Policing A Victorian Institution Built By Upper-Class Men

pbs |  Upper class men built and curated the U.S. Tennis and Lawn Association, now the USTA, toward the end of the Victorian era. Even though women played, men led the association for more than 100 years, wrote its rules — what players wore, when women played, how many sets in a match and more — and enforced them.

One of the first examples of this appears as an asterisk in its rules from 1903, clarifying that, “it was (officially) decided that ‘all matches in which ladies take part in tournaments … shall be the best two in three sets.’” Men continued playing five.

Historian Warren Kimball, a former volunteer for the association who spent years curating the association’s history for his book, “Raising the Game,” said he never found a documented explanation for this rule, but feels certain that men just decided that “women were not strong enough.”

That rule persisted for the better part of tennis’ history and still exists today for the biggest championship under the association’s governance: the U.S. Open. Except now, Thompson said, some traditionalists use this disparity as an argument to push against equal pay.

The association was also ignoring if not rejecting black players, even though Tuskegee Institute, an all-black college, held tournaments as early as the 1890s, according to the book. 

While it had black players on its Ivy League teams, it declined Howard University’s application for membership in 1922, according to minutes published in the book, because “southern clubs would ‘see red’ on that … there would be no chance in the world of a club of negros [sic] getting membership in the Association.”

By the late 1940s, white women were struggling with rules policing their femininity and how they should look on the court. American Gertrude Augusta Moran, known as “Gussie,” wanted to feel more feminine, and reached out to a top designer ahead of her Wimbledon tournament to ask for a colorful ensemble. 

The designer, knowing Wimbledon’s strict, all-white rules that are almost the same today, instead designed a short skirt and lace-trimmed underwear, which she wore for the first time at a pre-match tea party.

“Gorgeous Gussie’s Lace-Fringed Panties No. 1 Attraction on Wimbledon’s Courts,” was the headline that ran in The New York Times reviewing the party.

By the time she had to compete, she walked onto the court with the racket in front of her face, while photographers pushed for space on the floor to get a shot of the lace. She was eliminated from Wimbledon early and the designer was banned from hosting and dressing other players.

Even though she ranked fourth in the nation at her peak, because of the reaction to her lace, her legacy as a sex symbol consumed her reputation for talent. 

“I really couldn’t handle the pressure,” she told the Orlando Sentinel nearly 40 years later. 

Black "Descendants of Slaves" a Specific Claim of Legal Standing NOT Identity Politics

wikipedia |  In law, standing or locus standi is the term for the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case. Standing exists from one of three causes:

1. The party is directly subject to an adverse effect by the statute or action in question, and the harm suffered will continue unless the court grants relief in the form of damages or a finding that the law either does not apply to the party or that the law is void or can be nullified. This is called the "something to lose" doctrine, in which the party has standing because they will be directly harmed by the conditions for which they are asking the court for relief.
2. The party is not directly harmed by the conditions by which they are petitioning the court for relief but asks for it because the harm involved has some reasonable relation to their situation, and the continued existence of the harm may affect others who might not be able to ask a court for relief. In the United States, this is the grounds for asking for a law to be struck down as violating the First Amendment, because while the plaintiff might not be directly affected, the law might so adversely affect others that one might never know what was not done or created by those who fear they would become subject to the law – the so-called "chilling effects" doctrine.
3. The party is granted automatic standing by act of law.^[1] Under some environmental laws in the United States, a party may sue someone causing pollution to certain waterways without a federal permit, even if the party suing is not harmed by the pollution being generated. The law allows them to receive attorney's fees if they substantially prevail in the action. In some U.S. states, a person who believes a book, film or other work of art is obscene may sue in their own name to have the work banned directly without having to ask a District Attorney to do so.

