Whites-only swim clubs

Today is June Jordan’s birthday and I was going to write about her, but I think she would understand:

I wrote about whites-only proms not too long ago and now this: There is a whites-only swim club. In America. In 2009. In supposedly post-racial America. In the supposedly Enlightened North. Just outside of Philadelphia. Right now.

Our story:

About 65 black and Hispanic children go to a day camp in Philadelphia. They spend most of the week in the city in the basenment of a grade school. But one day a week they get to go swimming. Out in the suburbs. The camp paid $1950 so they could go to the Valley Swim Club in Hungtindon Valley, Pennsylvania just outside of city.

They went there for their first day of swimming on June 29th. When they got in the pool all the white children got out. One white mother was overhead saying:

Uh, what are all these black kids doing here? I’m scared they might do something to my child.

She was not the only one talking like that. But it got worse: the pool attendants came and  told the black and Hispanic children that minorities were not allowed in the club and that they need to leave immediately.

Well, maybe it was all just some big misunderstanding.  But no, the president of the club gave back the $1950 (you know, like the year this club still lives in). He said he was getting too many complaints from (white) parents. The complaints had nothing to do with racism, he said. He put it this way:

There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club,

By the way, they had signed up online.

Some good news, though: Girard College, a school in the city, offered their swimming pool, free of charge even, so they will get to swim.

It is like what I said about the whites-only proms:

Note to white people: Small-town and working class whites often come off seeming racist and backward in the press, but that is only because they do not have the money to move away from blacks. I mean, why have a whites-only prom if you live in a place that is less than 1% black, like nearly all suburban whites do?

Well, this club is in one of those places where white people do have the money to move away from blacks.

Somehow I get this feeling that white Americans feel free to be more openly racist now that there is black man as president. It is kind of like how white people think that if they have a black best friend then it is all right to go to a whites-0nly prom. Or say nakedly racist things. Like some commenters on this blog, not to name names. It seems like the same kind of strange, twisted moral thinking.

See also:

• Sign the Color of Change petition to the Department of Justice
• whites-only proms
• white flight
• Whites are still racist
• Will Smith: America is not a racist nation
• sundown towns

 

Uighurs

The Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs), or Uyghurs, live mainly in north-western China in the province of Xinjiang. It used to be their own country: East Turkestan. Not any more.

They are not at Han, what the Chinese call themselves. They are distant relations of the Turks of Turkey and close cousins of the Uzbeks. Their language is Uighur. Their religion, like most Turks, is Sunni Islam. Because of  Chinese rule their religion is weak.

There are 11 million Uighurs. Most live in Xinjiang but some live in neighbouring countries or in big Chinese cities in the east, like Beijing and Shanghai. The Chinese fear them as kind of wild and dangerous.

Over a thousand years ago they settled down in cities along the Silk Road. Their great city was Kashgar. Except for a period of Mongol rule in the 1200s, they were free and independent from the 700s to the 1700s. Their empire - and their golden age – was from 744 to 840.

China began taking over their country in the late 1700s. By 1949 it was complete. In the late 1900s they started sending Han Chinese there to live so that now Urumqi, the capital, is only 10% Uighur and Xinjiang as a whole is less than 50%. It has become a Chinese colony, even if it is called an “autonomous region”.

Some fight to free their homeland. Violence broke out in 1954, 1997 and 2008. The Chinese call them terrorists. Most Uighurs now see freedom as a pipe dream. The street violence in 2009 was more about respect and equal rights than about freedom.

Uighurs are not allowed to study their language, Uighur, after middle school. They cannot study or practise their religion, Islam, till age 18. The Chinese treat them like dirt. They destroy their ancient buildings, particularly in Kashgar.

Here is what one Uighur says:

Ever since I was born until now there has been this problem between Uighur and Han. Han people don’t treat us or our culture with any respect, and the key thing is that there are more and more Han coming to live in Xinjiang. And that means us Uighur people are losing our culture and we have less freedoms.

He says it is so bad Chinese taxi drivers will not pick him up on the streets of Urumqi.

Meanwhile Chinese workers at one factory say things like this:

Everyone always said watch out for Uighurs, they’ll rob you. And they did look aggressive.

