Another Duke University Scandal Involving Race and Sexual Assault

According to CBS news, Frank Mccorkle Lombard, Duke University’s Associate Director of the Center for Health Policy, was arrested Wednesday, June 24 for attempting to set up the rape of his adopted 5 year old African-American son with an under cover police officer over the internet.

The detective’s affidavit charges Lombard said in an online chat that he had sexually molested the boy. The court papers say Lombard also invited the undercover detective to North Carolina to have sex with the young boy and even suggested which hotel he should use.

A witness, who tipped off police, said that he had seen Lombard sexually assault the boy online on more than one occassion.

ICUii also shared with the FBI a complaint filed in January 2007 against Frank Lombard from another user. That user alleged Lombard said he “was into incest” and had adopted two African-American children, the affidavit says.

According to the article, Lombard also told other potential pedophiles that adoption of minors was an easy way to get access to children to assault “especially for a black boy”, clearly indicating his alleged racialized sexual perversion. His comments further point to how racism renders children of color vulnerable to assault in ways that may not be the same for white children, while obviously all children are vulnerable to child predators regardless of race.

Duke is said to be cooperating with officials in this case.

I don’t have the ability rt now w/all that is going on with our family’s health care to analyze the connections between systems of oppression at the structural level that make children and people of color (overlapping and distinct) vulnerable and how this is then played out in this man’s alleged actions. Nor to make the connections between this domestic case and the trafficking of children of color around the world. Nor to highlight how these issues have been played out on college campuses before with other cases of faculty “rescuing” children of color from home countries only to physically or sexually abuse them and/or use them as slave or sexual labor. I will simply say all of these connections are present and warn against turning this case into another example of exceptionalism rather than a growing pattern.

htp Bottom of Heaven

Homophobia in the Government? Really . . .

(Mike Keeper Denver Post 6/18/09)

There has been a lot of talk about how Obama has completely failed to make good on many of his campaign promises to the queer community, and in some cases, DADT and DOMA, people in his cabinet have actually defended policies he said he would address. The result is that a lot of queer folks are actively boycotting Presidential events and thinking about what kind of candidate they want in 2012. According to the Washington Blade he currently has a 75% disapproval rating with GLBTQ people polled (see poll results in bottom right). For his part, Obama (or rather a techie in his cabinet) sent out a lovely email and tweet alerting all us queer bloggers and the like that they were throwing a pride party. Well let me just get my hat . . .

Now information is being leaked that Pride posters have been consistently torn down or defaced in Department of Labor Building elevators. Where do they think they are pov u during pre-reg? read more here

for much sunnier thoughts look at this company who makes personalized cake toppers for those of you who believe in marriage. They are so cute and guaranteed to take the Obama administration frown off your face. check here. (They do it for straight folks and poc’s regardless of sexuality as well)

Internet Telephone

If you are as old as I am, you remember a game originally played with cans tied together by string and then simply cupped hands called “Telephone.” The point of the games was simple: see how completely off base a story or quote becomes after it has been passed from one person to 10. Now, multiply that by 100s, 1000s, potentially even 100,000s. See the problem with speaking before you do your research?

One

There have been a lot of rumors surrounding Michael Jackson’s death of late, these include:

• MJ was a closeted gay man whose eccentricities all stem from internalized homophobia and the “so much more homophobic [than white folks who make the laws and carry the bats] black community”
• MJ’s original csa accuser made it all up and is now recanting
• MJ is faking it for a comeback tour extravaganza (& no this isn’t just from Perez Hilton)
• MJ’s mother and father have already begun a cut throat fight amongst themselves to control his legacy b/c they’re broke

The list goes on, getting more ridiculous over time, repetition, and number of readers. And like telephone, some of these stories have a kernel of truth in them but do not reflect anything resembling the actual truth.

So it is no wonder that Miss Jackson, Janet, looked positively angry when she spoke at the BET awards a few nights ago. It was not just that Black Exploitainment network had turned her brother’s death into a farse of a wake, or that her allegedly abusive father showed up on the red carpet to hawk his new project, though these all contributed. It was also, as she says in her own words, the way in which so many have begun to pick over his bones before the family has even had time to comprehend his loss and grieve.