In the United States, the current doctrine is that a person cannot bring a suit challenging the constitutionality of a law unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that he/she/it is or will "imminently" be harmed by the law. Otherwise, the court will rule that the plaintiff "lacks standing" to bring the suit, and will dismiss the case without considering the merits of the claim of unconstitutionality. To have a court declare a law unconstitutional, there must be a valid reason for the lawsuit. The party suing must have something to lose in order to sue unless it has automatic standing by action of law.

As Goes Blackness - The Parable

thisisinsider |  Like much of Glover's work, "This is America" is cryptic and loaded with shocking imagery and metaphor. The track's tone swerves from happy-go-lucky psalmic readings to more alarming verses. In typical Glover fashion, he dismissed close readings of his work in an interview at the Met Gala Monday night. 

"I just wanted to make a good song," Glover told E!. "Like something that people could play on Fourth of Julys." 

Directed by his frequent "Atlanta" collaborator Hiro Murai and choreographed by Sherrie Silver, the music video touches on gun violence, the precarious state of black bodies in the US, and how we've historically used entertainment to distract us from pervasive cultural and political problems. But the music video's iconoclastic images and many layers deserve close examination to fully parse. 

Here are 24 things you may have missed.  Twitter moments.

The Black Desk 2.0: Welcome to the Real Face of the FBI

medium |   A new Intercept article by George Joseph and Murtaza Hussain reports on never-before-seen documents obtained from the FBI via Freedom of Information Act by the civil rights groups Color of Change and the Center for Constitutional Rights. The FOIA request for FBI files pertaining to Black Lives Matter activism was answered with a stack of heavily-redacted documents revealing evidence of police stakeouts at the homes and vehicles of activists, as well as the use of police informants, with no mention of any potential crimes suspected of the people they were monitoring.

One such document is a report provided “for coordination with Monsanto” describing a single Black Lives Matter activist’s plans to fly from New York City to Ferguson for a 2014 protest against racially motivated police brutality. The document covers the protesters’ plans to begin their demonstration at a Monsanto factory, as well as money raised for protest materials and bail money, without a single visible mention of potential crimes or violence.

“Coordination with Monsanto.” To protect them from Black Lives Matter protesters.

Welcome to the real face of the FBI.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has enjoyed an obscene resurgence in popularity among purportedly left-wing Americans lately as the current administration locks horns with them over the imperialist Russiagate psyop, but the FBI has never been the friend of anyone other than establishment power structures. The FBI does not exist to protect and serve the American people, and it certainly doesn’t exist to protect the rights of black Americans to protest the violence of an increasingly militarized police force. The FBI exists to protect Monsanto, and all the other seats of real corporatist power in the United States.

NOOOO!!! Morlocks At My Beautiful Time Machine...,

fox4kc | A man has died Tuesday night after being shot in the parking lot of the Independence Center, police say.

Independence Police spokesman John Syme confirmed officers were dispatched to the homicide at 18801 E. 39th St. around 8:30 p.m. Syme said the man's body was found outside a vehicle in the parking lot.

The man's identity has not yet been released, and suspect information was not immediately available, Syme said. Police do not have a suspect in custody yet and are asking anyone with information about the shooting to call police.

Syme said it's too early to determine if the shooting was a targeted incident or not.

This is a developing story. Fox 4 will update as more information is available.

White Women Only $12.99?

nationalreview |  “Well, you try paying that much for a case of pop,” says the irritated proprietor of a nearby café, who is curt with whoever is on the other end of the telephone but greets customers with the perfect manners that small-town restaurateurs reliably develop. I don’t think much of that overheard remark at the time, but it turns out that the local economy runs on black-market soda the way Baghdad ran on contraband crude during the days of sanctions. 