They were always trouble. They can’t speak Chinese. And they steal.

The Han Chinese are “normal”. Their tax dollars are spent on Xinjiang and the Uighur are still not thankful!

At that factory, by the way, two Uighurs were killed when violence broke out on news of six Uighur men raping two Chinese women. A video of the factory violence was put on YouTube. Uighur protesters took to the streets in Urumqi. It turned violent, at least 156 killed. It was the worst violence in China in 20 years.

See also:

• East Turkestan
• A Guide to Turks
• China
• Islam

 

Stevie Wonder at Michael Jackson’s Memorial

 

Jackson 5: I Want You Back

Remarks:

Thank God for “Soul Train”! Not only did they have all these great acts perform, they are still embeddable from YouTube.

The first number one hit of the Jackson 5 and still good 40 years later!

You might know the beginning of this song from another artist who sampled it. His name escapes me right now.

Lyrics:

When I had you to myself
I didnt want you around
Those pretty faces always made you
Stand out in a crowd
Then someone picked you from the bunch
One glance was all it took
Now its much too late for me
To take second look

(chorus)
Oh baby give me one more chance
To show you that I love you
Wont you please send me back in your heart

Oh darlin I was blind to let you go
But now since I see you in his arms
I want you back
Yes I do now
I want you back
Oo oo baby
Yeah yeah….naw….

Trying to live without your love
Is one long sleepless night
Let me show you girl
That I know wrong from right

Every street you walk on
I leave tear stains on the ground
Following the girl
I didnt even want around
(chorus)

Abuh buh buh buh
All I want!
Abuh buh buh buh
All I need!
Abuh buh buh buh…..

 

burka

The burka – or burqa as some write it – is the head-to-toe covering that some Muslim women wear over their clothes when they go out in public. Sometimes all you can see is their eyes, but sometimes even their eyes are covered (with a netting that they can see through).

Burkas are mostly seen in Afghanistan and South Asia – Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. In India only one Muslim woman in 20 might wear it; in Afghanistan under the Taliban all women were forced to wear it. In Pakistan it used to be quite common, but it has been dying out, especially in the big cities.

Even though some will argue it is not in the Koran, in most of the Muslim word hijab, or modest dress, is understood to be a religious duty or virtue for women (and, to a lesser degree, for men).

The form that hijab takes is different from place to place. The burka is the most extreme form.

In Iran women wear a chador, which covers everything but their face, hands and feet. In some Arab countries women wear the abaya which does the same thing. In other places, like Turkey, women wear just a headscarf. And some Muslim women dress in a completely Western fashion, though with more of their body covered than Western women.

Burkas, abayas and chadors are just for going out in public. They are something women wear over their clothes. When they are at home they take them off and you find out that they are not dressed quite so plainly. When Neda died during the election protests in Iran in 2009, for example, we found out that under her chador she was wearing  jeans!

Governments sometimes force women to follow hijab, like the Taliban or Iran under Islamic rule. Yet others  have forced women to do the opposite, like Iran under ths shah.

In France it has been against the law to wear a burka to public school since 2004. And now they want to go even further and outlaw it altogether. In 2009 President Sarkozy said:

The issue of the burka is not a religious issue, it is a question of freedom and of women’s dignity. The burka is not a religious sign, it is a sign of the subjugation, of the submission of women. I want to say solemnly that it will not be welcome on our territory… I tell you, we must not be ashamed of our values, we must not be afraid of defending them.

This only makes sense to me as a piece of xenophobia: Muslims make him feel uncomfortable.

For many Muslim women it is in fact a matter of religion. And keeping themselves covered up from the eyes of men is a matter of dignity. Even in the West, modest dress was seen as part of a woman’s dignity until the 1900s.

Your religion – or even a lack of religion – is part of who you are. To be told you cannot express it when you are hurting no one goes against one’s freedom and dignity.

See also:

• Neda Agha-Soltan
• Taliban
• Islam
• Koran
• Wahhabis

 

Meagan Good

Meagan Good (1981- ) is an American actress and beauty. She was named for an NAACP Image Award for playing Cisely Baptiste in “Eve’s Bayou” (1997). But despite her beauty and talent, she mostly winds up playing supporting characters. She has yet to play the lead in a film that makes it big.

