Expendable Lives,

Distorted Images: The Murder of Aiayanna Jones

By Sikivu Hutchinson

When a little white girl goes missing, online news, supermarket tabloids and cable network stations bombard us with up-to-the-minute dispatches on the crime, the victim, her shattered family and anguished community. When a little black girl is murdered in cold blood by a big city police department it is up to the community and those who care about social justice to ensure that the case doesn’t fade into the national obscurity that is usually reserved for the lives of people of color. The recent execution of 7 year-old Aiyanna Jones by the Detroit Police Department during a raid while she was sleeping in her home is the kind of atrocity that makes many people of color view the police as an occupying army. According to news reports, the Detroit Police were conducting a raid that was being filmed for an A&E reality show. Searching for a suspect who lived in another apartment unit, officers fired into the home from outside, then lobbed a grenade into the house, killing little Aiyanna.

By exercising a so-called “no knock” policy in poor neighborhoods, the Detroit Police’s criminal disregard for human life and the civil liberties of people of color have kept the community under siege. According to Ron Scott of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, the Detroit Police have been under a federal consent decree but continue to use military style raids that terrorize citizens in its poorest neighborhoods.

Of course, deeply ingrained racist stereotypes and biases against people of color are a major factor in racial profiling and police misconduct. Disturbingly, Aiyanna’s murder also comes in the wake of a recent CNN study about the impact of skin color bias on young children. CNN presented the findings of Margaret Beale Spencer, a psychologist who utilized the same “doll test” technique as that of psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark in 1947. The Clarks’ research documented the destructive impact of racism on black children’s self-image and was used in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education suit....CONT.http://blackfemlens.blogspot.com/2010/05/expendable-lives-distorted-images.html

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org. She is working on a book entitled Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics and the Atheism Question.

John Rabe: an enemy of many becomes a hero of some

Florian Gallenberger

John Rabe is an old-fashioned war melodrama replete with all the horrors that "sane "people do to those they deem their enemy.

In 1937 John Rabe, "The Good German of Nanking." was a middle-aged, business man, a self proclaimed Nazi who worked tirelessly to save thousands of civilian Chinese from the Rape of Nanking. He achieved this goal by assisting thousands of Chinese civilians to enter the sprawling International Safety Zone
Estimates go as high as 250,000.

This historical event and the heroism of Rabe, the self proclaimed Nazi, doesn't register much outside of Germany,


Rabe appears to have no understanding of the nature of the Japanese menace or of the Nazi party he belongs to. But when evil rears its head, he cannot in good conscience betray the trust his workers have placed in him.

One of the most startling images here is Rabe's brainstorm to use a giant Nazi flag to deflect Japanese bombers away from desperate civilians crammed into the Siemens grounds. The idea of anyone using a Nazi flag for protection from aggressors is certainly new to World War II movies! the other is the sight of human heads on a wooden ledge, the participatory evidence of a competition to see who could accumulate the most number: the image of blood dripping from multiple heads and necks is one I won't forget.

A 134-minute film, with a clear message. Sometimes, under extreme circumstances, people do the right thing.

Currently P\laying in a limited number of theaters.

MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON, directed by Stéphane Brizé

French: subtitles

Cast: Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlain

A construction worker whose life is embedded in deep and satisfying emotional ties to his family; wife, son, elderly father, meets a school teacher Mademoiselle Chambon, whose emotional ties are defined by her love, her involvement in the arts: music, writing, reading, painting, teaching.

Each steps into the other's world.

Brick by brick the Director builds the plot, life built one brick on top of another. With delicate, deliberate perfection
we are shown/told the 'Direct Object' of the film is life. The choices we make and don't.

A quiet, compelling love story for those who don't need to be told what we already know but can't accept, not without a struggle.

MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON, is a gem, an intense provocative moment so unlike an American film experience.

For those in search of a film based on philosophical inquiry that forces the viewer to think, to digest, and feel more connected with others, I highly recommend MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON.


Film open at New York's Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and at the Cinema Village in New York on May 28, followed by a nationwide release to select cities.

HEARTBREAKER (L’ARNACOEUR): ENJOYABLE!

director: Pascal Chaumeil.



romantic comedy


Cast: Vanessa Paradis (Girl on the Bridge, The Key)
Romain Duris (The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Paris, Russian Dolls). Alex (Duris), Julie Ferrier, François Damiens

Plot: 'Professinal' heartbreakers at work

fun
clever
turns and twists
brillliantly delivered
each character filled with moments of enjoyment
even when apparant failure seems inevitable.

the ending is expected but how the Director gets from one moment to the next is pure pleasure

without anyone getting seriously hurt, without regret at the Heartbreakers success in encouraging the end of one relationship after another, this film achieves its goal........with consumate fun and frivolous delight....... it entertains.

French: subtitled

Sat May 15, Bklyn Peace Fair: Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Keynote Speaker

It is no surprise that people are turning more and more to the fundamentalist religions at this turning point in world wide economic malaise as the thought of when will War end has been replaced by, so this is the way it is, and will be.

Against this fatalistic posture are those who attended the Peace Fair, those who believe that small incremental actions by committed people will eventually lead to a change that we want and feel must come to be. This understanding adds an imperative in the fight against the symptoms of endless aggression and brings back to our conscience human discourse, verbal communication as an essential vehicle for co-existence.

Those who attended the Peace Fair were compelled by the believe/conviction that the chosen course of our Government has to end or it will end all of us.

Most notable was the absence of fear of police intervention/harassment or potential time spent in jail.

This experience reaffirmed our united hope and effort to keep free speak a right, rather than a Saturday afternoon luxury

What a pleasure!