Who is Samantha Orobator?

One of the reasons I love being a part of the Afrospear is that I get a chance to interact and get information from some very talented bloggers. The latest comes from my man Rock over at African American Political Pundit.

Thanks Rock, for turning me on to this story. If bloggers of color don't bring these stories to the main stream's attention they won't get told.

But I digress; here is the story from Rock's blog:

"Hat Tip to Aulelia at the Afrospear Think Tank, for the link to this story about the Pregnant Black Woman who may be executed in Laos. Also a big Hat Tip to Thomas Bell, of the telegraph.co.uk, South East Asia Correspondent for reporting this story. I scanned Samantha Orobator's name on Google and found only 2,000 entries, the BBC is covering the story, as is many foriegn news outlets, including the Bangkok Post. Yet there is very little attention in the U.S. Press other than USAToday.

There are only a few bloggers reporting in the situation including the Afrospear Think Tank, Madness of the World, and folks like David T. Breaker who writes:"We pay Laos 35 Million and let them shoot British tourists."

AAPP says: Get this, Samantha Orobator fell pregnant four months after being taken into prison. Is there any question this pretty black woman was raped? I wonder if Samantha Orobator was blonde and blue eyed, if media in the U.S. would cover this story big time? What do you think?

According to the telegraph.co.uk, Miss Orobator, 20, from London was arrested last August at Wattay airport in the south east Asian country.

Prosecutors claim she had 680 grams (1.3lb or 21 oz) of heroin in her luggage.
According to the legal campaign group Reprieve she has not met a lawyer since she was arrested 9 months ago but it is believed that she denies the drugs were hers.

Under Lao law the death penalty is mandatory for possession of over 500 grams of heroin. At least 39 people have been sentenced to death for a variety of offences since 2003.
On Thursday, without warning or explanation, the government of Laos rescheduled Miss Orobator's trial for next week, but they have still not announced which day the case will begin. "

More here.

One of the beautiful things about the A-murder-can judicial system is that you are always presumed innocent, and it is up to the state to prove your guilt. Unfortunately, in many other countries, it's the other way around. From all reports this woman has been sitting in jail for nine months without being able to see a lawyer. That, my friends, is a travesty.

I honestly don't know if this woman is guilty or not. I don't know if she was a drug mule, as some stories would suggest, or if she was just an innocent tourist. What I do know is that her story is getting zero publicity here in A-murder-ca, and as a result, it is hard for us to form an opinion of her, one way or the other.

"And Justice For All"?

By BOB HERBERT Op-Ed Columnist New York Times 19 Sept 2008————
"Troy Davis, who was convicted of shooting a police officer to death in the parking lot of a Burger King in Savannah, Ga., is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday.

There is some question as to his guilt (even the pope has weighed in on this case), but the odds of Mr. Davis escaping the death penalty are very slim. Putting someone to death whose guilt is uncertain is always perverted, but there’s an extra dose of perversion in this case. The United States Supreme Court is scheduled to make a decision on whether to hear a last-ditch appeal by Mr. Davis on Sept. 29. That’s six days after the state of Georgia plans to kill him.

Mr. Davis’s lawyers have tried desperately to have the execution postponed for those few days, but so far to no avail. Georgia is among the most cold-blooded of states when it comes to dispatching prisoners into eternity.

So the lawyers are now trying to get the Supreme Court to issue a stay, or decide before Tuesday on whether it will consider the appeal. No one anywhere would benefit from killing Mr. Davis on Tuesday, as opposed to waiting a week to see how the Supreme Court rules. So why the rush? The murder happened in 1989, and Mr. Davis has been on death row for 17 years. Six or seven more days will hardly matter.

Most of the time, the court declines to hear such cases.
If that’s the decision this time, Georgia can get on with the dirty business of taking a human life. If the court agrees to hear the appeal, it would have an opportunity to get a little closer to the truth of what actually happened on the terrible night of Aug. 19, 1989, when Officer Mark Allen MacPhail was murdered. He was shot as he went to the aid of a homeless man who was being pistol-whipped in the parking lot.

Nine witnesses testified against Mr. Davis at his trial in 1991, but seven of the nine have since changed their stories. One of the recanting witnesses, Dorothy Ferrell, said she was on parole when she testified and was afraid that she’d be sent back to prison if she didn’t agree to finger Mr. Davis. She said in an affidavit: 'I told the detective that Troy Davis was the shooter, even though the truth was that I didn’t know who shot the officer.' Another witness, Darrell Collins, a teenager at the time of the murder, said the police had ’scared’ him into falsely testifying by threatening to charge him as an accessory to the crime. He said they told him that he might never get out of prison. 'I didn’t want to go to jail because I didn’t do nothing wrong,' he said.

