Okay so if the below were a movie, do you honestly think it would play out like that Nicole Kidman joint “To Die For”? Who would play this women who like to have sex with little black boys? This smells like a reel and a bucket of popcorn since we all know awful weird gross stories sell tickets.
One of the Accused: Wendie Schweikert
Teacher-Sex Scandal Spurs Cries Of Racism
CLINTON, S.C., March 28, 2007
(AP) The arrest of two women teachers on charges of having sex with their male students has brought cries of lingering racism in one of South Carolina’s most conservative counties and evoked some of the South’s oldest and deepest-seated racial taboos. Both women are white. The boys — six in all — are black. Some of the blacks who make up more than a quarter of Laurens County’s 70,000 residents are upset over the handling of the two cases, particularly the release of the teachers on bail. They say the cases reflect the way crimes by whites against blacks in the segregated South were treated less seriously than other offenses, and blacks who leveled accusations against whites were less likely to be believed. “If this had been black teachers, they would not be out of jail right now,” said Corinnie Young, a 49-year-old bookstore employee who is black. Some blacks shudder to think what would have happened if the teachers were black men and the students were white girls. “I can assure you if it were an African American male who committed such an offense against a white female, history shows us that the charges, the punishment and the sentencing would be totally different,” said state NAACP president Lonnie Randolph. “The system ain’t blind when the perpetrator is an African American male or female or when the victim is a white female.” Jerry Peace, the county prosecutor and a white man, said that the teachers are wearing electronic tracking devices and that their release on bail — $125,000 for one, $110,000 for the other — was based not on race, but on the danger to the community and the likelihood that the defendants might flee. In any case, it would be unusual for someone accused of such a crime to be held without bail. Deborah Ahrens, a visiting professor of criminal law at the University of South Carolina, said of the bail amounts for the two teachers: “For the clients that I’ve represented in the past that were up for similar offenses, that sounds about right.” Signs of racial tension, old and new, are not hard to find in Laurens County. The school where one of the teachers worked used to be blacks-only. In the town of Laurens, where one of the teachers taught, an old movie theater has been converted into a Ku Klux Klan museum and paraphernalia store called The Redneck Shop. There, visitors can buy Confederate flags and bumper stickers, such as one that depicts three Klansmen and reads “The Original Boys in the Hood.” Textile mills were once the chief source of jobs in the working-class area about 60 miles northwest of the state capital of Columbia, but the industry went into decline in the 1990s. The main employers now include a maker of plastic coolers and Presbyterian College in Clinton. As of 2003, nearly 15 percent of county residents lived below the poverty line. And as in many communities, most neighborhoods in the county are either black or white. People of different races find themselves side by side in one of two places: work or school. Wendie Schweikert, a 37-year-old married woman who had been teaching elementary school in Laurens for more than a decade, was arrested last year after the mother of an 11-year-old boy accused her of having sex with the boy at school at least twice. Authorities said they found evidence bearing his DNA in her classroom. She is also accused of having sex with him in her car near a miniature golf course and arcade in Greenville, about 40 miles away. Allenna Ward, a 24-year-old minister’s daughter in her second year of teaching, was fired Feb. 28 after she was charged with having sex with at least five boys. Some of the alleged victims, 14 and 15 years old, were students at the middle school in Clinton where Ward taught. Police say Ward, who is married, had sex with the boys at the school, at a motel, in a park and behind a restaurant. Attempts to contact the women in person and by telephone were unsuccessful, and their lawyers did not return repeated calls. Black and white residents alike said they are shocked by the accusations. Many echoed the sentiments of Peggy Hawkins, a 50-year-old white resident. “Boys are boys and she done wrong,” Hawkins said of one of the teachers. The Rev. David Kennedy, a local black activist, is among those who see racism at work. He said the white teachers accused of preying on black students figured “they can do what they want to do with them and they know the consequences won’t be great.” He suggested that blacks in town are too afraid to speak out: “There’s a long history of intimidation and it’s a sin. It’s unholy in Laurens County to speak out.” Parents whose children go to E.B. Morse Elementary School, where Schweikert taught, say they have trouble reconciling the accusations with the woman they knew. “She was very involved,” said Shea Mills, whose son attended the school. “I remember she would make kids pick paper up in the halls.” Bell Street Middle School Principal Maureen Tiller said Ward did well during an evaluation of her skills, and “personality-wise she seemed to be fine.” Nicole Sullivan, whose daughter went to Schweikert’s school, said that when the case broke, students brought home notes saying the teacher had resigned. The notes did not explain why. “I don’t want to say it was a racial thing, but if it were a white victim and a black teacher, I think things would have been handled differently,” said Sullivan, who is black.