So the next time you want to make up a story, or take the truth and bend it, think about this video clip. And the next time you want to play amatuer reporter without doing an ounce of fact checking, remember telephone and Miss Janet:

Two

There have been other truly harmful and oppression ladden games of internet telephone going on lately. While some have been very brave in issuing apologies and giving correct information, others continue to disregard any truth but their own.

A good way to tell if you are playing internet telephone is:

• check for documentation – is the information provided cited by a credible source (not another blog/s but news reports, data sets, personal phone calls or emails obtained by the person speaking, etc.)
• is the discussion centered on the actual incident – if you are talking about an entire neighborhood but the original source material only sites the front steps of a single house, you have moved away from documented facts and are likely playing telephone
• is the discussion centered on the injured party – if someone else is being centered either as savior or ally or replacing the original story with their own, that is only tangentially related, if at all, you are playing telephone
• is the timeline you were told correct – if you are entering the conversation in the middle w/out having consulted the original discussion or you are starting from the place in the conversation your friends or other bloggers have pointed you to instead of from where the conversation actually started, you are playing telephone.
• are the people you are talking to credible – if someone has a pattern of starting fights, threatening others, making up things about other people, or otherwise demeaning and disparaging people and your info comes from them, you are likely playing internet telephone. (Note – you may be playing internet telephone even if you are talking to people with no such history or for whom such may include conflict specifically b/c they were accurately defending themselves or others.)

I resent people who make authoritative posts about what blogging is and what it is not, and especially those who then outline how they believe in punishing those who deviate, so I won’t do that. What I will say is that many issues raised in the blogosphere have real consequences for people in the real world. Failing to engage in ethical blogging, ie refusing to play internet telephone, do your own research, or worse siding with people with consistent patterns of making things up and/or exaggerating things about other people in order to shut them down, can do unfixable damage to some of the most marginalized communities. We all screw up some times and taking responsibility for that is a brave and important step. Committing to doing your research and not posting or repeating information based on a friend of a friend’s say so, is another. (And I think it is time to stop saying sorry to people when you have done nothing wrong or when you were egged into doing something questionable by someone else. Take a minute to examine what you have said and/or done and bounce it off people from that group willing to help you navigate the conflict and be honest about whether you did something wrong or not, not just agree that you are a good person. Do not apologize for things you did not do but make sure you apologize for those you did. If we don’t start saying to people who automatically dismiss anyone who disagrees with them, calls them on their stuff, or otherwise refuses to engage them on the basis of their interactions vs. their identity, then none of us will get our needs met, none of us will be able to form lasting bonds across identities, and none of us will ultimately learn from our or others’ mistakes.)

Martial Law Declared in Honduras

Several Hondurans gathered this a.m. to protest the apparent forcible ousting of their duly elected President in favor of a military backed candidate prior to the elections. The issue has received minimal attention in the U.S. in general and especially in light of the concern poured out for what many believe is the suspension of the franchise in Iran. Unlike Mousavi, who the U.S. believes will be more open to U.S. political and economic interests than Ahmadinejad, Honduran President Zelaya is against U.S. neo-imperialism in the form of FTAs and resource exploitation.

While, once again, men seem to make up the majority of the protest crowd, a woman can be heard speaking to rally the crowd in the background during part of the raw footage below. Other women are also in the crowd. What about spontaneous public outcry leads more men than women to flood the streets (if in fact this is true)? And what motivates those women who do as a result? Or is this just more of the gaze of the video recorder/witness who gravitates toward male participants?

President Obama did issue a statement of concern about the situation but neither the N. American twitter machine nor official political and media channels have shown much concern beyond that. And while I do believe the vast majority of us who blogged/tweeted/etc. in solidarity with Iran were motivated by the franchise, our lack of collective concern for the franchise of other countries (recently Zimbabwe and now Honduras) makes it that much easier for dictators and despots to claim our interests in the rights of the people are solely about our own economic and political agendas.

Quickie: Transgender Health Info and CFP

I received an award on Friday for the work that I’ve done on trans rights in prisons, started as an offshoot of work I was doing at the time on expanding DSV services to the queer community, and as part of that event I asked some of the transgender and allies community present for some links to health information b/c of both the ignorance about trans women’s health needs that I think needs to be addressed and the lack of advertising about this information to people who may need it. I had hoped to get a hold of my friends in Philly, I mentioned in a previous post, who just hosted the Transgender Health Care Conference before posting, but as I said in my previous post, I’m just not able to do a lot with all the care needs in my own household right now.