At least three witnesses who testified against Mr. Davis (and a number of others who were not part of the trial) have since said that a man named Sylvester 'Redd' Coles admitted that he was the one who had killed the officer. Mr. Coles, who was at the scene, and who, according to authorities, later ditched a gun of the same caliber as the murder weapon, is one of the two witnesses who have not recanted. The other is a man who initially told investigators that he could not identify the killer. Nearly two years later, at the trial, he testified that the killer was Mr. Davis.

So we have here a mess that is difficult, perhaps impossible, to sort through in a way that will yield reliable answers. (The jury also convicted Mr. Davis of a nonfatal shooting earlier that same evening on testimony that was even more dubious.) There was no physical evidence against Mr. Davis, and the murder weapon was never found. As for the witnesses, their testimony was obviously shaky in the extreme — not the sort of evidence you want to rely upon when putting someone to death.

In March, the State Supreme Court in Georgia, in a 4-to-3 decision, denied Mr. Davis’s request for a new trial. The chief justice, Leah Ward Sears, writing for the minority, said: 'In this case, nearly every witness who identified Davis as the shooter at trial has now disclaimed his or her ability to do so reliably.'

Amnesty International conducted an extensive examination of the case, documenting the many recantations, inconsistencies, contradictions and unanswered questions. Its report on the case drew widespread attention, both in the U.S. and overseas. William Sessions, a former director of the F.B.I., has said that a closer look at the case is warranted. And Pope Benedict XVI has urged authorities in Georgia to re-sentence Mr. Davis to life in prison.

Rushing to execute Mr. Davis on Tuesday [Sept. 23, 2008] makes no sense at all.————–"

Well, thanks to the work of some good human beings, like the folks in the Afrospear (See FNOTD), I think justice might be served. The victims family, of course, is convinced that the right man is on death row. But what if they are wrong? “It should have happened today,”.. but justice will be served.” Yes it will, but you have to give it a chance. Like Mr. Herbert said: "what's the rush?"

You really have got to ask yourself; what kind of country or state puts a human being to death when there is doubt about his guilt? What does that tell you about the state of Georgia, and the folks who are charged to administer justice there? I have no mercy for cop killers. None! But I don't know if Mr. Davis is one. I don't know if he pulled the trigger in the Burger King parking lot that day. And I can't condone putting a human being to death when there is still so much doubt about his guilt.

As a society, we still have such a long way to go. The scales of justice are still too imbalanced. The size of our pocket books and the color of our skins is often the deciding factor in what kind of justice we will get, and it shouldn't be that way. Sadly, here in A-merry-ca, that's just the way it is. Let us all hope that it's not that way for Troy Anthony Davis. Let us all hope that he at least gets a chance.

Should it be Black or black?

"It's all a bunch of crap. Americans are Americans are Americans. I am of Irish, Dutch, English and German heritagebut I am not called European-American, just American. Why can't we all just leave it at that. I you live in England, you are British. If you live in Germany, you are German. If you live in Africa, you are African. And if you live in America, you are American. ENOUGH ALREADY!"



That comment was from a poster named "Chief" who was commenting on a message board where i happened to be lurking. They were talking about capitalizing the b in black and the w in white. The question was; is it proper to do so?

Now i know that the PC set will always capitalize the B when they refer to us black folks. But please don't do us any favors, it's just a fucking letter in a word, it won't improve one public school or get one single illegal gun off the street.


This fine Afrospear blogger had a problem with the Houston Chronicle not capitalizing the b in black, and it prompted an interesting discussion. And note Francis Holland's comments in the comment section of that post: He is right of course, some white people lose their natural minds when the B in black is capitalized. As if black folks are going to somehow become empowered because there is a capital B in black. (See "Chief", that's why we can't just leave shit in A-merry-ca, because people get hung up over a capital fucking B)



But it's an interesting question, and i have gotten e-mails in the past about it. "Field why don't you capitalize the B when you write the word black when referring to black folks?" Ahhh because it's a color designation and not a reference to a race or nationality. Now to be honest, i am such a lazy ass writer, and i have such disregard for such things (just ask my grammar coach woozie) that there might have been a time or two where i might actually have capitalized the B in black, and i probably went on to write the b as lower case in the very next sentence. And if someone looks hard enough, i am sure they will find posts where I capitalized the W in white, and where i used the lower case w as well. My writing is just schizo like that.

If i am referring to an Asian, a Native American, a Caucasian, or a Negro, i will always capitalize, because that is an ethnic designation. But if i am referring to someones supposed color, well, as my man Borat says; "not so much". "But field what about the word colored?" Nope, i won't capitalize that either. That is still referring to a form of color designation, and besides, us black folks don't even like that word anymore. So "colored" will always have a lower case c when i use it. You will never see me capitalizing "colored". Never!

