I think this is not only a very good thing that you’re doing but more importantly, a much needed one. I live in Montgomery, Alabama and had work with the State Highway Department. We have been involved in a Class Action Discrimination Lawsuit for the past 22 years. You would not believe the type of things that we are still being subjected to in this day and age.

I have always been taught to stand up fro my rights and when I did so on this job, I was quickly labeled as a “troublemaker”. They quickly transferred me to a black supervisor who they knew had been in trouble for sexual harassment. This man sexually harassed me for (2)years, (10)months, and (14)days and they never did anything about it until the stress almost killed me…literally. I also had to call on the so-called leaders here to have them to get involved. But of course they were men too didn’t seem to be able to see the real pain and degration that this sort of things do to black women. furthermore, they don’t seem to take what happens to black women in this country serious enough.
After this black supervisor finished with me, they sent me to a white supervisor, known for his racial klandetic behavior. The hell I went through is undescribable. I met with the Director, wrote the Governor, wrote my Congressman, and all to no avail. But if I had been a white woman, none of this would have happened, and if it had, all of the people I contacted would have been all over the situation. I finally had to leave after (12)years because my doctor said the stress was taking too much of a toll on my health. Now,two years later, and being (51)years old, I am still fighting for justice. But the sad part is that other black women are going through the same thing at the hands of these Klansmen. White attornrys want big money up front to fight the cases and black attorneys are either afraid of them or “in their pockets”. Black women are going to have start a national movement to fight this continued racism and discrimination against us. We can no longer wait for someone else to fight our battles.
I have contacted the 100 Black Women and a couple of other National Groups in seeking help in getting some relief for black women at this particular State agency, and anywhere else in this state and city where women are suffering in silence. If you can be of any assistance or have any information as to who can, please let me know. God Bless

Sept. 21, 2007

Hey Girl:

I’d like to ring a neck over the audacity of them refusing to release Bell still. But…. audacity is what started the problem…

You know… I feel like I’m so distant from people and have become a stranger to more friends over this thing. I like to warn people beforehand if I must deliver some intense info, so here’s the warning, ok?

There’s one thing about me that most don’t know, but I think it’s ok to tell you about. I was assaulted my freshman year in college, when I was 19. It was bad ’cause my family felt, at the time, that I wanted to go out and experiement without taking responsibility, and they didn’t want to hear different. So…I went to my congregation to talk to someone older and responsinle about it about it, and their first question was “Was he black?” That tripped me out. Not, “Are you okay,” or “can we help with anything?”, you know.(not So long after that I walked out on the church community thing. i’m not even all that smitten w/ Chistianity in general anymore, after all the hush hush stories I heard from the children on the husband’s treatment of their wives in some of my favorite families.)

Then when I went to the piggies (I’d of called them police officers at the time),unfortunately not right away ’cause I was scarred/shocked, you know, they asked the same thing first, “was he black?”. They said, “then how do we know that he isn’t really your boyfriend?” (What the…!!!) So anyway, I wasn’t able to press any charges but only could go so far as to get a restraining order requested against the guy.

Kind of a batty story huh? But that was major/ it really changed me. I was thinking about it… I can’t help feeling a little conflicted when talking about relationships because I started dating maybe 2 & a half years after that. MOF I was in touch with you a little bit after that time, in about ‘02, but I kind of drifted away from everybody- that was around the time I just started working a lot. Crazy life.

In general, I’m pretty, pretty good now though. I don’t feel like I have anything to prove to anybody because of that. But, I’ve been wanting to find ways to focus on appreciating life from the perspective of a girl that is so undervalued in society that crimes of that magnitude aren’t even acknowledged. It made me want to appreciate myself to the extreme extent that I found out then- that society in general does not appreciate me, specifically as a Woman of African descent. I mean, what makes people assume that it’s natural/ acceptable for a black man to assault a black girl, or further that for a black girl to be in such a situation is normal and ok? That’s the craziest part of all. From realizing that in reality,that is what a lot of music and stuff promotes (eg. “come give me a hug, end’s up getting rough” 1 example) that young girls should be sexualized as guys see fit for their amusement… well- to me the guys, girls and everybody are caught in a seriously funky web. I guess you understand what I’m saying.

