What one woman accomplished in her 88 years

Meet The Wonderful Women of The Privilege of VOTING!

An Open invitation to my friends in and around New York next Monday 4/6  6:30 pm– but be home in time for my show

The Suffragettes = The Desperate Housewives???

You’re invited to go behind the scenes!

Light dinner, hot pix and JUICY details…

This coming Monday — April 6th at 6:30 in New York

‘The Privilege of Voting’ series is now out in book format, and I will be previewing this steaming HOT CoffeebreakReaders novel at a special event in New York next week.

As an e-mail reader of ‘The Privilege of Voting’ — it would be great if you could come to join the discussion!

If you have friends in New York, please pass this invitation along.

I promise to take everyone behind the scenes and into the VERY private lives of some of the hottest women in history, including TWO presidential mistresses (and a presidential LOVE child) – what role did they play in women WINNING the vote???

Maybe you already know! Please come and share how you felt when you learned of the heroic struggle our foremothers went through to WIN for us the freedoms we enjoy.

Hosted by the wonderful Victoria Woodhull Institute, co-founded by Naomi Wolf and Margot Magowan – check out all the GREAT things they are doing for girls and women at http://www.Woodhull.org

This coming Monday, April 6th

6:30-8:00 PM – EST

16 W 23rd Street, New York, NY

$10 (a light dinner will be provided – pay at the event)

RSVP using this link by end-of-day this Thursday Questions to: skirby@woodhull.org   Hope to meet you at the event. 

Virginia Ann

PS The novel is on sale online http://www.CafePress.com/VotesforWomen

Message to Certain Blacks in Oakland: I’m Tired of Your Lame Excuses

Guest Post By Robert Oliver

Yes, that’s right. You love your blackness more than you love common sense, sometimes even more than your own people. Must I sue for divorce from the Black community on the grounds of mental cruelty?

I’m black. I grew up in Chicago, the most segregated city in the North. I’m from “da hood” too. There was a time I experienced racism every day for 4 years there. So I know what racism is about.

But yet, you scream, yell and protest because of a CRIMINAL who murdered four cops. They did not shoot him first. He shot them first. Is that an act of Black bravery, qualifying for the El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X) Peace Prize? Is a hero now? (Remember Malcolm had to protect his family, not from white folks, not from cops, but from his own people who eventually killed him.)

You all claim you are like Palestinians in Gaza, in an “occupied territory” as if you are shut in a “prison” with nowhere to go. You are the occupiers. Who took you from Africa and put you in Oakland? Who is keeping you in slavery there? If you don’t like the “oppression,” you should do what you can to leave if you were serious. You are in a prison with unlocked jail cells. You are free to go anywhere, even to Africa, the Motherland, if you wanted to. I don’t hear about oppression in San Francisco. I don’t even hear about oppression in Los Angeles. Even blacks in Chicago don’t scream about oppression as you are doing as bad as things are there.

The whole world watches, and I’m tired of your lame excuses.

Your guy Mixon shot the cops, not even in self-defense. He pulled the trigger first, killing those four cops doing their jobs, and that makes him a Black hero, right? They did not shoot him until he had to be killed because he was killing others. This is what the Los Angeles Times says:

“In October 2007, Lovelle Mixon was released on parole after serving five years of a six-year sentence for assault with a firearm. Within months the 26-year-old Oakland resident was in trouble again, authorities said.

“In February, Mixon was placed on a parole hold as a possible suspect in a homicide in Alameda County, according to Scott Kernan, undersecretary of operations for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Prosecutors declined to file charges in that case, saying there was not sufficient evidence, but Mixon was detained on various parole violations and sent back to prison for nine months, Kernan said.

“Here is a look at Mixon’s interactions with the parole department since his Nov. 1 release from the California Correctional Center in Susanville, as reported by the department :

“Nov. 3: Mixon reports to his parole agent for an initial interview and undergoes his first mandatory drug test.

“Nov. 5: Mixon reports to Parole and Community Team, a state program that offers a broad range of services to parolees. The agency provides job placement, drug treatment and other services. During the visit, he met with his parole agent and again was tested for drugs.

