Excerpts from Facebook on Shirley Sherrod episode

I am so tired of hearing all stripes of Republicans and Tea Party types spin their wheels looking for examples of so called "racism" on the part of African Americans. The truth is it makes them feel better to think that Black people are just like them, bigoted and narrow minded. It is a complete projection and fabrication on their part. Breitbart shut up!!!
about a minute ago · Comment · Like

Sharon Raphael I was thinking about what the next step for Shirley Sherrod will be. I think the likely move would be for her to turn down the job at Agriculture which sounds like a token appt. and for her to go on the speaking circuit at universities and non profits etc. and also to publish a book. Makes sense to me. Who am I to say though.

I am glad Sherrod received apologies and maybe even a big promotion at Agriculture.
However. this incident shows how backward
the politicians are when racial issues challenge their sense of a safe zone.
Remember when Clinton rejected a Black woman candidate for the Supreme Court because she seemed in favor of quotas in th.e South. ..
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Yesterday at 3:53pm via Facebook for iPhone · Comment · Like
Sara McFall Sullivan likes this.

This situation with Shirley Sherrod makes me so mad. I hope Sherrod is unfired immediately. How stupid all the way round both right wing and Dems involved. Accusing a good person of Black Racism against Whites when the reverse is true is not good sport. It is disgusting. I hope Vilsck is sacked if he doesn't correct his terrible mistake.

Remove
Sharon Raphael Toni Blankley and other conservatives are beating a dead horse when it come to the Shirley Sherrod episode. They try to defend the racist blogger who sent out the manufactured tape trying to say the NAACP
audience on the tape applauded when Sherrod said implied racist statements. I listened to the tape and feel they are making it up out of whole cloth. No one clapped, there were a few snickers as what she said sounded kind of funny, the way she said it .
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I mostly post on facebook now

I have to admit I mostly post on facebook now. I hope you check me out at Sharon Raphael on facebook. You will figure out which one I am. i do plan to make entries back here once in a great while. Sorry. I find facebook to be very interactive. Thanks for ak
Your support over the years.

Sharon

Federal Equality for Lesbians and Gays

The Future is Now

This pic labove looks like my old Blue Roadmaster of the 50's.not exact but close enough. The colors are right. I rode that bike everywhere I could go in Cleveland Heghts, Cumberland, Cain Park, exploring gulleys and what was left of Severance Estate in Forest Hills and beyond.

I like what my friend Susan Wiseheart said when we ended our group session on Skype, "They told us this was going to happen, and now it is here" and I add "We are in it. The future is now".

The Past can be the Future: Here is a pic of me on my new 3 wheeler bike. When I was a kid I had a blue Roadmaster, two wheeler. Life comes full circle.

Musings on Life and Death of An Old Lesbian Friend

Mina and I attended a memorial service, actually a celebration of life of our friend and sister OLOC member Ginny Borders. Ginny died in March 2010 about three weeks ago from this writing. Ginny was 86 years old. We knew Ginny originally when we attended Women over Forty Plus meetings at our local Long Beach Lesbian/Gay Center in Long Beach. When I first met Ginny, she seemed like a pretty crusty old gal. I wasn't sure she took to us newcomers, Mina and me. But we kept coming and Ginny seemed to mellow toward us. We both found the group which provided a support group for mostly sixty plus Lesbians to be kind of cliqueish, also inaptly named but we figured the women had grown old together and never wanted to change their name still including a few younger amid their midst. Most of the women had been members for years. We were new, outsiders, rather new to Long Beach via S. Bay with many connections to the Los Angeles, Silver Lake, Hollywood LGBT community. Ginny hosted many parties for the group. She also worked along with us on a Long Beach Lesbian's (Gerri Schipske's) run for City Council and earlier the same Lesbian's run for Congress which she lost by 2 percentage points.

Some years passed and Ginny now in her eighties became slightly unenchanted with the group because as the oldest in the group or so it seemed, she felt she was being objectified and patronized, her perception. Ageism seemed to be rearing its ugly head because as some of the women in the group approached their sixties, even seventies, they became afraid of getting past the age mark of 80 that Ginny had already reached. She sought out another group that Mina and I were leading, a local OLD Lesbians Organizing for Change, a group that stands up against ageism both within and outside of the LGBT community. Ginny joined OLOC finding some solace there as so many of the women in the group were either in their eighties also or if younger very empathetic with the issues surrounding ageism and Old Lesbian issues. Ginny remained loyal to her original group and continued with OLOC too.

Ginny had a conspiratorial air about her when she talked sometimes, then you felt only the two of you existed and you both were about to embark on a secret mission somewhere unknown. Her blue eyes twinkled almost winked as you listened as she took you into some confidence with no real words at all. She covered her loneliness with a false kind of bravado that seemed to stem from being widowed so many years from the love of her life Corrine. They had been together 44 years. Ginny liked to flirt with women much younger than herself, younger but still in the category of old age. Someone asked her once, if one of these women took you up on your come on, what would you do. Ginny said she would "run".

At the Celebration of Ginny Border's Life, stories were shared. One woman stood up, her name is Maria, Maria had interviewed
Ginny for her dissertation and in the process Ginny told her how she came to be with her partner Corinne. Ginny and Corinne who was older by maybe ten years was working at a camp that Ginny attended when she was about 19 years of age. Ginny became very attracted to Corine and at one point asked her if she had a penis under there. Corinne said if you still feel that way after camp is over, come to where I live and I will explain it all to you. Ginny was still feeling that way and hurried over to Corinne as she was directed. When Ginny arrived finally, Corinne read to her from Radcliffe Hall's book THE WELL OF LONELINESS. Maria asked " Is that all it took?" Ginny's response was " I didn't need permission. I needed a definition." They stayed together 44 years until Corinne's untimely death from illness.

Firmin_Adventures_of_a_Metropolitan_Lowlife" Book Summary

Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife by Sam Savage



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ha41RFzUM

When I bought this book it was titled something like A Rat's Tale but Firmin is the name of the rat so I guess the title changed to name of the narrator of the book who is a Rat. Or maybe I am wrong. I say who because this rat learns to read by living in a bookshop in a poor rundown section of NYC. Fermin is a philospher of life, a genius. This is a sad story about a world and a few people the rat comes to know or should I say observe or both. It is a love story too. It is the saddest book I ever read but I still love Firmin. I can say this was one of the best most profound book I have ever read. If you can take the painfulness of Fermin's life, it is more than a worthwhile read. When I bought this book in a bookstore in SF, the book was shaped in the form of a Rat. All the kids and mothers were drawn to the book and asked about it. I would just say this is not a kid's book. Not a kid's book at all but I can imagine reading it as a kid and understanding it and then later really understanding it.

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