Along with the list of info, one of my colleagues told me that there are several archives of transgender people’s stories and experiences with regards to their health care needs online and that there are standing CFPs for people’s stories:

• Transgender Care archive and CFP here
• Trans Pulse CFP here and pubs here
• Forge has a more academic study on aging health as well here

• Transgender Clinic (San Fran; low income and multi-culti, helps with med refills even when prescription runs out)
• Callen Lorde Community Health center (NY)
• Bronx Community Health Clinic
• Sidney Hillman Family Practice (provides low cost hormones NYC)
• The LA Gender Center (California)
• Dr. Carl Bushong (online services and referrals to local health providers)
• Vancouver Coastal Health Transgender Health Program (Canada)

Rural Support Networks

• Transnet (Michigan)

Absences

Every morning I sit down to write about current affairs, from MJ’s passing to the anniversary of Stonewall (which was yesterday for those not in the know), to issues of cross-community communication and trans health issues, to the meaning of the blogosphere now that it has gone commercial and everyone wants to be a blogging superstar. I want to talk about the women whose images are once again being manipulated for imperialism and the women whose abuse is going unmarked b/c our nationalist interests do not line up w/ their causes. And yet, as I sit here, each morning, I find my voice comes and goes as my mind wanders back to my real life concerns: making sure our family is healthy, deciding whether to take the early retirement pov u is warning is the last bargaining chip before they start cutting jobs and programs completely, mentoring the youth at the day center, and trying to get through the endless streams of paper I promised to read, promised to write, promised to review . . .

And while I wish someone, anyone, would show the same amount of outrage over the way Ryan O’Neill attached himself to Farrah Fawcett in her final months on the planet after alleged domestic violence abuse cited in their initial break up that they are showing Chris Brown (who deserves it) or MJ (who might), I realize someone else is going to have to carry that torch for now.

Blogging takes more brain power than a handful of tweets on twitter and it takes more energy than I have to give you while members of my family (both animal and human) are losing battles with life-threatening diseases.

so here’s some links to the topics of the day:

• Please sign the pledge to stop censorship sponsored by the PEN American Center here
• Thought-provoking piece on Michael Jackson’s passing here
• unconfirmed posts say that MJ’s accuser has now recanted csa charges blaming father instead (I’m not linking until or if there is ever confirmation), confirmed reports show a history of abuse and enmeshment btwn the boy and his dad here (the acquittal is also being brought up again in the other case. ultimately we will never know the truth, if he was innocent it is a tragedy exacerbated by isms that helped vilify him, if he was guilty there is a special place in hell waiting & he lived a lesser version of it in his last years exacerbated by the isms that clouded the real issue: children)
• The woman who most Stonewall witnesses say was instrumental in the historic event (which is often represented as white, male, and gay as opposed to multi-culti and multi-gendered) has now been identified here
• Stonewall documents are now available on online archive here
• Trans women’s health links here (http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/update-on-trans-women-friendly-health-care-in-nol/ sorry no direct link on this one, I’m boycotting wordpress’ automatic trackback system)
• the book giveaway ends this week and next week we will be giving away two videos Stranger Inside to coincide with the start of the black lesbian lit reading group and Were the World Mine

Faces of Globalization IV

Instead of images today, I thought I would post a video from India based on a poem written by an indigenous activist fighting mining near his village:

“God of Development, oh pray tell us, how to save our lives” oh wait, you have no answer b/c you are the most false god of them all.

Thanks Meghan

Believe it or not, I came across the video of the one time the assembled discussants on Bill Maher finally got tired of Meghan McCain’s seeming intellectual ineptitude from MEGHAN MCCAIN:

She seems like a nice enough person, but I do hope her book (yes, her book, due out next year) is at least semi-intelligent on political issues. As a progressive, I suppose I should be rooting for more inane drivel from “blondie,” but I hate to see any young woman fail and fail by sounding stupid no less.

Urgent: Have You Seen this Child?

Toddler, Jada Justice, has been missing for 7 days. She was left in a car outside of a Gary Indiana convenience store by her mother’s cousin while the cousin went inside for a quick errand. When she came back out, Jada was gone.

If you have any information call: 1-800-CALL-FBI.

