Monday, November 25, 2013

Chris Brown Has Been Abusing His Mother For Years Now! on the Kyle Phoenix Blog



When troubled singer Chris Brown hurled a rock through his mother’s car window earlier this week he didn't care if the rock injured her or caused her to lose control of her car. Brown was outraged because his mom, Joyce Hawkins, suggested that he remain in treatment at a rehab center.

This is not the first time Brown has lashed out at his own mother. Industry insiders have whispered about Brown abusing his own mother for years.

Brown’s violent behavior stems from his anger and rage toward her for not protecting him from his violent father as a boy. In an interview with MTV’s Sway, Brown recalled watching his mother suffer abuse at the hands of his father. He told Sway that watching the abuse heaped upon his mother was “an influence in me about how to treat a woman.”

“I used to always feel the hate for anybody that disrespected a lady. Or called a lady the B-word … or just disrespected her.”

But the family history of abuse had the opposite affect on young Chris.

Abuse is a learned behavior from one generation to the next. Parents who beat their children (or each other) plant the seeds of violence in young children that will be repeated as the child grows up.

From MTV News:
Based on the information she has read about the case and her 25 years of experience dealing with domestic-violence issues, Sheryl Cates, CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline, said the inter-generational abusive behavior that Brown could be a part of is not unusual.

“It’s a learned behavior,” she said. “It can be unlearned, and I hope that he will seek some help to do that. But it’s about a belief system where you think, ‘I have the right to hurt someone I love.’ I’ve seen him say a lot that he would treat women differently, but the [alleged] injuries in this case are the same tactics — emotional or physical — meant to control [Rihanna]. One of the things we can convey to people is [that] violence is not the answer and there is an ability to change if you want that.”


Kyle Phoenix
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Sunday, November 10, 2013

It’s not just girls asking “Am I pretty or ugly?” on the Internet by Casey Johnston



You only need to do a bit of reddit digging to find all of the insecure guys.





A sampling of posts from the Am I Ugly? subreddit.

The Internet has disseminated its fair share of concerns about insecure teen girls who are asking “am I pretty or ugly?” to possibly the last audience they should be consulting (the ever-hostile ranks of YouTube commenters). But a new examination of reddit by PsychGuides shows that teen boys aren’t immune to appearance-related anxiety. They’ve just found a different place to express them: in subreddits.
According to PsychGuides, four out of five submissions to the r/amiugly subreddit are by a male redditor, and the average age is between 18 and 19. In this subreddit, users post photos of themselves for open critique of the 35,000 subreddit subscribers and any passers-by who have thoughts.
But while men constitute most of the submissions, women make up most of the responders: 62 percent of the responses to submissions were made by female redditors 18 and under. Female submissions also get the most responses at an average of 54 replies per submission compared to male submitters’ average of 14 replies.
There is another reddit, r/amisexy, where men dominate the scene slightly less, at 62 percent of submissions to women’s 38 percent. The crowd that wants to know if it is sexy also skews a couple of years older, sexiness being a slightly more adult concern than ugliness. Either way, if you’re an insecure teen so in need of validation that you’ll risk the drive-by cruelty of Internet commenters, you always have reddit as a YouTube alternative.

Why Do Poor People 'Waste' Money On Luxury Goods? by TRESSIE MCMILLAN COTTOM


My family is a classic black American migration family. We have rural Southern roots, moved north and almost all have returned. I grew up watching my great-grandmother, and later my grandmother and mother, use our minimal resources to help other people make ends meet. We were those good poors, the kind who live mostly within our means. We had a little luck when a male relative got extra military pay when they came home a paraplegic or used the VA to buy aJim Walter house (pdf). If you were really blessed when a relative died with a paid up insurance policy you might be gifted a lump sum to buy the land that Jim Walters used as collateral to secure your home lease. That's how generational wealth happens where I'm from: lose a leg, a part of your spine, die right and maybe you can lease-to-own a modular home.
We had a little of that kind of rural black wealth so we were often in a position to help folks less fortunate. But perhaps the greatest resource we had was a bit more education. We were big readers and we encouraged the girl children, especially, to go to some kind of college.