You can find me now in the very first edition of “Reverie: Midwest African-American Literature” by Aquarius Press. My short story, “Maxville” was selected as one of the pieces. “Maxville” tells the story of a smalltown middle aged lawyer living in a foreign land and very far away from his bohemian roots, on his way by train to a big change in his life.
Yes okay it’s happened before. I have been published (although this is the first time I got paid for it). However this short story is one my favorites as I was inspired by Marquez and some really hip black chic ancestors that I don’t know personally but saw clues of in “Mahagony” and Jimmy Baldwin’s work. I made my own former pseudo-activists, artists, globally aware idealists who succumb to stagnation and middle classdom albeit in a foreign land. Why? Cause I’m scared that in about 30 years, me and Yaze will be more obsessed with what color we’ll redo the living room than how many soldiers we have who are traumatized by a war that was never won…again.
Here’s the link to check out the collection, which is actually full of really good stuff. You can download it for a mere five bucks. Cheaper than a movie, your lunch and a call to vote for Sanjaya. What are you saying?
http://www.aquariuspressbookseller.net/
I want to post this because I like things that should silence dumb ignorant people. This makes one question where your principles and faith come into play when you have a dream. Do you have a faith or do you need to control until you get what you need? Knee grows be trippin….
Why oh why does the media not do breaking news when this kind of stuff happens? We all know why and it’s because there’s a sleeping giant they prefer not to wake. That giant is a group of people who are affected by crazy child molesting vanilla people who target brown children. I’m talking vanilla, chocolate, coco, banana flaovred folks who just flipping hate ignorance.
Dahmer took forever to get to the headlines because his victims were mostly brown and they were afraid we’d go crazy. We didn’t. We just mourned our 490908540-3954 Dahmer victims (exaggerating the number but once you start eating people and putting their heads in freezers, I feel like your victim count gets multiplied automatically). When we have the usual “black male, 5′10, early 20s” description, you can’t dodge that shit when you go to the bathroom. But let the description be “white male, white female, early 20s, late 40s” and it will be lower than when you’re trying to listen to Biggie at your desk at work.
Folks be straining me sometimes….knee grows be tripping (that would be from one of our favorite websites Crunktastical - to the right, to the right).
Missing Georgia boy found dead
Story Highlights
•Body of 6-year-old Christopher Barrios found• Police treating case as a homicide• Current charges likely to be upgraded against four suspects already in custody• Christopher Barrios was last seen March 8 at trailer park where he lived
BRUNSWICK, Georgia (CNN) — The body of a 6-year-old boy missing since last week was found Thursday beside a road near the Glynn County Airport, police said.
A Department of Natural Resources ranger found the body of Christopher Barrios about 4 p.m., Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering said.
Doering said authorities believe they know the motive for Christopher’s death, but would not elaborate.
The boy’s body was found in a black trash bag in plain sight near the airport, The Associated Press reported.
“It was obvious,” said Cpl. Jesse Cook, a game warden with the Department of Natural Resources. “But if you weren’t looking for it, you probably would’ve thought it was just a trash bag,” he said, according to AP.
Cook and a co-worker involved in the search found the body after they stopped to investigate tire marks where a car had pulled off the road, AP reported.
