Desnee Flakes's Open Salon Blog

How The State Of Georgia Plans To Make Me Homeless

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:01:37 -0500

As those who read me know I haven't been posting for a while and now I will share some of that with you here.

I became unemployed back in February of 2012 and applied for unemployment. My job objected to me getting the money and wanted a hearing. I wrote about that job when I first came here, it was a hellhole of a job that I hung onto for a little over 3 years, even though I hated every minute of it. The bills have to get paid so one will allow themselves to be belittled, spoken down to, elevated in one moment to be deflated in the next just to get a check. Well all of that takes a toll on your soul and in my case I was so dejected and depressed that I couldn't even defend myself to the state of Georgia.

In the months that followed Georgia told me that I owed them over 1000.00 for the benefits I received and then I had no income. I lost my car, my heat and lights were turned off, and the only thing that kept me and my pets from the street is my mortgage is in my brother's name.

I owe my life to my neighbor who sensed something was very wrong in Denmark and invited me to dinner then insisted I spend the night for months. While I was there I helped her with her grandmother and her kids. I cooked and drove them in a car loaned to me by another friend to and from daycare or school, when I was asked to.

I finally found another job and this job was right up my alley since it was with young thoroughbreds. I was happy as a lark as I earned enough to get my utilities turned back on and began paying my mortgage myself. Then my boss hired a young Irishman as a foreman, and things took a turn for the worse. When they announced he was coming they asked if anyone knew of a room for rent because he and his wife live in Camden, SC. I have a three bedroom and this seemed like a great opportunity for me to really get back on my feet, but I decided to wait and meet him before making any offers. Am I glad I did that. For me our first conversation was an opportunity to get to know him, and then decide if we would be compatible. I found him to be rude to say the least, in the middle of a sentence he turned away from me and walked out of the barn. He didn't even bother to say I really need to get to the other barns or anything just turned and walked away.

After maybe a week he began to harass me for no known reason. One day he demanded I take an unlit cigarette out of my mouth. I'm 58, you don't demand that I take an unlit cigarette out of my mouth I like to chew on them when I work, because I can't smoke them in the barn. The thing is the boss himself had talked to me while I was in a stall chewing on my cigarette and said nothing, this kid said something when I was in an open paddock and it still wasn't fired up! I said something to the boss about it and he told me that I should talk to the young man because after all we were going to have to work together. I did speak to him, I told him to never speak to me in that manner again. Later in the day we both met with the boss. He lied and told the boss he never said that, but I kept insisting that he did. I should tell you I was a personal friend of the boss and had even done housesitting for him 2 years in a row while he went on vacation with his family. That means that he left me with his worldly possessions and his pets for 2 weeks, which in my mind is a sign of trust. Now he is standing there telling me we aren't friends in this instance and that he doesn't know who is telling the truth. What? You just met this guy a week ago you've known me for over a decade, are you serious? I didn't say it but I surely thought it.

Well things never got better and Ifinally came to the conclusion that this man never wanted to work with me, he treated me differently from the other grooms and he made me miserable whenever he got the opportunity to do so. But I wrote every incident down, even the time I happened around the corner of another barn and caught him talking to a White exercise rider under the shed while the rider smoked a cigarette. I called Human Resources at one point because it was just too much to have to put up with. The handbook states clearly that when you think you are being discriminated against YOU ARE REQUIRED to bring it to the attention of your manager or Human Resources. I did both and got nowhere. The boss came to me that afternoon and insisted I fire myself. Yeah he told me to quit! I refused. He dropped the whole thing when I told him about the retaliation clause in the handbook. A week later I went to him again about this young man and he again insisted I quit. I refused, this time he told me not to come back to the barn but that he didn't fire me.

So once again I called Human Resources but it was Saturday and everyone knows they don't work weekends. But on Monday I heard from the woman who started by telling me I had been fired, then that it was mutual, then that I was laid off. I recorded our conversation and then filed a claim with EEOC. Saturday I mailed off the form that will bring government investigators to the jobsite. I am hoping for justice, but in this world who knows what I will get.

As for Georgia, they are taking half of my measly 243.00 dollars leaving me with less than my mortgage and certainly not enough to pay my utilities. I've written the Secretary of Labor; The President, a local news station, I've spoken with different department heads to request a waiver of the over payment to no avail. At this time I'm looking to lose my home. What really pisses me off is President Obama who likes to talk about how he reads correspondence every night hasn't responded to my call for help, but his campaign is still asking me for money to help him. I would laugh if I didn't want to personally punch him dead in his mouth.