Consequently, my grandmother and mother had a particular set of social resources that helped us navigate mostly white bureaucracies to our benefit. We could, as my grandfather would say, talk like white folks. We loaned that privilege out to folks a lot.

I remember my mother taking a next door neighbor down to the social service agency. The elderly woman had been denied benefits to care for the granddaughter she was raising. The woman had been denied in the genteel bureaucratic way -- lots of waiting, forms, and deadlines she could not quite navigate. I watched my mother put on her best Diana Ross "Mahogany" outfit: a camel colored cape with matching slacks and knee high boots. I was miffed, as only an only child could be, about sharing my mother's time with the neighbor girl. I must have said something about why we had to do this. Vivian fixed me with a stare as she was slipping on her pearl earrings and told me that people who can do, must do. It took half a day but something about my mother's performance of respectable black person -- her Queen's English, her Mahogany outfit, her straight bob and pearl earrings -- got done what the elderly lady next door had not been able to get done in over a year. I learned, watching my mother, that there was a price we had to pay to signal to gatekeepers that we were worthy of engaging. It meant dressing well and speaking well. It might not work. It likely wouldn't work but on the off chance that it would, you had to try. It was unfair but, as Vivian also always said, "life isn't fair little girl."

I internalized that lesson and I think it has worked out for me, if unevenly. A woman at Belk's once refused to show me the Dooney and Burke purse I was interested in buying. Vivian once made a salesgirl cry after she ignored us in an empty store. I have walked away from many of hotly desired purchases, like the impractical off-white winter coat I desperately wanted, after some bigot at the counter insulted me and my mother. But, I have half a PhD and I support myself aping the white male privileged life of the mind. It's a mixed bag. Of course, the trick is you can never know the counterfactual of your life. There is no evidence of access denied. Who knows what I was not granted for not enacting the right status behaviors or symbols at the right time for an agreeable authority? Respectability rewards are a crap-shoot but we do what we can within the limits of the constraints imposed by a complex set of structural and social interactions designed to limit access to status, wealth, and power.

I do not know how much my mother spent on her camel colored cape or knee-high boots but I know that whatever she paid it returned in hard-to-measure dividends. How do you put a price on the double-take of a clerk at the welfare office who decides you might not be like those other trifling women in the waiting room and provides an extra bit of information about completing a form that you would not have known to ask about? What is the retail value of a school principal who defers a bit more to your child because your mother's presentation of self signals that she might unleash the bureaucratic savvy of middle class parents to advocate for her child? I don't know the price of these critical engagements with organizations and gatekeepers relative to our poverty when I was growing up. But, I am living proof of its investment yield.

Why do poor people make stupid, illogical decisions to buy status symbols? For the same reason all but only the most wealthy buy status symbols, I suppose. We want to belong. And, not just for the psychic rewards, but belonging to one group at the right time can mean the difference between unemployment and employment, a good job as opposed to a bad job, housing or a shelter, and so on. Someone mentioned on twitter that poor people can be presentable with affordable options from Kmart. But the issue is not about being presentable. Presentable is the bare minimum of social civility. It means being clean, not smelling, wearing shirts and shoes for service and the like. Presentable as a sufficient condition for gainful, dignified work or successful social interactions is a privilege. It's the aging white hippie who can cut the ponytail of his youthful rebellion and walk into senior management while aging black panthers can never completely outrun the effects of stigmatization against which they were courting a revolution. Presentable is relative and, like life, it ain't fair.