“Nov. 7: Mixon’s parole agent makes an initial residential visit, meeting with Mixon at his mother’s home in Oakland. The agent also met with relatives of Mixon to evaluate his living conditions and who he was interacting with while on parole. During the visit, Mixon is referred by the agent to America Work, an employment service.

“Dec. 17: Mixon’s parole agent makes a residential visit, also meeting with one of Mixon’s cousins as part of their continuing effort to assess his family situation.

“Dec. 19: Mixon reports to the parole office and takes a drug test.

“Jan. 6: Mixon reports to the parole office and takes a drug test.

“Jan. 23: Mixon’s parole agent makes a residential visit and refers Mixon to another employment service, Project Choice Employment.

“Feb. 6: Mixon reports to the parole office and takes a drug test.

“Feb. 18: Mixon’s parole agent makes a residential visit but cannot locate him.

“Feb. 24: Mixon’s parole agent makes another residential visit but Mixon cannot be located. The agent talks with his mother.

“Feb. 26: After another residential visit, the agent still cannot locate Mixon.

“Feb. 27: The parole agent prepares a parolee-at-large report and a warrant is issued for Mixon’s arrest. The state Board of Parole Hearings suspends Mixon’s parole effective Feb. 19, the day after his parole officer first failed to find him. The case is referred to the corrections department’s Fugitive Apprehension Team.

“March 6: The Fugitive Apprehension Team and members of the Oakland Police Department visit three Oakland addresses, including Mixon’s mother’s home, his address of record. The following week, they distribute a bulletin to the Oakland Police Department. The case is also referred to the U.S. Marshals Service to check on reports that Mixon might have been in the Auburn, Wash., area. They are unable to locate him.

“March 21: Mixon is pulled over by Oakland motorcycle officers for a traffic violation shortly after 1 p.m. Authorities said he began shooting at the officers, killing Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40, and fatally wounding Officer John Hege, 41. After trying to hide in a nearby apartment building where his sister lives, Mixon kills Oakland SWAT sergeants Ervin Romans, 43, and Daniel Sakai, 35, before he is shot and killed by police.”

I’m really disgusted at your lame excuses. I’m tired of your “wolf cookies.”

I could understand anger if he was shot by a cop for no reason. I could understand if he was not threatening anyone. But this man was a convicted felon on parole (assault with a handgun). He shot the cops first. Get a clue, please. Why do you all want to celebrate a criminal? I remember the good old days when we would celebrate people like Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, Adam Clayton Powell and Martin Luther King, Jr. But we black people have evolved. We are more enlightened now. We have to celebrate our criminal element too, especially our cop-killas. Al Sharpton and the NAACP did that last year for black thugs who tortured, sexually assaulted, and robbed a BLACK woman in Florida. They had no pity for the victim, just for the thugs who tortured her. Are you giving the whole world the impression that blacks seem to care more about criminals than law-abiding people. This is my “I’m-embarrassed-to-be-Black” moment. I understand there a “Stop Snitching” campaign in Oakland? Why? Is it a black thing and I don’t understand? When blacks do crap to other blacks, don’t tell the police, right? We have to protect our beloved criminals, right. It is the law-abiding black citizens, especially senior citizens, who live in terror of the black criminals who should go to hell right? It is your own black neighbors who live in oppression because of black thugs, not because of cops.

Why is it we do in each other in when we celebrate our own criminals?

This is what a friend wrote:

“Hi, Robert. This makes me sick to my stomach. I seriously need to plan to move from these United States of America. Some blacks are idiots, and they make me ashamed of my race with this madness. I feel for all the families involved. But he shot the cops first so they were just protecting themselves from this dangerous criminal. What is wrong with black people? He was a criminal not an advocate of any community. Black people wake up please before it’s too late.”

The black editor of the Oakland Tribune Chauncey Bailey was shot dead by a Black Muslim in 2007 in broad daylight. How many of these blacks of you marched and protested that? Were you all demanding justice? Were you all outraged when one of your own gunned down one of your own? Those who knew Bailey were outraged. I did not see outrage from you. I understand “Stop Snitching” was going on there in Oakland about that murder. Again, it is your own black neighbors who live in oppression because of black thugs, not because of cops. Or did you decide it was not really a tragedy since a white man or a cop did not shoot Bailey?