There I Said It!!

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:01:35 -0500

I don’t like White people. It came to me as I was watching The Secret Life of Bees. Everyone will walk away from the book or movie feeling something different but, what I walked away with was Black people have nurtured White people and placed ourselves in harm’s way for them repeatedly. I see very few White people having that spirit. My best friend is White she rarely calls me and she doesn’t do anything that requires her to go out of her way for me. I think the only reason I still call her my friend is because she helped create my Goddaughter. I realize too that she may read this and she may become offended, but I honestly don’t understand how one becomes offended with another about their behavior. I’m merely giving voice to how I feel. Even that relationship is complex for me because although my love for this child is boundless the detached relationship I have with her parents reminds me of the relationship of the mammy with their young White charges.

Don’t get me wrong there are many White people with whom I have a genuine affection, respect, and love for. Our friendship isn’t about the color of our skins, and yet for many Black people and I include myself here it (everything) is about our skin. That isn’t a self created reality it is a reality created to emotionally imprison the Black self. White people don’t realize they too are imprisoned by their elevated status. When I say elevated I can hear the I’m broke, unemployed/underemployed, or drowning in debt responses that tell you we are the same. But if you and I were both digging the same ditch in the blistering sun and the White (and often Black) boss had a job that would place one of us in the shade the odds are better than 75% that I would still be out in the sun. But I’m increasingly finding it harder to overlook behaviors that appear selfish, racist, and or downright ugly.

I have been in an industry for well over 30 years and there have been a number of my peers who have advanced well beyond me. I often wonder do these friends ever question why I haven’t moved any further in my career. I also wonder do they know the reason but dare not say it aloud because that would somehow diminish what they have accomplished? Do they become comfortable with the disparity because the alternative is to be uncomfortable with how easy it is to close one’s eyes to the iniquity? Do they just not think about it at all? The shame of that beyond the innate compulsion to treat us differently without even thinking about it is many of us have been inculcated or indoctrinated so well that even when we do it to each other we use justifications that are centuries old. And we use them just like everyone else does. That is pretty powerful hoo doo when you can turn a person on the race from which they sprang so completely they use the royal “we” including themselves in a group to which they can never fully belong. Ask Tiger, Michael Jackson, and OJ about that one. This is who the character of Stevie (Samuel Jackson) in D’Jango Unchained represents. By the way I thought it was his most powerful performance since he played the junkie in Jungle Fever. The Academy and Golden Globes didn’t see either character as a stretch perhaps because many of them know, love, and appreciate some Black who is so unaware of their own condition. They also didn’t pick Leonardo DiCapprio, my feeling is that is because White people have tricked themselves into thinking this character no longer exists or that while he would be prize worthy in a Nazi uniform he/she is quite unacceptable in a slave owner’s outfit. But only because he/she is an uncomfortable reminder of a past most don’t want to remember.We live in a world that has White people going so far as to want to change the very nature of history of slavery. That isn’t new of course, because it was part and parcel of the institution itself. White people then called slaves, (who literally built the South and connected it to the West) and later sharecroppers lazy and shiftless. White Republicans today use the same language to describe the first Black President. He, like Stevie, has done as much to the rest of us when he told an NAACP audience that they need to take off their house slippers and get off the couch. Interesting dichotomy that General Powell called that the language of slavery when ascribed to his party members, but wasn’t offended or at least never voiced it publically when the President used virtually the same language addressing a largely Black audience.

Right about now someone is highly offended that I have lumped all Whites into this group. Well welcome to the world where all Hispanics are hard working and just wanting to make a better life for themselves. Sound familiar; is this something you’ve said about all Hispanics as if it is the God’s honest truth? Or how about when you see a group of young Black men standing together do you whisper to your friend “let’s cross the street” without thinking for one minute. Maybe you feel that way because unlike Hispanics, Blacks for hundreds of years have been associated with negative behavior or attributes.No behavior that we have exhibited can compare to the hundreds of thousands of Blacks that White people raped, tortured, mutilated, and killed. Nor can you compare our behavior with White and Hispanic peoples who practiced slavery then wrote laws to amalgamate their populations, disarm us, and fool us into thinking our rights are equal to your own. Buying that assertion is akin to a person attending a party and wearing elephant dung on their head; a great many of the other party goers are going to avoid you, some will be curious about you, and a few will be attracted because you are bold enough to wear your difference. While the odor is different you do become accustomed to it and you realize it isn’t going to kill you, plus the person wearing it is interesting on a number of levels.