And a countries' first letter will always get capitalized, even if i spell it funny. So i will never start A-merry-ca with a lower case, because, well, it's a country, and A-merry-cans deserve more.

Oh well, maybe one of the smart people who comment here will tell me what is proper and what is not. i know one thing i am going back to capitalizing i. My ego can't take this lower case shit anymore. Yes, I like this a little better.

F**K EM BOTH

Someone recently said (and I am paraphrasing here) that we black folks shouldn't be the dumb-o-cratic party hoes; and quite honestly, I agree with him and everyone who thinks the way that he does. ( I think it was this brotha)

If black people who blog or are regulars on the Internet need further proof that the so called progressives don't care about them, I hope they go to the blog roll here for all the proof they will need. I like Oliver Willis, but if it wasn't for my man, the white folks in the dumb-o-cratic party wouldn't even know that we exist. I mean really. How the fuck can you explain the dearth of blogs of color on this dumb-o-cratic site when there is damn near 100 blogs of color in the Afrospear alone? Hell, if you look at my blog roll, you will see over 200 blogs being run by people of color.

Now don't get it twisted, until the repub-lie-cans change their evil Fascist ways and dump some of their leaders at the top, they ain't seeing my black ass in their big tent either. But I can't rule out a vote for them every now and then. I would vote for a repub-lie-can if I thought it would benefit my family or my people. And there are some local repub-lie-can politicians who would get my vote faster than some of of these poverty pimps that the dems like to trot out from time to time.

The moral of this story is this: don't get locked into one party or the other just because of their name. Think for yourself and formulate your own political beliefs based on your studies, your convictions, and your experiences . I just happen to consider myself a world citizen, with a secular, libertarian, progressive streak. So that pretty much takes me out of the repub-lie- can camp. But I am not a dumb-o-crat either. Because the one thing I hate even more than a holy rolling racist, is a hypocrite.

CURIOUS FIELD

This post is going to be...well, interesting. You see I was having lunch with a very nice sister the other day, and we got to talking about inter racial relationships. This eventually led to talk about a certain web site, [No direct links for you. You can link the site through one of the links below] and the interesting twist she puts on the whole interracial dating thing.

Said web site is run by a black female who promotes interracial relationships and encourages sisters to date outside of their race. OK, so far so good, because, hey, this is A-merry-ca, and to each his (or her) own as far as I am concerned. True love can be color blind, so that is not my issue.

But then I remembered, this is the same sista that was the cause of an e-fight between two talented black brothers, a fight which I think has caused an ongoing strain in their relationship. Hell, I think I even got between the tit for tat with a post or two, because I thought the entire issue with this blogger was undermining the true spirit of the Afrospear movement.

Anyway, I went to the site, of one of the brothers involved and my suspicions were confirmed. This was the same site run by the same female blogger who somehow had managed to become the object of all this discussion. Now I have no problems with this sista wanting to date outside of her race; but bashing brothers while she goes "Monsters Ball" on us is quite a different story.

So the purpose of this post is to ask this simple question: (Because I have some strong suspicions about this sista) Has anyone ever seen a picture of this blogger? If you have, could you please send me a link? Or, if the blogger herself happens to be reading this and has a photo of herself, the field would appreciate a link. **WARNING** if you send me your picture I will post it.

Maybe later I will get into why this is important; but for now, ---I am sorry to be so cryptic -- that is all I have to say :)

Peace. (I think)

My heart is in Jena

Sometimes you are a part of something big and you don't eve realize it. The Jena 6 case comes to mind. Thanks to the Afrospear movement and other bloggers of color out there, I have known about the Jena 6 case for months now. It seemed almost surreal to watch it grow and take on a life of it's own. A newspaper story here, a local news clip there, little by little the country started to take notice, and now....

For those of us black activist who use the web as a tool for change, we have been e-mailing each other, blogging about Jena,calling each other, and organizing on the web for months, about this travesty of justice down in Bayou country. Now, finally, the rest of America has caught on. This is now national news, and the Jena 6 has springboarded into our national conscience. It also reinforces my belief that the Internet and the world wide web can also be used as a tremendous tool for activism and organizing for social change.

Today is the culmination of all the work that everyone that rallied around this case has done. There will be a huge rally in Jena today in support of those six men, and from all indications so far it is going to be massive. Countless buses have already left my area, loaded with activist and people who want a change, and who are all just sick and tired of being tired. African American College students have mobilized and united around this cause, and activism seems to have taken the place of apathy.

It would also be a shame if I didn't mention one newspaper reporter, Howard Witt, from the Chicago Tribune, who was on top of this story from day one, and who was the first in the main stream media to bring attention to Jena. Yes, long before Jessie, Al, and all the usual civil rights camera hounds, Mr. Witt was on this shit like Skippy on Wonder Bread.