(I trust you with that info ’bout myself… (& because I know people wonder why I’m not the exact Ann they remember or expected and just don’t understand why that is, you know? but that’s it.)

As always,

Ann Onimus (otherwise known as Me)

By Joseph A. Slobodzian

Inquirer Staff Writer

A city judge who reduced a rape charge to “theft of services” in a case involving a prostitute assaulted at gunpoint was harshly criticized yesterday by the head of the Philadelphia Bar Association.

Municipal Judge Teresa Carr Deni’s handling of the case was an “unforgivable miscarriage of justice,” said Jane Leslie Dalton, the bar association’s chancellor. “The victim has been brutalized twice in this case: first by the assailants, and now by the court.”

Dalton’s criticism came just 28 days after the association recommended that voters Tuesday retain Deni for a third six-year term.

That recommendation, however, came before Deni’s ruling in the preliminary hearing for Dominique Gindraw, 19. Dalton’s remarks yesterday were clearly aimed at voters who may not have been aware of the case.

According to testimony, a 20-year-old single mother agreed to an hour’s worth of sex with Gindraw for $150 on Sept. 20. When she arrived at the address, Gindraw allegedly asked if she would also have sex with his friend; she agreed for an additional $100.

When the friend arrived, according to testimony, he had no money and was armed. The woman said she had been forced at gunpoint to have sex with four men.

Deni dismissed the rape and sexual-assault charges and held Gindraw for trial on a charge of “armed robbery for theft of services.”

The District Attorney’s Office has since refiled rape charges against Grindraw in Common Pleas Court.

Deni, 59, first elected to the $148,596-a-year judicial post in 1995, did not respond to a telephone message for comment left on her chamber’s voicemail.

A week after the hearing, Philadelphia Daily News columnist Jill Porter quoted Deni as saying in an interview that the woman had consented to sex, and that her complaint “minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped.”

Women’s and victim advocates around the nation have heavily criticized the judge, and there has been some grassroots organizing against Deni’s retention.

Dalton said Deni’s ruling and comments showed that she misunderstood “what constitutes rape in Pennsylvania.”

Dalton said the law permitted any woman to change her mind after consenting to sex “regardless of the circumstances. We cannot imagine any circumstances more violent or coercive than being forced to have sex with four men at gunpoint.”

“In the final analysis, it is up to each individual voter, in the privacy of the voting booth, to make his or her own decision as to whether Judge Deni should continue in her present position,” Dalton said.

The bar association’s executive director, Kenneth Shear, said that under association rules, Dalton could not revoke the association’s Oct. 1 recommendation, which was made after a poll of lawyers who practiced before the judge and deliberations by the association’s nonpartisan Commission on Judicial Selection and Retention.

Shear said that the commission had a “due process” obligation to speak with the judge about criticism before issuing a recommendation, and that Dalton had wanted to read a transcript of the hearing before commenting.

“There just was not enough time,” Shear said.

A copy of Dalton’s statement was sent to the judge before it was made public, but bar officials have received no reaction, Shear said.

I still feel the echo,
My voice cursing
This drunken 6 ft. something
White man walking out
Of the door
After taking his
Football hand
To grab my ass from my
Rectum upward.

I came to the Halloween party with a halter
Spandex denim catsuit
Pretending
To be Foxy funked out
In an afro wig and retro threads,
A black ghost,
When I had my guts gored
By football hands
Thinking I was his
Foxy brown black nigger whore.

I saw two blonde-haired twins in their
Pseudo-lesbian stance standing in
For the prostitute. Red-lipped Marilyn
Twisted her way through the crowd with a bottle of bubbly,
Her breasts bubbling over, her white skin
Blending in
With her white halter dress. I ad-
Dressed my Maryland
No-listen-to-hip-hop roommate why
She tagged her white tank a “wifebeater” without question, I asked her
What it meant that her closest friends coming in as “Heaven” and “Hell” were free to take
Center-stage tag-teaming
Jeanie, Austin Powers and whiteman as himself
In a striptease dance

Which we all consumed,
Looked, laughed and frowned
Because we thought we were somehow not them. I wasn’t
Drunk, like them
I sipped root beer.
I wasn’t high, like them
I got off
From humming hip-hop in the corner
Screaming
From two speakers from a homemade CD
The horror hostess called a “party mix” that I was mixed up in
‘Cause somehow drunken ass football hands
Who felt me up from the asshole up
Thought I was his real-life blaxploitation ho
From them 70s shows done over in them rap videos.