She is one of four children of a Los Angeles police officer, growing up in Canyon Country north of the city. She is part black, Cherokee Indian, Puerto Rican and Jewish. Her father’s father came from Barbados.

She started acting at age four in television ads. In her very first ad she had to skate but did not know how! She was in ads for Barbie, AT&T, Pringles, Burger King, etc. But it was not till much later, when she saw Danielle Harris in “Halloween 4″ (1988) and “Halloween 5″ (1989), that she knew she wanted to be an actress.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s she guest starred in over a dozen television shows, like “Moesha”, “The Steve Harvey Show” and “Touched by an Angel”.

She started getting into films too. When she was hired for “Eve’s Bayou” she was just 16 and pretty much unknown. But after that she started getting steadier television work: she was Nina on “Cousin Skeeter” (1998-2000) on Nickelodeon and Katie on “Raising Dad” (2001-2002) on the WB. She was Vanessa, Junior’s girlfriend,  for five episodes of “My Wife and Kids” in 2003 but then was suddenly replaced by Brooklyn Sudano for reasons unclear. After that she gave most of her attention to film acting.

She has been in some well-known films, but almost always as a supporting character. None of the films she has starred in has been a big hit, though some have done well, like “Stomp the Yard” (2007). She has yet to take off as an actress.

Her dream come true would be to play Aaliyah:

I really, really want to do Aaliyah’s life story; I was a huge fan of hers. I think she’s such a positive role model. She really kind of handled the industry with such class and such respect for herself. Even though there are things that you may have heard, here or there, the way that she handled it and the way that she was, was just so classy and so beautiful.

She has also been in music videos, like 5o Cent’s “21 Questions” (2003) and has made the cover of King magazine, entering the whole video vixen world through her acting, which is the opposite way of how most do it.

She is much better known for her looks than her acting. It is not too hard to find websites that have over a thousand pictures of her!

She has black hair, high cheekbones, thick lips, beautiful eyes and a thin but nice figure. She is 5 foot 4 (1.63 m) tall. Her measurements are 36-24-34 (91-61-86 cm) and has a waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) of 0.71.

According to at least Internet rumour she has dated Jamie Foxx (he denies it), Joseph Gordon, Nick Cannon, Ty Hodges, Thomas Jones and Soulja Boy.

 

Gabon

Gabon (1960- ) is a Colorado-sized country on the west coast of Africa right on the equator, not far north of the Congo River. Compared to most of black Africa it is stable and well-to-do. The reason: oil and French power.

In the cities the people are about as well-off as those in Iran, though most who live in the countryside are poor. Those at the top may be on the take (the president was worth at least $130 million), but it seems that enough of it spreads down to ordinary people.

It is also very stable: it had the same president, Omar Bongo, for 42 years. Only a handful of countries anywhere in the world can beat that.

Gabon was a colony of the French Empire from the middle 1880s to 1960. In 1960 it became independent, on paper at least. In practice it is a banana republic, a vassal state of the French. The French will overthrow the government when necessary and put in power who they please. In 1967 it was Bongo.

The French have a military base there with about 1,000 soldiers. A big French oil company is there too, Total, which pumps out the oil and sells it to China. A billion tonnes of Gabon’s iron ore is also being sent to China. So is the hardwood from its ancient forests. Think the Lorax.

Bongo put Gabon’s relationship with France this way:

Gabon without France is like a car with no driver.
France without Gabon is a like a car with no fuel.

Bongo had 1,500 soldiers in his personal guard. But he mainly sweetened his enemies with money rather than frighten them with guns.

Bongo died in June 2009. For days a long line led to his $800-million marble palace where people walked up a red carpet strewn with white rose petals to kneel before his coffin to pay their last respects. A dozen African leaders came to his funeral. So did the French president. He was booed.

Until the early 1990s, when France started to push for democracy in Africa, only one party could stand for office: Bongo’s. Even after he allowed other parties, his always managed to win the elections somehow. In 2005 Bongo won 80% of the vote. Hard to believe, but outside observers said the election was free and fair. It has a free press too, though the state-run press, backed by oil money, speaks with the loudest voice.