It works like this: Once a month, the debit-card accounts of those receiving what we still call food stamps are credited with a few hundred dollars — about $500 for a family of four, on average — which are immediately converted into a unit of exchange, in this case cases of soda. On the day when accounts are credited, local establishments accepting EBT cards — and all across the Big White Ghetto, “We Accept Food Stamps” is the new E pluribus unum – are swamped with locals using their public benefits to buy cases and cases — reports put the number at 30 to 40 cases for some buyers — of soda. Those cases of soda then either go on to another retailer, who buys them at 50 cents on the dollar, in effect laundering those $500 in monthly benefits into $250 in cash — a considerably worse rate than your typical organized-crime money launderer offers — or else they go into the local black-market economy, where they can be used as currency in such ventures as the dealing of unauthorized prescription painkillers — by “pillbillies,” as they are known at the sympathetic establishments in Florida that do so much business with Kentucky and West Virginia that the relevant interstate bus service is nicknamed the “OxyContin Express.” A woman who is intimately familiar with the local drug economy suggests that the exchange rate between sexual favors and cases of pop — some dealers will accept either — is about 1:1, meaning that the value of a woman in the local prescription-drug economy is about $12.99 at Walmart prices. 

Last year, 18 big-city mayors, Mike Bloomberg and Rahm Emanuel among them, sent the federal government a letter asking that soda be removed from the list of items eligible to be used for EBT purchases. Mayor Bloomberg delivered his standard sermon about obesity, nutrition, and the multiplex horrors of sugary drinks. But none of those mayors gets what’s really going on with sugar water and food stamps. Take soda off the list and there will be another fungible commodity to take its place. It’s possible that a great many cans of soda used as currency go a long time without ever being cracked — in a town this small, those selling soda to EBT users and those buying it back at half price are bound to be some of the same people, the soda merely changing hands ceremonially to mark the real exchange of value, pillbilly wampum.

My Only Job Was to Keep My Baby Off the Pole...,

Getting ahead of myself here, but fitna jump full back into the turd-frosting that took place on the breakfast club in the Janet Mock interview. Every degenerate and its cousin seeks mimetic cover in the historic respectable negroe quest for civil rights in America.

On a black program that often advocates for the safety and lives of black people, its hosts laughed as their guest advocated for the murder of black trans women who are black people, too!

Nah, not gonna fly. The whole Janet Mock interview flew off the rails when Angela Yee started normalizing stripper culture.  What is wrong with this picture?  

There are tons of reasons why people shouldn't be strippers or prostitutes.  Yet, the breakfast club is having a conversation about the flawed logic of fathers not wanting their daughters to become sex workers with a transsexual former teenaged prostitute and stripper during the commute time for school children?!?!?!?! 

Is the goal to literally induce more young black girls into being prostitutes and strippers? Who benefits from increasing tolerance of our youth being turned into prostitutes, strippers, and drug-dealers because of economics and limited educational and economic access? 

Yvette Carnell told you that Charlemagne the God is a social engineering sock puppet.  I'm surprised Yee didn't say that twerking on the pole is "empowering".  Let me guess... the next interview is going to be Amber Rose explaining why taking money for oral sex makes you an entrepreneur? Just like so many other nefarious social-engineering props deployed to distract, dismay, and confuse black minds addicted to celebrity, who do we find sitting on her fat-ass behind the curtain? Who gave the turd-frosting Janet Mock her initial foot up onto the public stage? Of course you know it was none other than Oprah Winfrey. 

what's wrong with kansas guy talks about granny being outflanked on the left

Guardian |  The Republican party wants my liberal vote. This was the most shocking wave to wash over my brain last week as I sat in the convention center in Cleveland. It was more startling in its way than the storm of hate that I saw descend on former GOP hero Ted Cruz, stranger than the absence of almost all the party’s recent standard-bearers, weirder than the police-state atmosphere that hovered over the streets of the city.

The Republicans were trying to win the support of people like me! Not tactfully or convincingly or successfully, of course: they don’t know the language of liberalism and wouldn’t speak it if they did; and most of the liberals I know will never be swayed anyway. But they were trying nevertheless.

