What I find appalling about you is your constant twisting of words and phrases.

You told people in deafdc.com to “join NBDA”, and now you say “Joining things does NOT prove that one is not racist…there are many reasons that people join organizations.”

And I told you several times that I LISTED my activities IN RESPONSE TO A BLACK MAN’S DIRECT QUESTION. You keep ignoring this and you keep telling me that I am trying to get strokes or whatever when I was not.

And remember, it was YOU who said I should come visit you and that it was not a joke. Now you take that back…really nice of you.

You have revealed yourself to be a hypocrite and statement-twister and a liar, both here and in GallyNet.

But carry on… I’m learning something new about avocadoes… :-)

I also find the hair oil thing interesting. I wasn’t even aware that people had a problem with that. *boggles*

You still missed the point. Joining things does NOT prove that one is not racist…there are many reasons that people join organizations..not all of them are honorable even if they were “encouraged” (this is not an application to you..just a “hard honest truth.” Therefore listing everything you joined was worthless (imo)and still looked as if you were trying to get some kind of “strokes”.

I have family in Indianapolis, was born there and went to Indiana School for the Deaf, left in 1973 after they refused to allow me into Gallaudet. ISD wanted me to skip 12th grade and go directly to Gallaudet. Gallaudet refused me. I quit school soon after and got my GED. However, while in ISD, I was a in the A class, a cheerleader, track team, vollyball. I was in Ann Riefel’s Marla Hatrak, Holly Benedict..some other’s class.

Just a little information to see if you know me. I get to Indianapolis quite a bit. Email me your address and phone number and don’t be surprised if I do take you up on the offer this summer. Nawwww…better not…you might misunderstand that..and I am a bit tired of having my character and reputation attacked. :)

Ciao!

This is the end of the personal communication. Regarding what happened before.. apparently you misunderstood our attempts to educate you..and the fact that THREE + black leaders and a few whites tried to correct you means nothing to you, so I am no longer going to waste my breath. :)

I live in Indianapolis, and I’m a mother of a 2-year-old Deaf son, and I’m also 6 months pregnant. I’m due in January, and I will not be able to travel anywhere for quite a while.

Unless you’re pregnant, there’s nothing to stop YOU from traveling to Indy.

“The NAACP denounces overly aggressive handling of black youth by law enforcement entities, a blatant disregard toward investigating hate crimes and racially discriminatory utilization of prosecutorial discretion,” said Interim NAACP President & CEO Dennis Courtland Hayes. “We demand that the American criminal justice system live up to its Constitutional obligations to serve and protect all Americans with dignity and fairness irrespective of race, ethnicity, gender, religious faith and other differences. Violence and intimidation of our young people is not acceptable, is against the law and must end now.”

The Florida State Conference of the NAACP is holding a march and rally today (Oct. 23) in Tallahassee demanding justice for Martin Lee Anderson, a black 14-year-old who tragically died while in custody at the Bay County Boot Camp last year. To add insult to injury, on Oct. 12 an all white jury acquitted deputies and a nurse who participated in the videotaped violent abuse of Anderson that resulted in his death hours later. The U.S. Department of Justice has agreed to review the case for civil rights violations.

NAACP units will be expressing outrage about the Anderson case as well as the apparent increase in violence and disturbing pattern of attacks against African American youth by law enforcement in their communities and nationwide. For example:

–On Oct. 4, 15- year old Shelwanda Riley was thrown around, punched and pepper sprayed by a Ft. Pierce, Fla. police officer, a man roughly twice her size, as he tried to arrest her for a non-violent curfew violation.

–Last month 14-year old DeOnte’ Rawlings was fatally shot by an off duty Metropolitan Police officer in Washington, D.C. for allegedly stealing a mini-bike and shooting at the officer during a foot chase. An autopsy found no gunshot residue on the boy and several suspicious injuries to his elbows, knees and face.

–In January, Isaiah Simmons, 17, lost consciousness and died after struggling with five adult staff of the Bowling Brook Prepatory School, a privately run residential program under contract with the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services. Witnesses said the staffers sat on the boy’s limbs, chest and head. He was subsequently restrained for three hours. The state medical examiner’s ruled his death a homicide.