He was down for your community. Were you down for him? Bailey was a strong advocate for the black community, even for those same people who are celebrating Mixon. Yet the outrage in the black community in Oakland was very little. Mixon was not an advocate for the black community at all, a convicted criminal and murderer, and people march and protest and this criminal gets celebrated. He is a role model for all young Black children in Oakland right?

Rev. Walter Hoye, a black minister in Oakland went to jail because he was telling women, including black women, that there was an alternative to abortion. Were any of you outraged over the brother being a “victim” of the white racist justice system? How many of you were protesting with signs ‘FREE REV. HOYE!”?

Is not something wrong with that picture? Keep your lame excuses because they won’t fly, even out of Oakland International Airport.

Robert Oliver is a writer and photographer. He can be reached at interactionswest@gmail.com

STOP HURTING MY SISTER

By: Barbara Budd Bassett

I have read all of the posts and comments on the whataboutourdaughters site and the one constant on both of our sites is the heart of the women that cries out “Stop hurting my sister”

I have long believed the problem for women in our efforts to move forward and address the issues that effect women has been our inability to organize as “one for all, all for one”

 To fully comprehend as men do United we stand Divided we fall. Until we are able to comprehend that which effects one woman effects all women we will continue to be the statistics of 1 in 5 women is abused violently. We will continue to be the headline of Woman raped, murdered, battered, tortured by man. We will continue to be second class citizens in a country of which we are 51 percent of the population. We will continue to be objectifyed and viewed as collateral damage by the courts. We will continue to earn lower wages. We will continue to battle sexism and misogyny, We will continue to look for an answer to “OUR” problems when our answer lies within ourselves. Women Uniting to say ENOUGH is ENOUGH.

Women Uniting to educate our sons and daughters that violence in any form is unacceptable.

 How shocking to hear that 50 percent of girls believed Rihanna deserved the beating she got? We shake our heads and ask how did our daughters start believing that?

Women need to Unite as One.

Women uniting to speak to the denigration of women in our society. We had an election where Two intelligent women ran for this country highest offices and were openly called Bi**ch and C**t and the Bros not Hos T shirts and the groping of Hillary by Obama speech writer Jon Favreau and the hanging effigy of Sarah Palin that were laughed off as “boys being boys”.

We are bombarded with imagines of women as sex objects and in submissive situations, we hear lyrics to songs that praise the man that kills the b**ch and instead of uniting as a gender we divide into separate groups and talk amongst ourselves about how badly women are treated by men.

We have girls being  raped on our streets and we call the perpetrators a hero? We have women being beheaded and we call it an honor killing? We have women being massacred/tortured in their homes and we call it domesticated?

It is our problem, as in women, and women do not have to agree on everything. We only have to agree on one thing STOP HURTING MY SISTER. 

I have long ago given up on any male activists taken to the streets when a crime is committed against a woman.  Our murders by men are buried in the “oh by the way another woman was raped and murdered” by a man section of the news.

We need to speak as a gender, not race, not ethnicity, not religion BUT women. We need to speak for us. We need laws that will protect us WOMEN. We need to take to the streets in our own organized protests every time a female is violated.

We need to fight for laws that protect ALL women.

Violence against women is a gender related hate crime. PERIOD.

We need to run for office, support and elect women that do. So that we are equally represented in our government of WE the people because WE are the majority. Our power, our strength is found in the fact Women are the majority. Why are  so many women so accepting of  second class citizenship?

Why are so many women accepting of another woman being murdered on the streets or in her home?

We need to fight for the ERA that will include ALL women in the Constitution of the United States.

Women have been thrown under the bus by a patriarchal society beginning in 1870 when the 15th amendment was passed giving black men the right to vote.

 Women, as in ALL women were given the right to vote in 1920 under the 19th amendment because women united and fought then understanding the importance of fighting ONE for ALL, ALL for ONE.

 Men are not protecting women, they are the ones hurting women. When will women comprehend that and stop allowing men to assault us. Its not about race it is about gender and until we unite as women who have had enough of the abuse,  ALL of our daughters will be sitting where we are today and asking Why are we still being raped, murdered, tortured, terrorized?

What About Our Daughters

I’ve asked before and I’ll ask again- Where is good ole Al Sharpton to stand up for his sisters of color when his brothers of color hurt them? He sure has plenty to say when a white man touches one of them but as long as it’s black on black – he lets then slaughter away.

