Anti-Abortion Campaigners: Right or Wrong ?

Something very interesting happened today. I was coming out of work at 3.30pm, walking down the street thinking about trivial shit when I looked across the road and saw a group of people praying, two of whom were kneeling. It was perplexing because it was raining like crazy. Anyone who lives in England knows that this county rains like no other on Earth. I was with my umbrella of course. Then I saw this woman on my side of the road, standing holding a rosary. I then asked her politely why they were sitting. She then proceeded to tell me that they were part of a Catholic anti-abortion group called Helpers of the God’s Infants, which has a main office in London. They were praying outside the Marie Stopes clinic, where women can have abortions if they want, which is on the same street as the office that I work at.

What I find peculiar was there was no screaming, no big placards with words like ‘abortion is murder’. The group praying on the other side were quiet and sombre and the lady I was speaking to was incredibly pleasant. We proceeded to have a conversation of the merits of abortion, we also talked about women today.

During our conversation, she told me how she had once had an abortion when it was illegal here in England. She had it because she was raped. I proceeded to tell her that I was deeply sorry that she had been subjected to such a brutal crime and I thought that she was the victim and had the right to do as she pleased. She then told me that she was remorseful as if she had only waited, she felt like she could have taken care of the baby instead of just wanting to get rid of it. She later gave an example of how some women in Rwanda looked at the babies that they had as a consequence of rape as comforts.

Blended Thoughts: Zine woes and Masters

kerosene is really starting to make me sweat. I have had 3 prototypes and they have all been botched. My friend and I have worked hard on the layout using microsoft publisher but for fuck sake, the prototypes keep fucking up with page layouts looking messy. I should have tried to get my hands on Adobe InDesign or something.

It feels nice to have the zine in my hands finally but the mistakes are glaring. I will need to do some more work on it. I think with the final edits that I will do this weekend, the 100 copies should be ready in less than a fortnight.

I think I want to do a Masters as well. In either journalism or politics. I will just apply everywhere in the UK but I have to go somewhere there are black people at least!

Black Women & Blonde Hair: Case Study - Beyonce

Just received my daily dose (doses lol) of concrete loop and stumbled across this image of one of my favourite singers, Beyonce*.

Narrative or Dialogue - Which is easier to write?

I have achieved several writing goals in the past year which includes being published in a magazine. I am very proud of how far I have come in terms of dreaming about writing and actually doing it. I suppose most bloggers have secret dreams of becoming writers and living off writing heavy novels that inspire people (sounds like fun to me lol!) but reality sets in: what exactly makes an amazing novel ?

Narrative and dialogue most definitely come into it but how ? I love reading narrative and I think dialogue adds a nice break to it but I am finding dialogue much harder to write than narrative. much harder. I am working on a short story at the moment and I am very tempted to bin it because the dialogue feels fakey yet the narrative flows out much easier. Do any aspiring writers have this problem too ? Maybe it is because I am writing a short story but I feel like it is looking very pedantic.

I may post a fragment of the short story for critiques so stay tuned!

Looking Back @ The Oscars: Hattie McDaniel

 

1892 - 1952

The Oscars are this Sunday and I was thinking about the ceremony and the symbolism of having an Oscar. Hattie McDaniel was the first black person ever to receive one and according to imdb.com, she may have been the first African-American woman to sing on radio.

Forcing a woman to have an abortion: Fallacy or Reality ?

According to this article in the Guardian, a woman was allegedly force to have a termination.

Siobhan Vitelli told the high court in London that she had been in love with Austen Ivereigh when she became pregnant at the age of 25 in 1989.

Ivereigh, who until July 2006 was director of public affairs for the archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, is suing the Mail over an article that accused him of being a hypocrite.

He disputes allegations that he failed to support Vitelli and another, unnamed woman, who became pregnant with twins in 2006, and gave them no choice but to have abortions.

Vitelli said she would have married Ivereigh if he had asked her, but that he became increasingly distant. “He just made it very clear that he didn’t think we should get married,” she told the high court today.

She added: “He told me that if I ever had another relationship, he would take me to court to take the child off me because I wouldn’t be a fit mother for a Catholic child.”

She said she had contemplated an abortion “because I felt that I was going to be in a position where I was alone”.

Will Smith does not take shit!

 

He does not ramp! Some bullshit news agency claimed that Will Smith said that Adolf Hitler was a good person. What kind of fucking disgusting shit is that!

And now for people who can sing…

 

I was intrigued to hear that Beyonce was going to play Etta James in a new film called Cadillac Records. What is even more interesting is Etta James’ response which was included in an article by PageSix.com, which is part of the New York Post, I believe (first seen @ concrete loop).

Blogs I Love

Invisible Woman tagged me on blogs I like and there have to be 10 of them so here I go!

–Angry Gay Black Canadian Man : Fantastic commentary from a Jamaican-Canadian writer in Canada. This is one of my almost daily visists

– The Black Actor: Another daily visit- I love reading the commentary on the cinematic state in the US for black people.

–Invisible Woman: Well-written blogs that tackles interesting angles on black film in the US

–Toya’s World

–Concrete Loop

–magCulture: you guessed it, a blog about magazines. it is genius

– The Black Snob: (Invisible Woman, thanks for putting this on your list, that is how I discovered it — very interesting perspective on politics).

–A Hot Mess!

–Adventures in Negroshire

–Boring Black Chick: Finally, a blog from a black woman in Britain! Yes! This is a great blog.

Pass it on people!

A

BRIT awards commentary: Paul McCartney & Other Boring People…

Yeah, that is right, I said Paul McCartney is boring! I have never understood the fascination with Paul McCarntney or the Beatles. I think of bare retro black groups or even solo artists who sounded better than they ever could ie, Little Richard. McCartney or Macca as the English press love to call him closed the show. I had the TV on mute when he did the finale because I just don’t care. How his ex-wife is getting blasted in the press here is despicable yet no one touches him cos he is/was a Beatle — fucking ludicrous! but back to the beginning of the BRIT awards which was done at Earl’s Court in the Big Smoke aka London!

Beth Ditto & Mika opened the show. I can’t stand Mika but Beth Ditto is cool. She has become a bit of a feminist icon here in England and she gets points from me because she was wearing a Luella dress and I *heart* Luella.

Rihanna’s performance was terrible. I don’t business if anyone says she is stunning and can be a model (that’s great, whatever) the fact of the matter is she just not good enough! The music industry seems too competitive for lacklustre artists. Maybe she is one of those figures people love to hate or love to love but her performance with the Klaxons was really bad. Umbrella does not sound good when it is adapted to an indie sound!