Donald Trump’s many overtures to supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders were just the beginning. He also deliberately echoed the language of Franklin Roosevelt, he denounced “big business” (not once but several times), and certain of his less bloodthirsty foreign policy proposals almost remind one of George McGovern’s campaign theme: “Come home, America.”

Ivanka Trump promised something that sounded like universal day care. Peter Thiel denounced the culture wars as a fraud and a distraction. The Republican platform was altered to include a plank calling for the breakup of big banks via the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. I didn’t hear anyone talk about the need to bring “entitlements” under control. And most crucially, the party’s maximum leader has adopted the left critique of “free trade” almost in its entirety, a critique that I have spent much of my adult life making.

It boggles my simple liberal mind. The party of free trade and free markets now says it wants to break up Wall Street banks and toss Nafta to the winds. The party of family values has nominated a thrice-married vulgarian who doesn’t seem threatened by gay people or concerned about the war over bathrooms. The party of empire wants to withdraw from foreign entanglements.

corporate capitalism is the foundation of police brutality and the prison state...,

alternet |  Our national conversation on race and crime is based on a fiction. It is the fiction that the organs of internal security, especially the judiciary and the police, can be adjusted, modernized or professionalized to make possible a post-racial America. We discuss issues of race while ignoring the economic, bureaucratic and political systems of exploitation—all of it legal and built into the ruling apparatus—that are the true engines of racism and white supremacy. No discussion of race is possible without a discussion of capitalism and class. And until that discussion takes place, despite all the proposed reforms to the criminal justice system, the state will continue to murder and imprison poor people of color with impunity.

More training, body cameras, community policing, the hiring of more minorities as police officers, a better probation service and more equitable fines will not blunt the indiscriminate use of lethal force or reduce the mass incarceration that destroys the lives of the poor. Our capitalist system callously discards surplus labor, especially poor people of color, employing lethal force and the largest prison system in the world to keep them under control. This is by design. And until this predatory system of capitalism is destroyed, the poor, especially people of color, will continue to be gunned down by police in the streets, as they have for decades, and disproportionately locked in prison cages.

english spoken here...?

kunstler |  Of course, the Freddie Gray riots in Baltimore last week prompted the usual cries for “an honest conversation about race,” and countless appeals to fix the “broken” public school system. So, in the spirit of those pleas, I will advance a very plain and straightforward idea: above all, teach young black kids how to speak English correctly.

Nothing is more important than acculturating ghetto kids out of their pidgin patois and into real English with all of its tenses, verb forms, and cases. It’s more important initially than learning arithmetic, history, and science. I would argue that it is hardly possible to learn these other things without first being grounded in real grammatical English.

When these kids grow up, their manner of speech will identify them and their prospects for success at least as much as the color of their skin — and probably more, in my opinion. Their ability to speak English correctly will be the salient feature in how others assess the content of their character

I’m sure by now that the racial justice hand-wringers are squirming over this proposal. All dialects are equally okay in this rainbow society, they might argue. No they’re not. Have you noticed that TV news, business, show biz, education, and politics increasingly employ people whose parents came from India and other parts of Asia. Do they speak in a patois lacking in complex verb forms? Apparently not. Are they succeeding in American life, such as it is? Apparently so.

Notice that the speech issue — how people talk — is never part of the “honest conversation about race” that we are supposed to have. Has anybody noticed that in his public speeches Martin Luther King spoke regular English correctly, if with a Southern inflection? Has anybody noticed how important that was in his role as “a communicator?” Why is this crucial question of language absent from the public conversation about “the intractable problems of race in America?” Is it because both blacks and whites are too fearful, too cowardly, to face this particular problem of how English is spoken?

Perhaps this raises the specter of IQ. I’d like to know how any IQ test can be meaningful when the person taking it can’t speak the language that the test is given in. I’m sure that any ghetto kid drilled in English for two years would show substantial improvement in such a generalized test. But, of course, first the American people of all skin tones would have to admit that this is important.

We don’t want to. We’d rather wring our hands over “structural racism” and other canards.