I walked in the house
Party with goddamn Madonna
In her ultra-mini, black lace tights and a peek-a-boo tank
Surrounded by her
Entire blonde ambition, erotica entourage touring
All around me, but
Drunken ass football hands stationed right on top of me,
Right as
One of the number one raps raped me
In the background, I became (her)
Tone-deaf hearing
Nothing
But the curse
Words I could have said
If my blackness were not drowned
Out by all the white noise,
By drunken ass football hands
Walking up-
Right
Out the door

Hi-fiving his fratboylike buddies bragging
He finally got the opportunity
To fondle the foxy brown black nigger whore
From his virtual

Reality.

She loves you
She can’t see past your eyes
When you hit her
She always wonder why
She takes it and takes it
Like nothing happend
She feels the pain
through her viens
Why are you hitting her
Can’t you she that she loves you
But now you have made
a hurt that never heals
and never can
but she felt as if you
were the man

Abusing me constantly, hurting me so strongly mentally and physically. He thinks that because I don’t say anything that I won’t fight back. I curses me out until he gets hoarse.

Confusing me with his heat of raging fire and desire to hurt me, to destroy me, to kill me.
I feel like a long lost puppy after he has had his way with me. I try to defend myself but it won’t work.

Refusing to let go of the pain and the gain of freedom from this monster. Screams and cries is what I’m running from I can let go ,but I won’t never forget.

Over the course of my life I have seen many injustices and remained silent. Everyone has their prolonged period of silence unfortunately not everyone chooses to end it. I say “choose” because we have more choices in our lives than we imagine, the problem is our willingly give others free reign on our destiny.

When it comes to speaking out I’m not so sure we have a choice. It is more like a calling. It was meant for me to hear about the horrific gang rape involving a single mother and her son in a West Palm Beach housing project. I saw the story on a mid- Saturday afternoon cable news outlet and I never saw it in the mainstream media again.

Women of color have been too appeasing for far too long and the consequence has been our own pain and death. We cannot sit back and wait until failure has occurred on the part of elected and public officials and media organizations to make our voices heard. We must shout once we see an injustice to ensure failure does not occur. The only way those who serve are accountable is if we make them accountable.

The culture in which we currently live, or is it maintain and survive, will always exist as long as it is not countered with a demand for change. Change is not something that happens naturally. Its must be made, it must be demanded. We can make change through our choices, our voices and our dollars. Silence is not an option.

It didn’t take long for me to see the parallels between the Dunbar Village gang rape victim and myself. I, like her, am a single mother of a young boy who struggles everyday to make it. Not standing up on her behalf was like not speaking on my own behalf.

After my interview with a West Palm Beach TV station about the video I made and my acceptance to attend a commissioner’s meeting next month, I became apprehensive about stepping to the forefront. Who am I? Why me? What do I have to say that warrants a platform? Who do I think I am?

I quickly got over that with the help of friends and fellow women of color who know what I know. This is bigger than me; this is not about me. It’s beyond individuals and it’s about a culture of change. If women of color won’t take the stand who will?

In nursery school. A place that is supposed to be safe. Oversized letters and cubby holes to put her strawberry shortcake bookbag and change of clothes just in case she wet her pants.

I love you
in a place where
being hugged up
was never
misconstrued for
past nap times
when bed bugs bit
and little girls
were dips.

Graham cracker snacks and mini-desks and chairs. Wide-lined grayish-brown paper and letters to be traced. Coloring sheets and she didn’t forget to write her heading at the top of the paper.

I love you
in a place where
I buried my head
in your scent
crying a cry
for myself
trusting your ears
to be active
but your tongue
not to repeat.

Her favorite color was turquoise. Thick ponytails and hair-balls that clicked and clanged. Sing-song lyrics and games to learn numbers and alphabets. Learning how to tie her laces and which foot to put each shoe on.

I love you
in a place where
I ask your
permission
to love you
this way.

She was violated by two teachers, and in time she trusted someone with her story. She loved someone in a place not to be silenced.

(c) 2004-2007 veronica precious bohanan