For more info and links to all of the people covering this story go to Afrobella by clicking here.

Is it a Slow News Day?

(Update: he was in Argentina, which means his staff had no idea where he was the whole time. I feel the presidential hopes sinking Mr. Sanford. And, more importantly, the NYT covered Dream Act Graduation)

While much of today’s news was taking up speculating on and then analyzing the President’s press conference today, there was still a considerable amount of time diverted to the whereabouts of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. No such attention was given to the Dream Act Graduation, meant to draw attention to the plight of immigrant youth in our country (the U.S.), to the disappointment of people actually invested in a better nation and not just silly gossip.

(official photo from Governor’s website)

It seems Gov Sanford “went missing” on the Thursday before Father’s Day and had not been heard from again until today, Tuesday. As I wrote earlier, Gov Sanford faced a lawsuit from a teenager over stimulus money aimed toward SC failing schools, a lawsuit that was bolstered by a letter that garnered another SC student an invitation to the White House. On Monday he lost a misguided lawsuit he hoped to have heard by the Federal Supreme Court to refuse stimulus money and then on Thursday’s final legislative session state government officials from all parties actively forced Gov Sanford to take stimulus money, he had practically built a pre-presidential campaign platform around refusing. In response, Gov Sanford left town.

On Thursday evening, unbeknownst to his family, Gov Mark Sanford took a state owned vehicle, allegedly turned off his cellphone after checking in with his staff, and drove away without his security detail.  Originally, people in his office said they had not spoken to him and did not know where he was, prompting SC’s Lt. Governor to issue public statements about his concern for the safety and security of South Carolina and its governance. Sanford’s office quickly recovered and told everyone that he was on a hiking trip and that he went on similar vacations regularly without incident. By day’s end, Gov Sanford had issued his own statement saying he did not realize that going hiking was such a big deal and that he would come home by tomorrow.

In the meantime, two piece of info emerged:

1. he was allegedly hiking a trail used for nude hiking day on the day in which nudists would be hiking
2. the trail he was allegedly hiking was slated for 1000s of stimulus dollars for needed maintenance and security

While this provided endless amount of amusement and eyerolling for media pundits, it was obvious to everyone that the governor had simply reacted badly to a major loss with his own state government over what has become a showy rallying cry for base Republicans with little substantive support in reality.

Governor Mark Sanders, like Governor Jindal earlier this year, is thought to be one of a handful of Presidential hopefuls in the next election. Like Jindal, his milking of conservative talking points at large rallies and to media cooing led him to believe his own rhetoric. In fact, the post I did on Gov Sanford was actually punctuated by video from his own youtube site that seemed to show clearly how little concern he had for the schools on the corridor of shame or for the children being cheated by them. Thus, when he lost his fight to reject money amidst cries from multiple and conflicting constituents about how needed that money actually is in his state, Gov Sanford came crashing down. It was probably a much harder fall than Jindal’s when the world discovered he is simply not camera ready (and why that matters in this world, I will never agree with, but it does).

What is newsworthy then is that:

1. Sanders seemingly took conflict with state government so poorly that he left without telling anyone
2. He appeared to have made only minimal arrangements for governance in his absence
3. both his staff and his wife admitted to not being able to reach him, meaning he may be unavailable in a crisis
4. he took a state car for a personal outing after taking a stand on pork and perks
5. his behavior was perceived of as erratic enough that state officials from within his own party questioned his competence locally and on national television

And while all of this is important, and should not be forgotten come nomination time, they hours spent speculating about his whereabouts, mocking the statements of his staff, and musing about whether he’d gone naked hiking were far too many on a day in which any number of domestic and foreign stories should have gotten the bulk of that time. Among those stories completely forgotten: the Dream Act Graduation, held outside the White House immediately following a presidential press conference and at other locations around the nation. And while people were willing to muse about Gov Sanford’s clothing, no one even ventured to guess at whether or not the White House story about hot weather was the real reason they moved the press conference inside or perhaps it was a multi-ethnic group of youth in cap and gowns demanding they have the same access to education, jobs, and citizenship that might have been seen in wide shots otherwise.

When Obama took office, both he and the press promised us that the days of suppressing the news were finally done. Today, like so many others in this first 100, the media, at least, has proved that it doesn’t really matter who sits in the biggest chair afterall.