When will our sisters of color wake up and realize that they will always be second class citizens as women and they did not win a damned thing in the civil rights movement for themselves as women- all they did was get their brothers some rights- they are still right there with us – no where maybe worse off then us! When will the slaughter stop? I’ll tell you when – when we sisters all come together and say it stops – that’s when and not before !

So the question remains what about our daughters – all of them red and yellow , black and white?

Cross posted from: http://www.whataboutourdaughters.com/

40 Fools in Oakland Rally for Suspected Serial Rapist(12 Year Old Victim) and Cop Killer

As yet another sign that SOME of US have lost our plum natural minds, once again certain members of our “community” are rallying on behalf of a suspected rapist- whether in West Palm Beach Florida, or Chicago, or Milwaukee some Black folks don’t acknowledge that fully grown people who violently attack young girls and women are the scum of the Earth, dangers to us all, and deserve to be thrown under the jail as a short pit stop before they head straight to HELL!:

Lovelle Mixon was linked by DNA to the February rape of a 12-year-old girl who was dragged off the street at gunpoint in the East Oakland neighborhood where Mixon’s sister lived, police said Tuesday.

Mixon, 26, a fugitive parolee who shot four Oakland police officers to death Saturday before he was killed as he hid inside his sister’s apartment, might have committed as many as five other rapes in the same neighborhood in recent months, investigators said.

All the victims of those rapes were attacked in the early-morning hours, as was the girl who was raped Feb. 5, and the assailant’s behavior was similar in all the assaults, police said. SF Gate

The 12 year old was not the only victim, but her attack was the impetus for rushing to search the DNA database and the girl provided the police with an accurate sketch.

Police would not go into detail about the other rapes. But they said that at least one happened this month and that another woman was dragged off the street and raped in the neighborhood in January.

The victim in that rape told police that the attacker “came up behind her. She was savagely raped and sodomized,” said Sgt. Jill Encinas of the police special victims unit.

Police said several victims of the early morning attacks were prostitutes or people the attacker may have believed were prostitutes. The East Oakland area, however, is not known for prostitution, Wiley said.

Most victims did not get a look at the attacker, but the 12-year-old girl did, Encinas said.

She helped police come up with a sketch of the rapist that strongly resembles Mixon, Encinas said. “It’s pretty dead-on,” she said.

The sketch was distributed to officers in the area. SOURCE

Now you would think that the community would be rallying to solve these rapes and make the streets safe for Black women and girls to move about freely. Uh Uh. We know better here at WAOD.   In the grand tradition of the NAACP and the National Action Network SOME Black folks got together in Oakland to rally for a suspected serial rapist. Calling him a “hero” for murdering four Oakland police officers.

 “Lovelle is a hero! Lovelle is a hero!” shouted a woman in the rally.

Demonstrators say Mixon was fighting back against what they see as an oppressive police force.

“I don’t condone what he did, but karma comes around. What goes around comes around,” said a man speaking to the crowd.

Many of those who chose not to take part in the march believe this tragic incident is a symptom of a much larger problem.

The small turnout at Wednesday’s demonstration reflected the community’s intolerance of Mixon’s actions, but the incident has created a strong desire to improve relations between the police and the community.ABC News

Now notice that I added “SOME” to the title of this post. 40 people does not make a movement, but lets not be to swift to dismiss this group in Oakland. The same thing happened in West Palm Beach with the Dunbar Village case- rallying for the accused violent rapists while ignoring the victims. I am sure many of you can add additional examples.

Moral authority matters. IT MATTERS!. You can’t move forward the cause of justice and equal rights standing on the pools of blood. You can’t turn a violent rapist and killer into a hero. Mixon didn’t stand over the wounded bodies of police officers and pump more shells into their bodies to help Black folks in Oakland. Mixon preyed on Black people in Oakland. He was a predator. He died the way he lived. Selfishly. Maniacally, Like the narcissist that he appears to be. Whatever he wanted, he took. Who ever he could get away with brutalizing, he brutalized. His goal in life was not freedom fighting, but to steal, to kill and to destroy. That’s not Heroic, that’s evil.