So there I said it and some will actually read this with insight and understanding that not all White people are White people, or all Hispanics are Hispanic people, or all Blacks are Black people. But you will perhaps learn that certain behaviors can make you the problem in your racial or ethnic group. And it is your job, responsibility, or obligation to learn to recognize and change them. The alternative is you can own them with great pride.

The Man Who Wasn't There Bears Witness

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:03:22 -0400

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What kind of journalism is it when a third party named Joe Oliver is interviewed about an incident which he was not present for? Chris Matthews announced that he had a guest on Hardball that would shed light on the Trayvon Martin shooting. What he had was a friend of George Zimmerman appear to tell us what George Zimmerman wants us to believe.

He attempted to shade the incident, and to dispel the notion that George may have used the word coon. He did this by stating that George was not culturally white. If George filled out a Census form he was asked if he is Hispanic white or Hispanic black. He had a third option to claim some other race or SOR. I highly doubt that he chose SOR, and suspect that he self identified as Hispanic white. Even if he didn't I can direct anyone to the series by Dr. Henry Louis Gates titled Black in Latin America. You will see that whatever racism exist here there were actually programs in Latin America to "lighten" the populace. I can also direct you to videos by Latino actors, all black, who discribe the racism that exist within their own family structures and community. We are also being asked to believe though his father is a white American, he is culturally Hispanic. What exactly does that mean?

He states that George Zimmerman was attacked by Trayvon, again this man wasn't present so he is merely repeating what George Zimmerman has told him. By now George has to be aware that even the authors of the bill have stated that from the 911 recording he can't use the Stand Your Ground defense because he was stalking Trayvon. I'm wondering other than Trayvon's color and his choice of outerwear in the rain, what did he do that made him suspicious? And what is Zimmerman's defense if those are the only criteria he used to pursue him? Is that all a citizen or cop needs as a defense to shoot a black man? Meanwhile an actual witness appeared on Rev. Sharpton's Politics Nation, Mary Cutcher stated she heard the boy crying for help. She went further to ask if that was Zimmerman why wasn't he crying right after shooting Trayvon? Good question. In other reports she and her roomate saw Zimmerman straddling Trayvon's body and that he made no effort to help him. A boy identified only as Austin stated as the other witnesses had that they only heard a boy crying for help prior to the shot.

Trayvon's parents are angry because an authorized source within the police department has leaked information that their evidence bears out Zimmerman's account. However, there is no record of anyone asking George Zimmerman for an account of the incident on the scene. Further Mr. Oliver states that his friend is in hiding fearing for his life, that's ironic because I think Trayvon being followed probably was in fear for his life as well. That might not have been the first time Trayvon was followed by a white man, we will never know, but we do know that in his phone call to his girlfriend he states he won't run, he will walk faster. Was that from a past experience or was that something his parents taught him?

For Trayvon's parents I will say get used to your son's character being attacked. I learned that in my son's murder trial. Not only can they attack your son's character, they don't have to prove a word they say about him. If they have to prove it then the ADA in my case was even worse than I thought. She couldn't refute anything the defense said: because she hadn't bothered to ask me or my grandmother a single question about who Chace was. Nor did she call a single character witness. Also Zimmerman has several violent incidents for which he has a record, but those cases can't be used at trial as they aren't related to the Martin case. So while they can talk about why Treyvon was suspended from school-- which has no bearing on the case--it is only the defendants past that is out of bounds. The dead victim can only hope that the ADA is truly their advocate.

The longer this investigation goes on the more it appears that Robert Zimmerman's career as a Virginia Magistrate and wife Gladys' career as a court clerk have given their son some advantage with the authorities. From where I sit it appears that the police never saw the shooting as a possible murder and therefore did nothing to preserve any evidence. This seems to be one of the glaring problems with the Stand Your Ground law as it applies here, all one has to do to claim they were defending themselves. The witnesses have stated before that they felt their witness statements had been altered to make it appear they were supporting Zimmerman, when in fact they weren't. Had the Martins felt they had no recourse rather than to use social media to force the hand of justice, these gaping holes might not have been seen till the next Trayvon Martin died. We really owe them a debt of gratitude for not being cowed by a system that at this moment seems skewed towards a man with a history of violence, who is described by some as a "wanna be" cop.