In contrast, "acceptable" is about gaining access to a limited set of rewards granted upon group membership. I cannot know exactly how often my presentation of acceptable has helped me but I have enough feedback to know it is not inconsequential. One manager at the apartment complex where I worked while in college told me, repeatedly, that she knew I was "Okay" because my little Nissan was clean. That I had worn a Jones of New York suit to the interview really sealed the deal. She could call the suit by name because she asked me about the label in the interview. Another hiring manager at my first professional job looked me up and down in the waiting room, cataloging my outfit, and later told me that she had decided I was too classy to be on the call center floor. I was hired as a trainer instead. The difference meant no shift work, greater prestige, better pay and a baseline salary for all my future employment.

I have about a half dozen other stories like this. What is remarkable is not that this happened. There is empirical evidence that women and people of color are judged by appearances differently and more harshly than are white men. What is remarkable is that these gatekeeperstold me the story. They wanted me to know how I had properly signaled that I was not a typical black or a typical woman, two identities that in combination are almost always conflated with being poor.
I sat in on an interview for a new administrative assistant once. My regional vice president was doing the hiring. A long line of mostly black and brown women applied because we were a cosmetology school. Trade schools at the margins of skilled labor in a gendered field are necessarily classed and raced. I found one candidate particularly charming. She was trying to get out of a salon because 10 hours on her feet cutting hair would average out to an hourly rate below minimum wage. A desk job with 40 set hours and medical benefits represented mobility for her. When she left my VP turned to me and said, "did you see that tank top she had on under her blouse?! OMG, you wear a silk shell, not a tank top!" Both of the women were black.

The VP had constructed her job as senior management. She drove a brand new BMW because she, "should treat herself" and liked to tell us that ours was an image business. A girl wearing a cotton tank top as a shell was incompatible with BMW-driving VPs in the image business. Gatekeeping is a complex job of managing boundaries that do not just define others but that also define ourselves. Status symbols -- silk shells, designer shoes, luxury handbags -- become keys to unlock these gates. If I need a job that will save my lower back and move my baby from medicaid to an HMO, how much should I spend signaling to people like my former VP that I will not compromise her status by opening the door to me? That candidate maybe could not afford a proper shell. I will never know. But I do know that had she gone hungry for two days to pay for it or missed wages for a trip to the store to buy it, she may have been rewarded a job that could have lifted her above minimum wage. Shells aren't designer handbags, perhaps. But a cosmetology school in a strip mall isn't a job at Bank of America, either.
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At the heart of these incredulous statements about the poor decisions poor people make is a belief that we would never be like them. We would know better. We would know to save our money, eschew status symbols, cut coupons, practice puritanical sacrifice to amass a million dollars. There is a regular news story of a lunch lady who, unbeknownst to all who knew her, died rich and leaves it all to a cat or a charity or some such. Books about the modest lives of the rich like to tell us how they drive Buicks instead of BMWs. What we forget, if we ever know, is that what we know now about status and wealth creation and sacrifice are predicated on who we are, i.e. not poor. If you change the conditions of your not-poor status, you change everything you know as a result of being a not-poor. You have no idea what you would do if you were poor until you are poor. And not intermittently poor or formerly not-poor, but born poor, expected to be poor and treated by bureaucracies, gatekeepers and well-meaning respectability authorities as inherently poor. Then, and only then, will you understand the relative value of a ridiculous status symbol to someone who intuits that they cannot afford to not have it.

McMillan Cottom is a Graduate Fellow at the Center for Poverty Research at UC-Davis. Find her work at tressiemc, where an earlier version of this post was originally published, or follow her on Twitter @tressiemcphd.
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"Stock Photo: New York - September 13: Model Walks The Runway At The Oscar De La Renta Spring/Summer 2012 Collection During New York Fashion Week On September 13, 2011 In New York City." on Shutterstock.

Friday, November 8, 2013

Disturbing Graphic: See How Just Ten Corporations Control Everything You Buy!

Posted by: Liam O'Conner in Economic Issues, Most Popular on AATTP November 8, 2013

A new chart compiled by Reddit has revealed that ten super-corporations have created a near-total monopoly over consumerism in the United States.