Most people live near the coast where the land is flat and open. To the east are mountains and huge forests. A third of the country lives in the capital, Libreville, right on the sea.

There are 10,000 French people living in Gabon but most of the country’s 1.5 million people are Bantus. They speak dozens of different languages but 80% know French. In fact, Libreville is one of the places in Africa where French has taken root as a native language: at least 200,000 speak French as their first language.

See also:

• banana republic
• French language

 

Ricci v DeStefano

In Ricci v DeStefano (2009) the American  Supreme Court ruled in a 5 to 4 decision that white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut were denied promotion based on their race. It has become a well-known case of reverse racism.

Ricci was the lead firefighter in the case; DeStefano was the mayor of New Haven.

This overturns Judge Sotomayor’s decision in a lower court. The case made the press in part because the right was using it to frame Sotomayor as a racist.

The white justices were evenly split, 4 to 4. Clarence Thomas, the only black judge on the court and once the head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under President Reagan, sided with the white firefighters. But he did not write a decision as he often does in civil rights cases.

The decision could make it harder to prove racism in hiring since it will have to be based more on motive (hard to prove) and less on outcome (much easier to show).

In 2003 New Haven gave a test for open positions for lieutenant and captain in its fire department. No blacks scored high enough, even though, as some point out,  they had on past tests. New Haven threw out the test fearing blacks would take it to court for using a racist test. They could have under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and likely would have since this test favoured whites more than even past tests did.

But it was a no-win: when they threw out the test, the white firefighters who had scored high took it to court instead – for reverse racism.

Frank Ricci spent 8 to 13 hours a day studying for the test and spent over $1000 to buy the books and get them read onto tape since he has trouble reading.

But before you cry for him, first guess how many of the 21 captains in the New Haven fire department are black. Answer: 1. Just one. In a city that is 37% black.

Justice Kennedy, who wrote the decision, joined by Roberts, Alito and Thomas, said that New Haven had no “strong basis in evidence” to fear a lawsuit and, even so:

Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions.

Justice Ginsburg, writing the dissent, said of the white firefighters:

they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them.

Ginsburg thought New Haven was right to fear a lawsuit. She found it laughable that the city, given its history, was racist against whites.

That the right picked on this case to beat Sotomayor with the charge of racism is a bit unfair. First, in most cases regarding racism in employment she rules against blacks and Hispanics. No word about those. Second, in Ricci she was merely part of a panel which let a lower court decision stand. She did not write an opinion as to why.

See also:

• Sonia Sotomayor
  • Is Sotomayor a racist?
• white privilege
• political left and right

 

Michael Jackson: Got to be There

Remarks:

I would embed “Billie Jean” or “Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough” but those are not embeddable. But this one is. It is a great song in its own right. Michael Jackson is 13 or 14 here. It makes you understand how amazingly talented he was. Although he is backed up by his brothers here, it was his first single ever.

The second song they do in the video is “Brand New Thing”. I am unfamiliar with it.

Lyrics:

Got to be there, got to be there
Be there in the morning
When she says hello to the world
Got to be there, got to be there
Be there, bring her good times
And show her that she’s my girl
Oh, what a feeling there’ll be
The moment I know she loves me
’cause when I look in her eyes I realize
I need her sharing the world beside me

So I’ve got to be there
Got to be there
Be there where love begins
And that’s everywhere she goes
I’ve got to be there so she knows
That when she’s with me, she’s home

Yeah, she’s home

Got to be there to be there
Got to be there oh yeah

 

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson (1958-2009), the King of Pop, the Gloved One, was an American singer of pop, R&B and rock music. He sold 750 million records worldwide – only Elvis Presley and the Beatles can even hope to match that – and had the number one album of all time, “Thriller” (1982), which sold 65 million. Janet Jackson is his sister.

He was American, he was black, he was universal. Even Imelda Marcos, she of the many shoes, cried at his death.

He was famous also for his dancing, making moves that no one thought possible, like the moonwalk.