–For a year now the NAACP has been engaged in activities seeking fairness for the Jena 6, six teens who have faced overly aggressive prosecution and extended incarceration for fighting with a white classmate in their Louisiana community following a series of racial incidents including the hanging of nooses in a tree at the local high school. One defendant, Mychal Bell, was jailed in an adult facility for nine months before being initially freed.

–In July 2006, videotape showed Donovan Jackson-Chavis, 16, being slammed to the ground, tossed into the air, bounced on the hood of a squad car and choked by police as they handcuffed him for supposedly not dropping a bag of potato chips at a convenience store in Inglewood, Calif. The officers were subsequently charged with assault and fired.

–In July 2003, Marcus Dixon, 15, a straight-A student with a scholarship to Vanderbilt University, was charged with rape, assault and other major offenses then held for over a year for having consensual sex with a white classmate. His 10-year conviction was overturned once jurors disclosed that the Georgia prosecutor had misled them.

–On April 7, 2001 Timothy Thomas was fatally shot by a cop during a foot chase in Cincinnati, Ohio. Police said the young man was reaching for a gun. Thomas, who was wanted on traffic violations, was unarmed and simply holding up his pants as he ran. The officer was cleared in the shooting.

National reports and statistical data also clearly illustrate the criminal justice system’s disparate treatment of African American and other racial and ethnic minority young people.

According to the seminal report on racial disparities in the juvenile system, entitled “And Justice For Some,” commissioned by the Building Blocks for Youth initiative, prepared by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, the NAACP and other organizations using U.S. Department of Justice and FBI data, although minority youth are one-third of the adolescent population in the U.S., minority youth comprise two -thirds of the more than 100,000 young people confined in local detention and state correctional systems.

When white youth and minority youth were charged with the same offenses, African-American youth with no prior admissions were six times more likely to be incarcerated than white youth with the same background. Latino youth were three times more likely than white youth to be incarcerated.

Youth cases waived into the adult court system involve African American defendants at least 50 percent of the time; that number rises to 63 percent when the case involves drugs.

Nationally, custody rates were five times greater for African American youth than for white youth. Custody rates for Latino and Native American youth were two times the custody rate of white youth. Among all offense categories, white youth were more likely than minority youth to be placed on probation.

“The problem of racially disparate treatment in our criminal justice system against must be address at every level of governance, from our towns, counties and hamlets to our major metropolitan cities,” said NAACP Washington Bureau Director Hilary Shelton. “Law enforcement recognizes that in order to be effective at preventing and solving crimes, police officers must have the trust of the community’s they serve. Until this scourge of abuse has been justly addressed they cannot be effective in racial and ethnic minority communities.”

The NAACP has called for hearings not only in Congress but also in every community around the nation in order to clearly understand the scope of this problem and most importantly craft viable solutions.

Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.

http://www.naacp.org/news/pres...../index.htm

I listed my activities in a RESPONSE to a question posed by a black guy.

If he had never asked me such a question, I wouldn’t have volunteered that information, as I don’t believe in calling attention to my activities.

And for the record, several black Deaf friends ENCOURAGED me to join DCABDA and…they nominated me to be their secretary while I was out of town.

The best way to prepare an avocado is to run a knife lengthwise around the outline of the avocado, and then twist the halves apart like an Oreo. You’ll see the pit in the middle, it looks like a wooden ball. Use a heavy knife, and do a medium thwack against it so that the edge of the knife gets embedded in the pit, then you twist the pit and the avocado half apart, and it should come out pretty easily.

If the avocado tastes bland, and not buttery, then it’s not a Haas avocado. I think Haas avocados are available at Whole Foods.

How do you know if they are ripe, what part do you eat and not eat..they taste very bland to me..perhaps it is the way they are made?

p.s…I have to correct myself..the very first time I became color conscious and later forgot as my mother kept different people around was when I was a child and we lived in the poorer section of town..(I am one of the black people that had BOTH parents)…
White kids used to taunt us…so to retaliate, we would go to their fancy park and beat them up…I was younger than 12 at the time.

I don’t actually think it was because of their color but becasue they were making fun of us..so I actually except to notice that they weren’t black..didn’t put it down to race but money.

You can dice the avocados and add them to a spinach salad with mandarin oranges and thin slices of red onion with balsamic viniagrette.

Oh, and the best kind of avocados to get are the Haas avocados.