So off to work I go. I wish I could be in Jena, but sadly, I guess I am not such a field Negro after all. The plantation work needs to be done, and massa is calling. If I were a real field Negro, I would have told massa to kiss my ass, flew down to Baton Rouge, rented a car, and headed up to Jena. But that's alright, I will get my protest in somehow.

I am wearing black today. It took awhile, but I pulled it off. Black suit,dark gray shirt, and black silk tie. I look like Regis from those old "Who wants to be a millionaire days". But hey, I had to do my part. I am also going to be heading off to a protest this morning out in Westchester, Pennsylvania, because I just had to be a part of this incredible day somehow.

Let's keep those marchers down in Louisiana in our hearts, and let's walk with them---at least in spirit---every step of the way.

Peace.

We can all get out of the barrel together.

I have a couple of confessions to make. I like apple pie more than watermelon, and I thought the Captain and Tennille were better than Peaches & Herb. OK so there, I said it. But please stay with me, I am trying to make a point here. My taste in music and food is diverse and varied. And even though I am as black as they come, I happen to like some of the same things that my melanin challenged friends do. But that's just me. There are lots of black folks out here who probably can't stand apple pie, and who probably keep "Reunited" in steady rotation on their ipods. So even though we all might look alike, (at least we do to FOX NEWS) deep down we are all different. My point is this:

It must be really hard to figure out how to please us black folks, and what we really want. We are, after all, individual human beings. Our individual needs are just as diverse as all the other races. But there are things that I am sure most black people can agree on, and that most black people can unify around- at least I think there is, cause honestly, lately I am not so sure- And that is what we all want; to get the f**k out of the barrel!

I have been thinking about this for the past couple of days. Partly due to my post about the recent bullshit that I read about over at Kos, and partly because of the responses that I have been getting from my white liberal friends about it. I mean I basically called out white liberals to recognize; and to get real about racism and the different challenges we face in this country. But it must be hard on them to really get a grip on this race thing, because there is no one black person speaking for all of us. One poster to this site (I think his name was "reasic" wanted to know what the democratic party can do to better reach out to blacks. I believed he was truly concerned and I attempted to give him some answers primarily about issues that I am oncerned with.

But while doing some blog hopping recently, and I stumbled into the what seemed to be some polemic wranglings between one of my brothers in the AfroSpear circle, free slave, and another brother named Micheal Fisher. (More about the names in a minute) The shit seemed so petty and counterproductive that it left me wondering; whats the point? What's the use of calling out white folks and telling them to get their shit together if we can't get our own house (or should I say barrel) in order?

I hate to jump into the middle of this particular clash, because these two men are both grown and intellectually sound enough to fight their own battles. But I am firmly in the AfroSpear, and I am committed to that movement. I like Max Julian (The Free Slave) and I believe that he is committed to the struggle as well. The other brother, unfortunately, I don't know too much about. I do know that he was pissed at the "Spear" over a perceived slight of a sister over there, and he has been demanding an apology from some of it's members ever since. I read his site, and besides the dude who commented on his post and seems to be the Flav to his Chuck D (his own personal hype man) it seems cool enough. The guy has also gone after my homey, Asa on occasion. (I think he called him a religious fascist or some shit like that), but hey, no harm no foul, Asa seems to have moved on. Now as I said, this is not my fight, so I will try and stay out of it. Although I will say this to the brother, who seems to have issues with people who use avatars and not their real names. I choose to use an avatar on this blog because that is what 90% of bloggers do. Please believe that it would be very easy for someone to utilize google and get my real name if that's so important to them. But that's not what this blogging thing is about with me. This is about finding an avatar that I think represents a manifestation of my beliefs and sticking to a theme for my site so that individuals who come to it will know just what to expect. I have some opinions about people who use their real names on their site as well ,(LaShawn) but I realize that I would be just as guilty of what I am accusing the brother of doing if I succumbed to those thoughts.

But I seriously digress. Back to my issue. So this saddens me to see that the old crabs in a barrel adage just might hold true, even in our little part of the world known as the blackosphere. Why can't we work together and put our differences aside to achieve common goals? Why do we have "black on black" crime even on the f*****g Internet? Why do we have to challenge each other all the f*****g time? Is it that we want to prove that we are intellectually superior? Or that our dick is bigger than the next guys?...(good luck) Sorry, I won't engage. I am too busy battling whitey, this corrupt ass administration, house Negroes, FOX NOISE, and our f****d up black leadership. The last thing I need to be worrying about are other so called enlightened ass Negroes, who are supposed to be holding it down and helping to unify black folks around common goals, threatening to take their ball and go home.

So my question is this: If whitey suddenly found the "good witch", decided to give up some of his power and give in to our demands; just what the f**k would we do ?