You can’t condemn the perceived violent oppression of a community by “the system” and use a man who violently oppresses women and girls  by torturing, raping, and sodomizing them. EPIC FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

You can’t call yourself a “civil rights” organization and promote the denial of basic human rights to half the population. VIOLENCE is a form of tyranny. Lovelle Mixon was a tyrannical predator he would been  just as soon have pumped bullets into the 40 fools marching around calling him a hero if they stood in between him and something he wanted.

Now if only someone in a position of Leadership in Oakland would say the same thing. These 40 deluded self-centered narcissists and enablers on the street of Oakland do not represent me.

ON another note, it is too bad the Oakland PD didn’t put a rush on getting searching the DNA database when the prostitutes were being viciously raped and tortured prior to the 12 year old girl. They may have gotten that DNA match earlier. Women and children are canaries in the mine shaft.

One has to wonder how it is the new media chose to cover this band of 40 fools, but a meteorite has to strike the body of a Black woman before we can get coverage of violent crimes against her.

Why do the women return?

A Mighty Rant by: BettyJean Kling

Look whose getting all the support! Do you see the abused getting the support? No! The abuser is caught on tape abusing the woman- she has 20 stitches- he was released immediately – he was at her side as was his powerful family and his friends from the minute they could get to her. Who is rallying around her? NO ONE! And we want to know why she is uncooperative? Give me a break!

Rallying Around a Politician Charged With Assault

Kirsten Luce for The New York Times
  

State Senator Hiram Monserrate and his supporters went on the offensive in and out of court on Friday as he pleaded not guilty to charges of slashing his companion’s face with a broken glass.

Supporters wearing purple ribbons — including a Democratic district leader who runs an organization for preventing domestic violence — declared that the charges were politically motivated and waved signs reading, “Monserrate is pro-choice and pro-woman.”

A political consultant hired by Mr. Monserrate, a Democrat, passed news clips around the courtroom, detailing a 2007 dispute in which Mr. Monserrate, then a Queens city councilman, criticized Queens prosecutors’ handling of a 14-year-old murder case; in the articles, the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, retorted that Mr. Monserrate was “irresponsible” and “ought to be ashamed.”

Karla Giraldo, the woman prosecutors say Mr. Monserrate attacked, stood on the courthouse steps, in a long fur-trimmed cardigan, spike heels, large sunglasses and long bangs that covered the area around her left eye, where she required 20 stitches after the injury. She called a judge’s protection order barring Mr. Monserrate from contacting her — renewed on Friday over her objections — “an injustice.”

“I want to be with my boyfriend,” she declared. “I love him a lot.”

Prosecutors introduced new ammunition in the case at what would ordinarily have been a quick proceeding in State Supreme Court in Kew Gardens, Queens.

Countering a defense lawyer’s request that the judge not renew the protection order, Scott Kessler, an assistant district attorney, gave a newly detailed description of a surveillance videotape from Mr. Monserrate’s Jackson Heights building on the night of the episode, Dec. 19, 2008.

He said the video showed Mr. Monserrate emerging from his apartment and throwing an object into a trash chute, which the prosecutor had previously described in court as a Police Benevolent Association card belonging to “another man.”

A few hours later, Mr. Kessler said, the video shows Ms. Giraldo come out of the apartment with a towel pressed to her face and ring a neighbor’s doorbell, after which Mr. Monserrate yanks her away as she tries to cling to a banister.

After viewing the six-minute video in his chambers, Justice William M. Erlbaum said it showed that a protection order was “amply warranted,” and extended the order banning all contact — even through e-mail or third parties — through Dec. 1.

Ms. Giraldo, 30, who works at a Spanish-language publication called Resume, asked to address the court to oppose the order. The judge denied her request, saying the case was a matter of community concern between “the people of the state of New York and Mr. Monserrate,” not a private matter between the couple.

Queens prosecutors often pursue domestic violence charges even after a victim recants accusations, in the belief that it takes pressure off victims who may fear an abuser will retaliate against them for a prosecution.

Mr. Monserrate’s lawyer, Irving P. Seidman, spoke at such length against the order — at one point noting that he had two daughters and a wife of 50 years — that Justice Erlbaum lamented, “I’ve been on the bench 30 years and this is the longest application I have ever received” on a protection order.

