we work it out or destroys us (Goulter & Minninger p. 185).

A child can lose their parent by abandonment or by death. Of the two, death is considered healthier for children. Death, unlike abandonment, is not seen a failure of love. A child knows their parent did not want to die, but will know that a parent who leaves out his or her life did not want to be bothered and will be affect by this act forever. Fatherlessness is social problem brought on by the breakdown of traditional family values. The victims are innocent children who did not ask to be born. David Blakenhorn (1995) studied the epidemic of fatherless families and concluded that it is one of America’s most urgent social problems. He states that it weakens the family unit, harms children, causes or aggravates some of society’s worst problems, and makes individual adult happiness harder to make.

As a little girl, I never had the pleasure of having a father in my life. I grew up without having the most special man in young girl’s life, the one who would love you unconditionally, even if you got pimples and fat. I had to struggle alone without a father and make my way through life with having this type of security. I never knew what it was to feel safe and secure in a father’s love. Tonight, almost forty percent of children in America will go to bed without their fathers in their lives, just as I did. I hope that their fathers will come back to them unlike mine.

Please join Our Newsletter