And Justice For All

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:03:37 -0400

I have not been able to bring myself to read the multiple stories here concerning Trayvon Martin for one reason Chace Coe. Chace was my son and he was shot in the back of his head with an AK-47 one night in February 1993. I had just returned back in Elmont, NY after a winter in South Carolina. It was a long lonesome drive except for my dog Sunny, who was my constant companion. I recall I hadn't been asleep long... when the call came.

My boyfriend answered the phone, but I woke up because it was the middle of the night, and those calls are always bad news. I watched my boyfriend's face, between the color leaving his face, and his stunned silence I knew whatever it was it was bad. He looked at me and said it's your grandmother. I could hear her crying no -- wailing-- before I put the phone to my ear. When I said, "Motherdear what is it?" She screamed,"He's been shot! Chace has been shot!" I was scared to ask if he was dead, because I didn't want to know. No mother wants to know.

Once I found out he was in the hospital I packed my stuff, because I had to catch a plane to Gary, Indiana. I had to get to my child before he died. I had to let him know that I loved him, and I had to bargain with God for his life. My boyfriend made the arrangements then he got me to the airport right away. I recall that there were moments of great calm, as well as hysterical crying fits through the flight; but the flight attendants were wonderful with me. They even bumped me to first class, which was pretty empty they even tried to give me free drinks. I refused the drinks, and hid my face in a pillow to avoid making the other passengers feel uncomfortable.

My son didn't officially die before I got to him, but he was brain dead: we arranged with the hospital to keep him alive until my family could make it from various parts of the country.

People keep talking about how well Trayvon's parents are holding up in light of what they are dealing with. And I can only speak for myself, but when your child has been killed, and you know who did it--that-- becomes your focus. You still have the moments when you lose it, but you have something much more pressing than grief that keeps you moving. It isn't about revenge, at least it wasn't for me, but it was about justice for my child.

What far too many Black parents find is that justice is hard to come by if the media doesn't pick up the story, and most of the time they don't. Our children's lives are thrown on the dung heap of what passes for a justice system. If it isn't gang related; or a death because your child was killed while in the commission of a crime, and if the crime doesn't solve itself...it isn't like Law & Order. The detective didn't contact me after her initial contact, which was to introduce herself. She also let me know that my son was one of those rare cases of a victim that everybody liked.

The next time we spoke she attempted to label him a gangbanger. I asked her based on what? She told me he hung out with a group of boys, and that they had been in fights in high school. At that point I educated her that I had grown up in middle-class white neighborhoods, and that my friends had grown up with each other, and they often went to parties and got into fights. The difference is at no time would the cops have labeled them gangbangers for doing what teen boys do. I also informed her to think of me as white, and to not make that mistake with me again.

We spoke once after that. I had called the police with a lead on the van used in Chace's murder, my detective was off so I left her a message. You would think in a murder investigation that another detective would have taken the information and checked it out. When I called her three days later she hadn't even gotten the message, or so she claimed. She was more interested in how I had gotten the information than using it to find a killer. I was later educated that police don't have to investigate murders. That way if they don't do their job, you can only sue them if you can prove collusion between the cop and the killer.

My father hired a private investigator, for $5,000.00 he went to the police station once, and he was told there was no investigation of Chace's murder. I was later told the same thing when I spoke with a policeman. I went to the local paper and spoke with them about my son, but a little blonde haired, blue eyed girl had gone missing. In the real world black kids aren't a priority. So I called the Oprah Winfrey show, surely she would care, also Gary is just 32 miles outside Chicago. I never heard from Oprah.

Chace and I never saw justice: three years after his death a Federal taskforce brought his killer to trial. The evidence they had was based on the information I had given the police. I had gotten the information about who drove the van; who was in the car, who shot Chace, and what they did with the van from a twelve year old. He was a student of my friend, and I befriended him on my visits to their class. I encouraged him to study and lavished him with attention, because he had behavior problems. He responded by telling me everything after my friend took him some of Chace's comics, which I wanted him to have. The driver was his brother.