About 60 volunteer searchers, many wearing T-shirts printed with the boy’s photo, hugged and wept as they learned of the boy’s death, AP reported.
“You suspected all along in your heart; it’s just not the outcome you want,” Mari Charnock told AP. “At least we know, though. At least it’s over.”
Police on Wednesday named a convicted sex offender, his parents and a family friend as suspects in the boy’s disappearance.
George Edenfield, his parents David and Peggy Edenfield, and family friend Donald Dale are being held in connection with the case.
“We believe they were involved in this abduction, and they are the only ones, we believe, involved,” Doering said Thursday.
The four gave information indicating Christopher’s body could be found in a field in the area, but searches there Tuesday and Wednesday turned up nothing.
The body was not where the suspects had told police to look, Doering said.
The four initially faced possible charges of lying to investigators, obstruction of justice and concealing the death of another.
Doering said Thursday the charges were likely to be upgraded.
George Edenfield, 31, was taken into custody Friday for a probation violation, according to Glynn County Police Capt. Jim Nazzrie. A resident of the same mobile home park as the boy, Edenfield consented to a police search of his home, but no clues were found there, Nazzrie said.
Christopher was last seen about 6:15 p.m. March 8, Nazzrie said.
At the mobile home, police spoke with Edenfield’s mother, who told them to search woods they previously had combed, Nazzrie said. A second search of the woods turned up nothing, he said.
Police then arrested Edenfield’s mother, Peggy, on suspicion of interfering with a criminal investigation, Nazzrie said.
“His mother did a lot of talking, like, ‘You need to look here’ and ‘You should look over there,’ ” Nazzrie told CNN. Police followed the leads but found nothing, he said.
Edenfield was convicted of two counts of child molestation in 1997, according to Georgia’s sex offender registry.
Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
Okay, a year or so back, Mary got flack for talking about her issues with the Lizard, I mean K-Ci, because it was a few years later and people thought she was just being petty. I WAS THE LONE SUPPORTER! Mary was talking about it because it was finally far removed from her life! We’ve all been there. You get excited when you hit that moment of “Back up off man, Ex-whatever!” and you really mean it. K-Ci had the never to pretend like he couldn’t even imagine why our beloved Mary was uttering his damn name after all these years. Actually, he should have burned some incense to the PR God because for all we know he was chilling in his Barbie mansion with his brother eating mayonaissey potato salad and hosting some Spades tournaments, falling asleep on the discount couch and burning cigarette holes in it.
All of you said, “No! That man was minding his own…”
Word?
If you watch the below you will notice that his casting call read something like “Black woman, 30s, Mary J. Blige hair, Mary J. Blige hat, Mary J. Blige choreography, Mary J. Blige boots, Mary J. Blige pants, Mary J. Blige lipgloss…” You get it. Is this called “A Star Is Born” or “The Rose”? Maybe it’s not a movie yet and I should write it! Two crackheads fall in love. One crackhead thinks he shits gold. The other crackhead spirals into dispair and her records outsell male crackhead. They break up (or were they ever really together??). Female crackhead goes through somethings and sings about them and all her things outsell male crackhead and his brother who sing about partying with Devante. Female crackhead finds Jesus and STILL outsells male crackhead who hasn’t sold anything at this point. Female former crackhead wins Grammy and performs with U2 on regular basis. Male crackhead is president of the Ike Turner Fan Club for Men (used to be called the He-Man Woman Haters Club with Alfafa and Spanky back in the day but there was a decline in membership during the free love 70s).
By the way, that video looks like it was on The Scene circa 1982 on Detroit’s WGPR Channel 62. See the other post if you don’t know what I mean….”It’s six o’lock and it’s time to rock…”
Being from Detroit, I get mad jokes about how tough everyone else in the world thinks it is there. For a long time I was mad over the stereotype. And when I moved to New York, I got mad at Detroiters for even believing the New York stereotype. But let’s move away from boxes of labels for a second, shall we?