His number one songs on the American R&B chart:

• 1969: I Want You Back (Jackson 5)
• 1969: Who’s Lovin’ You (Jackson 5)
• 1970: ABC (Jackson 5)
• 1970: The Love You Save (Jackson 5)
• 1970: I’ll Be There (Jackson 5)
• 1971: Never Can Say Goodbye (Jackson 5)
• 1974: Dancing Machine (Jackson 5)
• 1979: Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough
• 1979: Rock With You
• 1982: The Girl is Mine (with Paul McCartney)
• 1983: Billie Jean
• 1983: Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’
• 1983: Somebody’s Watching Me (with Maxwell)
• 1985: We Are the World (as part of USA for Africa)
• 1987: I Just Can’t Stop Loving You (with Siedah Garrett)
• 1987: Bad
• 1988: The Way You Make Me Feel
• 1988: Man in the Mirror
• 1988: Another Part of Me
• 1992: Remember the Time
• 1992: In the Closet
• 1995: You Are Not Alone

This does not even list the songs that “merely” made it to the top ten, like “Thriller”, “Ben”, “Got to be There” and “Black or White”.

On top of all that he made music videos into an art form in their own right, thus making MTV’s name. The strange thing is, MTV did not want to play him at first because he was black!

He was on stage by age six, on television coast to coast by age 11. Everyone loved his music, even white people, even then.

But growing up so famous meant he never had a proper childhood. That is why Elizabeth Taylor was one of the few who understood him. Even worse, his father was cruel. In some sense he was never a boy and yet always a boy.

He bought a place north of Los Angeles and called it Neverland Ranch, after the Neverland of Peter Pan. He put in a zoo, a roller coaster and a Ferris wheel. He invited children over, many of them dying of cancer.

Some of the children stayed over night and, sadly, some parents took advantage of that to spread ugly stories about him to take him to court for his millions, in 1994 and 2005.

Nothing was ever proved, but he had become so strange by the early 1990s – he had a pet llama and doctors were slowly turning him white – that many believed it.

He married, twice, first to Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis, and then Debbie Rowe. He had two children by Rowe, Prince Michael (1997) and Paris Katherine (1998). They divorced and he had a third child by an unknown woman, Prince Michael II (2002), better known as Blanket.

Hoping to make a comeback, Jackson sold out 50 shows in London for 2009, but then died suddenly just weeks before the first show.

See also:

• In memoriam: Michael Jackson
• Elizabeth Taylor
• Quincy Jones – the producer for “Thriller”
• colourism
• beyond black

 

In memoriam: Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson (1958-2009), the King of Pop, is dead. May he know the peace he never had in this life.

 

The Obamas and Black Martha’s Vineyard

The following is based mostly on an excellent article in New York magazine by Toure: “Black and White on Martha’s Vineyard”.

Martha’s Vineyard is an island where the Kennedys and Clintons go for their summer holiday. This summer it seems likely the Obamas will be there too.

But as liberal as Martha’s Vineyard is, it is still divided by race. But not for the reasons you might think. As one black person put it: “On the racial stress test, I’d put the Vineyard at Canadian.”

The blacks there largely keep to themselves, not because they hate whites or because the whites will not accept them, but because they spend the rest of the year being Only Ones, as in the only one who is black. They are, Toure says:

black professional and social elites who travel in worlds where they’re often the only black person in the room. The Only Ones typically break into fields or companies that admit few blacks, move into neighborhoods where few blacks live, and send their kids to mostly white schools. They are not running from their own – they’re chasing after the best they can get. They aren’t assimilationist; they’re ascensionist.

In the rest of America they are too black for the whites and not “black enough” for the blacks. Martha’s Vineyard is the one place where they, and especially their children, can be themselves and feel good about being black. Life as it should be.

The centre of Only-One life in Martha’s Vineyard is Oak Bluffs. Their bit of the shore is called the Inkwell. Paul Robeson and Martin Luther King, Jr were there. These days you can see the likes of Lani Guinier, Charlayne Hunter-Gault,  Carole Simpson, Spike Lee and Reggie Hudlin. But not all the blacks of the Vineyard go there. Vernon Jordan, for one.