The taskforce had no weapon, no van, and no motive. Their witnesses were serving time. One was a drug dealer doing 50 years on a federal cocaine charge. He had been in the car. The other was a convicted arsonist, his girlfriend bought the missing gun, which was sold to the defendant. The Assistant DA that tried the case had never tried a murder case, and she met with my grandmother and myself once for less than half an hour. She never conveyed to the jury the wonderful artist and kid that had been shot for a car amplifier. In three days she did nothing other than present a bare bones case, and let a killer go free.

I'm not angry or bitter that Trayvon's parents have been able to use social media to draw attention to their son. Their use of social media to drive the "real" media to the circumstance of their son's death gives me hope. I not only hope they will get justice, but I hope that other parents use social media to drive a nation to see that justice isn't for everybody.

Was That A Fracking Earthquake??!!!

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:03:23 -0400

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There are whispers across different media that fracking may be linked to earthquakes. This is disturbing news in the least; and at best it should focus attention on alternative energy sources, which may not have been fully vetted in terms of safety concerns. In the alternative energy world we seem more preoccupied with finding new sources of energy than with the consequences of what those energy concerns produce.

The Washington Post, did a story in January that focused on earthquakes in Ohio. Youngstown, Ohio --has never had an earthquake-- until 2011. Seismologists are blaming the eleven earthquakes in Youngstown on fracking. It's believed that the waste water from fracking is the trigger. John Armbruster, a seismologist on the Columbia University's Lamont- Doherty Earth Observatory team states the disposal well is like a hydraulic jack; it slowly splits the underground fault; which in forcing the two sides apart causes a slip, and the slip becomes an earthquake.

Because of earthquakes the drilling site in the FingerLakes region in Western New York was closed in 2011. I can't help but ask if the series of quakes that shook the Northeastern states in 2012 are also related to the fracking being done especially in Pennsylvania? Hopefully I'll soon have an answer for that.

The Oklahoma Geological Society also did a study they published in August of 2011. In their summary they determined that seven hours after hydraulic fracking activity began at the Eola Field in Garvin County the first of --50 quakes-- was felt. While they note that it is highly reasonable that the hydraulic fracturing was the catalyst for the quakes, they stop short of making it the definitive reason for the quakes.

In a state impact paper reported and researched by David Barer and Yana Skorobogatov for Texas, it isn't the fracking itself, but the waste water wells which are the culprit. Each well uses massive amounts of water up to 4.5 million gallons, and Texas has 50,000 such chemically laced standing water wells. Quakes in Texas have been linked to the Eagle Ford Shale and the Barnett Shale.

Maybe we should be fighting for Josh Fox the director of Gasland to be able to film what the Energy Commission is proposing. Fracking has been exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the EPA does't even have jurisdiction over this industry. So the issues connected with this energy source are diverse, and demand that far more research needs to be done. Between undrinkable firewater and earthquakes this has the appearance of one of those ideas looking to blowup (literally) in our faces.

Coming to the aid of the Fracking industry is a husband and wife pair of filmakers, Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer with a film titled "Frack Nation." Their previous film was a rebuttal of Al Gore's "An Inconvenienent Truth" titled "Not Evil Just Wrong." In February they were at CPAC solicting support for their efforts. They also have a web page to drum up funds it is called Kickstarter.

There is a history of how the oil industry and our government have responded to environmental concerns in the past. I would call it the ask questions later policy.

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In case you were living under a rock in the spring and summer of 2010 I've added a reminder of how well that policy works.

I included this video from CNN about the earthquakes that were plaguing Arkansas; but what I found most informative is both the time lapse map provided by geologists, and the obfuscation used by state oil and gas regulators. The map shows a causal link between fracking and earthquake activity, but regulators continue to call it a coincidence.

They state the area has a history of earthquakes, but the news report starts by saying that the preparation of school children isn't something you would expect in this area. Why wouldn't it be expected if these quakes are common place?

I trust that those who are interested in this issue will be able to make up their own minds, so I've included an interview with Marvin Odum, President of Shell making his case for fracking. I will leave it to you if he answers any questions you have about the safety of this procedure, if you believe that earthquakes are or aren't related, and if you think your drinking water is protected from fracking.

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