Mr. Monserrate, 41, said after the hearing that prosecutors had discussed with him the possibility of pleading guilty to a nonfelony charge with no jail time. “I said unequivocally no to that because I am innocent,” he said.

He faces felony charges of second-degree assault that could lead to a seven-year prison sentence.

 

Mr. Monserrate was arrested after his election to the State Senate, where Democrats won a narrow majority last year, and was sworn in after his arrest over the objections of some senators.

At the courthouse, he was welcomed with hugs and cheers by more than a dozen supporters who wore pins showing St. Michael — “They ward off evil,” one explained — and waved signs.

“No one’s going to take our senator away from us,” said Martha Flores-Vazquez, the Democratic Party

district leader from Flushing, Queens, who was one of the most vocal supporters and is the executive director of Community Prevention Alternatives, an organization that she said works against domestic violence.

A handful of people demonstrated against them. 

“I don’t think women should be abused,” said one, Simone Dillard.

Both Ms. Giraldo and Mr. Monserrate say she was injured by accident as he brought her a glass of water after they returned from a holiday party for Queens Democrats at the Queens Museum of Art.

Ms. Giraldo’s lawyer, Glenn Marshall, said on Friday that she was lying in bed when Mr. Monserrate tripped over her shoes and spilled water on her face, causing her to start and bump her face into the glass. No one disputes that Mr. Monserrate drove her to Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Nassau County, bypassing several closer hospitals.

Prosecutors say that Ms. Giraldo told the hospital staff that Mr. Monserrate struck her with a broken glass, and repeated the same story to officers summoned by the hospital.

This is what women supporting OTHER women looks like!!

Thanks for forwarding this to me Toni from LI/NY

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison spoke at The Women’s Museum in Fair Park to a crowd of 400 at a program entitled “Stories From the Top: Their Odyssey.” The event celebrated Women’s History Month. (Video/editing: Michael Ainsworth) Story

March 27th, 2009

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/index.html?nvid=346489&she=1 

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Kay Bailey Hutchison speak at The Women’s Museum

The Reality Behind the Reality Star’s Cancer Death

Cross Posted from: American Forum
http://amforumbacklog.blogspot.com/2009/03/reality-behind-reality-stars-cancer.html
By Tamika Felder

British reality star Jade Goody, who rose to stardom overseas by exposing nearly every aspect of her life to a hungry media audience, has recently died, with the media in tow, of cervical cancer. She was only 27 and has left behind two young sons, ages four and five.

Despite the sensationalized nature of Ms. Goody’s case, her story is tragic, as are the stories of so many other women worldwide who are struck by cervical cancer in the prime of their lives.http://www.pearlofwisdom.us/).

I was 25 when I was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer and my world was turned upside down. After a radical hysterectomy and weeks of tough chemotherapy and radiation treatment, I was declared cancer-free. I survived and consider myself lucky. But I’ll never be able to bear my own children — something I had always dreamed about — and I’ll have to deal with medical complications from my treatment for the rest of my life.

Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women around the world, killing nearly 300,000 women each year. In the United States, the American Cancer Society estimated that 11,070 women would be diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2008, and that 3,870 women would die from it.

The most frustrating aspect of cervical cancer is that it is almost completely preventable. Experts know that it is caused by “high-risk” types of a common infection – the human papillomavirus, or HPV. And we now have available preventive technologies, including the Pap test, the HPV test and the HPV vaccine, to help stop this disease in its tracks.

Despite these advances, why are so many women still dying? There are two key problems.

First, women need access to screening. In the U.S., approximately half of all cervical cancer cases are in women who have never been screened. Minority women and those with lower incomes are less likely to have access to screening programs and consequently, are affected by cervical cancer at higher rates.

Second, women need to know what technologies are available and appropriate for them. At around age 21, women should get screened with the Pap test, the traditional way to screen for cervical cancer. When women reach 30, they should get an HPV test along with their Pap. The
HPV test detects the virus that causes cervical cancer. Studies show that using both tests together to screen women aged 30 and older offers the best protection against cervical cancer. This approach is included in leading medical organizations’ screening guidelines.