The question is, where do the Obamas fit in? Last time they went, in 2007, they largely avoided the Only Ones. One Vineyarder noticed:

He doesn’t seem to identify with affluent black people. His wife definitely doesn’t; she is basically a ghetto girl. That’s what she says – I’m just being sociological. She grew up in the same place Jennifer Hudson did. She hasn’t reached out to the social community of Washington, and people are waiting to see what they’ll do about that.

The Obamas, for all their education, money and ascension, are not Only Ones. They both knew Only Ones at university and wanted to be nothing like them.

Barack, brought up by the white side of his family, and in Hawaii of all places, felt utterly rootless. He was black but had no where in Black America to call home. Part of what drew him to Michelle was her rootedness.

Michelle, for her part, studied what became of black Princetonians and found that most of them disappeared into the white world, cut off from blacks – the Only Ones. The very people who now show up at Martha’s Vineyard.

See also:

• Michelle Obama
• Barack Obama
  • 1979-1981: Obama at Occidental College
• biracial

 

The fall of the shah

The shah of Iran fell in 1979, overthrown by Ayatollah Khomeini, a 76-year-old religious scholar who did not fire a shot.

The shah thought of himself as a king, but he was in fact a dictator of a banana republic. America helped to bring him to power in the Second World War and kept him in power to protect the oil of the Persian Gulf from Russia and as a counterweight to the Arabs.

He was hated by the people, as a dictator, as someone who licked America’s boot. But the shah had a powerful army and a secret service to match, Savak. He crushed his enemies – all except for one: Ayatollah Khomeini,

Khomeini lived in exile, in the holy city of Najaf in Iraq. He had a network of supporters inside Iran. The shah kept an eye on them but never moved against them. Perhaps out of respect for religion. But after crushing everyone else, the religious leaders were the only ones left who could challenge the shah.

Khomeini’s supporters kept asking him to start an uprising to overthrow the shah. But he kept saying, “Not yet.”

Then in January 1978 Savak planted an article accusing Khomeini of being a British agent. Khomeini said: “Now.”

His supporters staged a protest. The army crushed it, killing dozens. Forty days later came the mourning, which became a protest. More violence. And so on.

It seemed strange to the shah that Khomeini would have that much support. He thought America must be behind it, so he blamed foreigners for the unrest.

The protests would not go away. He changed prime ministers, several times. Nothing helped. Khomeini would not give an inch: he did not want to work with the shah – he wanted him gone. He kept up the protests.

In September 1978 the shah tried to crush the protests once and for all by military force. Some say thousands were killed. It failed. Worse still, it gave the military a distaste for shooting on its own people.

He put the country under military rule. But then later he freed a thousand political prisoners on his birthday and arrested some of his past ministers. His enemies saw it as weakness, his friends as betrayal, his wife as confusion.

When people saw that the military would no longer shoot them down, the protests grew. In December 1978, on Ashura, one of the biggest holidays in Iran, millions filled the streets, dressed in black for as far as you could see. It soon became apparent that they were protesting against the shah and for Khomeini.

On January 16th 1979 the shah left the country. He knew he was not coming back: he took his father’s ashes with him. The prime minister now ran the country.

On February 1st Khomeini returned to Iran after 15 years of exile. No one shot down his plane, not even Mossad, the Israeli secret service, despite being asked. Six million came out to greet Khomeini.

By February 11th the military swung behind him. It was over.

See also:

• The 2009 election in Iran
• Iran
• American Empire
• banana republic

 

Neda Agha-Soltan

Neda Agha-Soltan (1982-2009), also called Neda Soltani, Iranian martyr, died on the streets of Tehran on Saturday June 20th 2009 during the violent crackdown by the government on protests against the 2009 election for president. It was put on the Internet and people all over the world saw her die.

Despite the media blackout, everyone in Iran knows about her. The government knows that they know.

She was about a kilometre away from the protests – people were running up the street fleeing the tear gas. She was in a car with her music teacher on the way to Freedom Square to take part. They got stuck in traffic. She was getting hot, so she got out of the car to get some air. Then there was the sound of a crack in the distance: she was shot square in the chest. People helped to lay her down. She said, “I’m burning, I’m burning”. In the video you see her eyes go dead and then blood comes out of her mouth and her nose to cover her face and people cry out in despair.

It is extremely upsetting to watch. Partly because of her age and sex: men are supposed to protect women, not kill them.