As corporations have grown in power and influence over the last 120 years, they have used this new found power to circumvent and even overturn laws and regulations designed to prevent monopolisation in the American economy. Today ten corporations (Coca Cola, Kraft, Nestle, Pepsico, P&G, GE, Kellogs, Mars, Johnson & Johnson and Unilvever) either own, own shares in, are the senior partner in, or distribute a staggering level of commodities in the United States and around the world.

Due to the shadowy nature of the corporate web, many consumers may not even be aware that they are supporting a particular corporation. For example consumers may want to boycott Coca Cola, but may not be aware that Coca Cola is the principal disributor of the Monster energy drink. Proctor and Gamble, the largest advertiser in the US, owns such a diverse number of brands that it reportedly serves a staggering 4.8 billion around the world, selling everything from Hugo Boss suits to Tampax tampons.

Nestle, the largest and most powerful food and drink corporation in the world, owns 8,000 different brands, selling items as diverse as baby food and L’Oreal. Nestle is the subject of an ongoing boycott campaign following their outrageous and infamous powdered milk campaign in the 1970s. Nestle marketed their powdered milk in the third world through a glitzy ad campaign involving attractive, white, blonde Western women, promoting the idea that breast-feeding babies was barbaric, and that if they wished to aspire to be more like the affluent West, the women of countries like Bangladesh and India should use powdered milk. Nestle knew full well that the water used by these mothers to make the milk was polluted to such a level that it would almost certainly kill their children, and that even if they could read the sanitation instructions for making the water safe, they would lack the means to do so. However, as mentioned above, Nestle is so ubiquitous that it is almost impossible to successfully boycott them.

The story is similar when it comes to the media, where the change has been even more rapid and more sinister. In 1983 90% of media in the US was owned by 50 companies. In 2011 that same 90% was owned by just 6 companies; GE, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, News Corp, and CBS. Given the essential nature of a free media in a vibrant democracy, Americans must ask themselves; how can you have a free media when a tiny elite own and control 90% of what you read, see and hear?

Most pertinent of all though has been the consolidation and monopolisation of the banking industry in the United States. According to the Federal Reserve over the past twenty years 37 banks have merged into just four. CitiGroup, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America. In 1990 the ten largest financial institutions in America held 20% of the nation’s assets. Today they hold 54%. Twenty years ago American had 12,500 banks. Today it has around 8,000.


This monopoly is not a law of nature. Neither is the existence of corporations themselves. They are entirely man-made, modern entities, with no allegiance except to their shareholders. Apologists for capitalism and neo-liberalism frequently claim that competition is good for the consumer, that allowing corporations a free role in the economy promotes choice and diversity. We can see that the opposite is the case. By allowing corporations unprecedented access to political power and influence, a corrupt system has evolved where there is little to no choice at all in the American economy. If Americans want to change this they can. They can boycott these corporate bullies, highlight their crimes and exorbitant behavior, and they can send a powerful message at the ballot box by supporting candidates who genuinely stand up for the rights of living, breathing American citizens, not soulless, predatory corporations.

- See more at: http://aattp.org/revealed-illusion-free-market/#sthash.TQcr24qe.dpuf

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

My Amazon Author's Page by Kyle Phoenix

My Amazon Author's Page

Kyle Phoenix in Emporio Armani,
Manhattan, NY
I'm particularly proud of all of my work being pulled together into an Amazon.com Author's page---you'd be surprised at the things that hit you as touching during your work.  I've presented to thousands of people over the years, in person, online, through Skype even---in multiple countries! but when I was asked to compile and contribute to this Author's page, I was tickled beyond reason.  For years I've always clicked onto other Author's pages and though I was never envious, when I finally received one, I realized how valuable I thought they were.  How encouraging.  This is one of the moments when I finally felt like an author, after years of being published in multiple venues, again all over the world, this and when I arrived for a book presentation and a member of the audience had a copy of one of my books---and it was well worn/read and dog-eared---that hit me in the emotional breadbasket!

Smile,
Kyle Phoenix
Author
My Amazon Author's Page