HPV vaccination now offers significant potential to reduce cervical cancer rates. One HPV vaccine is already FDA-approved for girls and young women aged 9 to 26, and another vaccine is under FDA review. Both vaccines have been shown to be 100 percent effective – in women not previously infected – at preventing infection from the two HPV types that cause 70 percent of all cervical cancers. Importantly, women who have been vaccinated still need to be screened regularly.

Having advanced technologies, however, is not enough. Every woman and girl must be informed about and have access to these preventive methods. In January of this year, my organization, Tamika & Friends, Inc., along with several other leading advocacy groups, launched the U.S. Pearl of Wisdom Campaign to Prevent Cervical Cancer, a united, global effort to help ensure that women and girls everywhere know about and have access to lifesaving cervical cancer prevention tools. The campaign also promotes the Pearl of Wisdom as the global symbol for cervical cancer prevention.

I encourage women everywhere to educate themselves about how to prevent cervical cancer. And then spread the word to your mother, daughters, sisters, friends, and others. Please help make the elimination of cervical cancer part of Jade Goody’s lasting legacy.
———————————————————————–
Felder is the founder of Tamika & Friends, Inc., a national nonprofit organization that raises awareness about cervical cancer, and a partner in the Pearl of Wisdom campaign to prevent cervical cancer (

Yet another lie sealed with a kiss

My blog piece the other day You are not alone anymore! explained why women often refuse to testify and why they go back to their abusers. It’s complicated – there are no simple answers and most often the reasons range from and include lack of self esteem , child abuse, fear of abuser, terror, pressure from abuser or others, lack of support, lack of law enforcement relief, lack of laws, being a second class citizen without equal rights to name a few. Too many times these guys get out and terrorize these women and let these women know they are less valuable to everyone- they convince these women they cannot win and so the women fold to save themselves from what they believe will be worse if they proceed. Once they back down they are finished both with the abuser and with everyone else including themselves!

“Look at the Senator from NY case – where he sliced her face. He stands to lose his position as a “State Senator” compared to her ‘few dozen stitches’. The damage done to her mental and emotional health and well being doesn’t even come into the picture – there’s no comparison to these men– hell no — she is considered a rag doll so he battered her – she healed up – why destroy his entire future? I’ll tell you why- because he is an ANIMAL!

                It’s always about how little she is worth compared to how valuable he is and she has been born and bred to
                believe  she is less valuable then he! There is the whole thing in a nutshell.”

Today this Karla Giraldo came to court on behalf of her abuser and not only refused to testify against him, she lied about what happed and sealed it with a kiss. When a woman will not, cannot help herself —we need judges with the good sense to do it for them. We need to prove to these women – we care- they will be safe if they follow through and these bastards will pay .

Let’s hope this judge sticks to his original common sense and uses the video proof of Ms Giraldo screaming for help while the Senator dragged her resisting body down the steps before he hauled her past 5 local hospitals to one out his district. Let’s hope he takes the word of the attending physicians and officers who recorded her original complaint of attack instead of the word of a woman who clearly has been coerced into changing her story.

Hiram Monserrate’s alleged attack victim, gal pal Karla Giraldo, kisses him at court appearance

By nbode@nydailynews.com
Nicole Bode and Corky Siemaszko

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Friday, March 27th 2009, 1:57 PM

Delmundo/News

Former Queens City Coucilman Hiram Monserrate, who was elected to the State Senate last fall, got a kiss in court Friday from the woman he’s accused of brutally attacking, Karla Giraldo (inset).

While a Queens judge was weighing whether to bar state Sen. Hiram Monserrate from seeing the girlfriend he allegedly attacked, the woman went behind the judge’s back Friday – and planted a kiss on the politician.

In a Queens courtroom, Karla Giraldo smooched the man accused of slashing her face with a broken glass,  while Supreme Court Justice William Erlbaum was in another room.

Erlbaum was watching a video that – according to prosecutors – showed Monserrate yanking a bleeding Giraldo in the stairwell of his building.

Word of the brazen buss stunned Giraldo’s lawyer, who was in the bathroom when it happened.

“Did you kiss him in the courtroom?” attorney Glenn Marshall asked her later.

“It’s been a long time,” Giraldo replied in Spanish.

Marshall shook his head in apparent disbelief as they walked back to their cars.

It was not clear if Erlbaum was aware of the kiss, but when he returned to the courtroom he upheld a full order of protection – and ordered Monserrate to stay away from Giraldo.