The killer was not shown – the video seems to start a second after she was shot. Witnesses say she was killed by a Basiji gunman on a roof across the street. The Basiji are paramilitary roughnecks that the government uses to do its dirty work.  They are the ones that drove motorbikes during the crackdown looking for all the world like human hyenas or something out of Mad Max.

She died at 7:05 pm Tehran time (14:05 GMT) at the corner of Khosravi and Salehi streets. It was recorded by mobile phone and a few hours later was up on YouTube on the Internet. A doctor at the scene said she died within two minutes of getting shot, that there was no saving her.

She was denied a public funeral. The government would not even allow her family to mourn her properly. She was buried Sunday afternoon.

State television said nothing about her death until several days later: they said it was staged by the BBC – or maybe the CIA.

She was the second of three children, the daughter of a civil servant. She studied Islamic philsophy at Azad University. She loved travel and was learning Turkish to become a tour guide.

Time magazine points out that in Shia Islam, the main religion in Iran, people mourn their dead on the 3rd, 7th and 40th days. The 40th day is the big one. The Islamic revolution 30 yesrs ago, in fact, progressed on a 40-day timetable: protests would lead to deaths, deaths to public mourning 40 days later, which would also became a new protest, which would lead to mor death and so on.

Martyrdom is big in Shia Islam. From their history Shiites are very familiar with the idea of evil rulers dressing themselves up in religion and creating martyrs.

See also:

• The 2009 election in Iran
• Iran
• Shia Islam

 

Bell Biv DeVoe: Poison

Remarks:

This is one of those songs that I hated at the time (1990) because they played it too much, but now I like it. Al B. Sure is the same way – but not Jodeci!

Lyrics:

Yeah, Spiderman and Freeze in full effect
(Uh-huh)
(You ready, Ron)
I’m ready
(You ready, Biv)
{I’m ready, Slick, are you}
Oh, yeah, break it down

Girl, I must warn you
I sense something strange in my mind
Situation is serious
Let’s cure it ’cause we’re running out of time

It’s oh, so beautiful
Relationships they seem from the start
It’s all so deadly
When love is not together from the heart

It’s drivin’ me out of my mind
That’s why it’s hard for me to find
Can’t get it out of my head
Miss her, kiss her, love her (Wrong move you’re dead)

That girl is poison
Never trust a big butt and smile
That girl is poison

If I were you I’d take precaution
Before I start to meet fly girl, you know
‘Cause in some portions
You’ll think she’s the best thing in the world

She’s so fly
She’ll drive you right out of your mind
Steal your heart when you’re blind
Beware she’s schemin’, she’ll make you think you’re dreamin’
You’ll fall in love and you’ll be screamin’ demon, hoo

Poison, deadly, movin’ it slow
Lookin’ for a mellow fellow like DeVoe
Gettin’ paid, laid, so better lay low
Schemin’ on house, money, and the whole show
The low pro h** she’ll be cut like an afro
See what you’re sayin’, huh, she’s weighin’ you
But I know she’s a loser
(How do you know) Me and the crew used to do her

Poison-poison-poison-poison
Poison-poison-poison-poison (Poison)
Poison-poison-poison-poison
Poison-poison-poison-poison
Poison

I was at the bar, shake, breakin’ and takin’ ‘em all
And that night I played the wall
Checkin’ out the fellas, the highs and lows
Keepin’ one eye open, still clockin’ the h**s
There was one particular girl that stood out from the rest
Poison as can be, the high power chest
Michael Biv said that I’m runnin’ the show
Bell Biv DeVoe
Now you know
Yo’, Slick, blow

It’s drivin’ me out of my mind
That’s why it’s hard for me to find
Can’t get it out of my head
Miss her, kiss her, love her (Wrong move you’re dead)

That girl is poison
Never trust a big butt and smile
Poison
She’s dangerous
Poison (Oh yeah, oh, yeah)
Poison

Yo’ fellas, that was my end of
You know what I’m sayin’, Mike
Yeah, B.B.D. in full effect
Yo’, what’s up to Ralph T and Johnny G
And I can’t forget about my boy, B. Brown
And the whole NE crew