Growing up in Detroit wasn’t hard because it was all I knew. It was quite normal to go to a party and have folks beef and then never get to the slow song dance at the end. That sucked because there was always a cutie you wanted to ask you to dance so he could get your number (with my strict mother, my number giving was a covert operation…but that’s another story). There was always a story of a tragedy. When I was eight, my Girl Scout friend Dawn died in a fire. When I was 10, I saw one of the young brothers from the neighborhood get hit by a car going down the wrong way on St. Antione. Turned out it was his sister. When I was 15, I went to Renaissance High School’s version of the prom, the Spirit Dance, and LUSTED after this fine FINE FINE boy from Cass Tech. Three months later he would go to jail for murder. We are not talking poor dumb ignorant people. We are talking about a society who has no concept of the bigger picture of violence. Why should they? They are the grandchildren of freedom fighters and hustlers. The natural thought would be that these grandchildren would value what was earned. But you cannot forget that they saw how it was earned. Dog attacks, water hosing, lynching, burning and shooting don’t go unnoticed. Those who were in power used violence to try and maintain their power. That is what some of these grandchildren saw and that is the legacy that they are passing down. Sometimes, and you can ask any military soldier this, you only know that you are fighting. You don’t always remember why.
Yale Miller is somebody I only knew through Jessica Care Moore but I realized his impact when I heard her do a poem. His impact on her was so great that even those of us who never met him or met him once, have benefited. This miracle doesn’t even take into account the community activism this father, husband, brother, friend and spirit spread in his short thirty plus years on earth. One day, while visiting a friend, this Angel was gunned down in his Jeep Cherokee. And nobody knows why. I wish I could say that surprised me but I am a child of Detroit and to me that means there are very few times I expect answers. It has benefited me because I know I would go crazy demanding answers from the unknown. I would spend all of my time wondering why my father is only with me in spirit while hatemongers and those who rationalize racism, bigotry and misogyny are still waking up with the sun and get to eat cheeseburgers, see rainbows, kiss their families and own property. America is an equal opportunity place. Good and bad can have rights here. That is something that we live with. But sometimes we are able to do something good. And so I ask that if you know anything about Yale Miller’s murder, that you do something. Here is the link to the Fox (Channel’s story. If you are still composed after seeing Joya then you are a wonder to me.
Many of us who lived in Detroit have graduated and moved on. Friend who died are a flicker in the back of our minds. An illegal drink or puff here. A drive through Belle Isle there. One of my plays, “Fam” , actually deals with how move on from the violence we grew up with in Detroit. Almost like it was a member of the crew that you wish you didn’t have to hang out with so much. But it was always there though. There is a rage that can grow if it only feeds on the bad things.
Yale tried to spread good things so that we may be able to reach back to those hustlers and freedom fighters to let them know that we are trying to improve on where they left off but it is hard. Just today on NPR I heard some nitwit talking about his organization’s promotion of European white immigrants only into the US, citing the inaccurate fact that Latinos bring leprosy (actually that would be coming from a very small portion of Asian immigrants) and malaria (contracted through mosquitoes only, not people). He also cited that there is a plot that Latinos are trying to take back the southern portion of the United States. One, I’m very glad they noticed that the US wasn’t always full of strip malls and McDonald’s. Nor did it belong to any white people. Two, it’s really impossible for Latinos from Mexico and other poorer Latin countries to take back anything since we’ve all but destroyed their economy. The wealthy Latinos in this country are mostly citizens descended from immigrant ancestors. Just like you racist white people who think that keeping people of color out of the country will restore your color balance. One day, color (or lack there of), will stop being the most important thing to you. One day maybe peace, abundance of food, healthy babies, a booming economy, a respect of religion and other cultures will reign supreme in your mind. I cannot imagine what the backlash of that would be.
You can still make people like Yale, who’s whole life was dedicated to justice and love, live forever by your actions. It is never too late to make yourself a better person. Please solve this.
This is what we will always see you as, Yale. Giving and open spirited.