“The complaining witness could not give you permission to violate this order,” the judge told Monserrate.

Monserrate pleaded not guilty to three counts of felony assault and three counts of misdemeanor assault at his arraignment – charges that could send the former Democratic City Council member to jail for up to seven years.

Monserrate later told reporters he turned down plea deal that would have meant no jail time because “I am innocent.”

The Queens courtroom was packed with Monserrate supporters, including Sean Bell police shooting survivor Joseph Guzman.

“I got to be there to support the senator,” said Guzman, who was badly wounded in November 2007. “He supported me. He was there every day in the hospital.”

Monserrate is on trial for an attack inside the politician’s Queens apartment on Dec. 19 that left Giraldo with a nasty cut near her left eye that required more than 20 stitches to close.

Prosecutors said the fight began after Monserrate found another man’s business card in Giraldo’s purse.

The petite 29-year-old at first told staffers at Long Island Jewish Medical Center that Monserrate cut her in a fight, prosecutors said.

Later, Giraldo changed her story and told cops and the grand jury it was an accident and that Monserrate tripped while bringing her a glass of water.

Prosecutors said the surveillance video from inside Monserrate’s building showed him yanking Giraldo by the arm as she clutched a stairway banister – and caught her banging on a neighbor’s door and screaming for help.

Monserrate’s lawyer, Irving Seidman, insisted the video “showed absolutely no violence.”

 

You are not alone anymore!

There is so much we do not understand about why women refuse to testify against the men that abuse them and why many return to their abusers. There are many professionals out there who will give you logical and seemingly illogical reasons and they are all right but when you ask the victims they often cannot put it into words. They just know they do it and they are never quite sure why. Let me tell you why I put up with it over the course of 4 years 46 years ago.

I know that when I went through it – I had no support from friends or family – nor from the law – I had nowhere to go, nowhere to turn and I felt it was my fault and that I deserved it. When you are not valued as a child, when you are abused physically, emotionally, sexually and mentally you have no basis to believe it should or could be any other way. I felt it was my lot in life. Where do you go with 4 small babies at 19 years old, without an education, without any money, without any help or support, coming from an abusive family and where he will not find you? How did a 19 year old get into a fix like that in the first place?

Even without children as in Rihanna ‘s case – how does one feel when it is clear that up to 50% America’s youth (I believe it was females to boot) report she deserved it! I venture to guess she lives in fear of him- in fear of losing her place in society- fear of losing her popularity- it goes on and on.

I also will lay you odds she is being barraged by her handlers about the blame she will endure if he is jailed ‘because of her.’ A lot of people are going to lose a lot of money if Chris goes to jail – youbetcha they told this gal if his career ends – she is finished too. That’s called blackmail and I will bet my last cent – that is exactly what is going on here! Add to that the shame she is laden with of what will happen to him compared to what she believes were a ‘few smacks!’ That is what everyone is telling her – Why ruin his entire life? – you are healed now – let it go!

Look at the Senator from NY case – where he sliced her face. He stands to lose his position as a “State Senator” compared to her ‘few dozen stitches’. The damage done to her mental and emotional health and well being doesn’t even come into the picture – there’s no comparison to these men– hell no — she is considered a rag doll so he battered her – she healed up – why destroy his entire future? I’ll tell you why- because he is an ANIMAL!

It’s always about how little she is worth compared to how valuable he is and she has been born and bred to believe she is less valuable then he! There is the whole thing in a nutshell.

Some of us make it out alive – some of us don’t — but none of us make it out without deep scars. Can’t we put aside everything else to stop this now? We are at epidemic proportions- they are killing us figuratively and physically- violence against women is a hate crime. Join us now- time is of the essence. We are down but we are not out- we are 53% of the voting bloc – Let’s move!

Both my daughters were victims of violence. The cases are pending and I am not able to discuss these issues at present. Two sons-in-law are in jail. My oldest daughter Denise passed 3/7/09. My youngest, Louisa, remains hospitalized to date. It’s cyclical- daughters raised in these households go on to be abused – sons go on to abuse. From birth to death women must be valued.

Help us pass Louisa Law- make violence against women a Hate Crime nationwide and help us get equal rights for women under The Constitution of the United States.

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