INSIGHT NEWS February 20 - February 26, 2012 • MN Metro Vol. 38 No. 8 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • www.insightnews.com
Anatomy of the
Whitney Houston tragedy
Artspeak
By Irma McClaurin, PhD Culture and Education Editor At 2AM EST, my girlfriend Kesho from Iowa called and informed me that Whitney Houston, R&B music icon had died. Alone and without any apparent foul play, Whitney Houston, whose voice gave us airwaves magic with song like “I’ll Always Love You,” “I’m Your Baby Tonight,” “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me),” “I’m Every Woman,” “How Will I Know,” and “The Greatest Love of All,” is no more.
When angels fall from grace, we always want to know why? What happened to WH? When did her downward spiral begin? Most of us will remember scratching our heads at her marriage to Bad Boy Bobby Brown. Loved his music as a member of the The New Edition group and his solo venture in My Prerogative, but couldn’t figure out what Whitney saw in him. Love is blind like that. Theirs was a tragic love affair played out very publicly (on reality TV) with Whitney wearing black eyes and seemingly in a constant drug-induced stupor. In her 2002 book, Saving Our Last Nerve: The Black Woman’s Path to Mental Health, Dr. Marilyn Martin, M.D., M.P.H writes that “mentally healthy Black American women are comfortable
HOUSTON TURN TO 2 Whitney Houston
Black Americans and the U.S. Constitution: Part II By Professor Mahmoud El-Kati Author’s note: The people in America of African descent have a unique and contradictory relationship to the Constitution of the United States. Their connection to this document is like no other group, including the Native populations. The original Constitution was a slave holding document up until the Civil War. Following the Civil War, three great amendments were passed by The Republicanled U.S. Congress. These are called The Civil War Amendments. This legislation
was passed to: 1) Free Africans from legal enslavement, 2) grant the right to citizenship, and 3) grant the right to vote to Black Men, not black people, which would include Black Women. It was not until the Civil War Amendment that the word “slave” was ever mentioned. (Excerpts from key articles and amendments) “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Amendment XIII (1865), Section 1
President Barack Obama
1940 / Unknown
George Washington presiding the Philadelphia Convention Commentary: This Amendment, in effect, legally liberated Black people from
bondage. The Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln did not accomplish
this fact. It took an amendment to the “law of the land”, the U.S. Constitution, to determine the legal, if not actual, release of Black people from fetters. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” AMENDMENT XIV
(1868), Section 1 Commentary: This addition to the Constitution conferred the right of citizenship on Black people in the U.S. The “citizenship clause” and the “due process clause” are the key. Black people were made legally first class citizens in 1868, but remained absolutely second class citizens until the movement of the sixties. “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right
CONSTITUTION 2 TURN TO
White House photo
President Obama didn’t get it right on the birth control compromise By Irma McClaurin, PhD, Culture and Education Editor This time I think President Obama got it wrong. I understand why he made the compromise he did—to avoid a religious-inflamed political battle. But I wished he hadn’t taken the road of compromise. In doing so, he’s done a disservice to women’s right to choose what happens to our
bodies. Right now, it feels like 1972 before the advent of Roe v. Wade. This ruling by the Supreme Court overturned a Texas interpretation of abortion law and made abortions legal for women. But at the heart of Roe v. Wade was women’s right to choose what happens to their bodies as backed by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits government from enacting
Education
Johnson names Harris-Berry North High School principal
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laws that infringe upon a person’s right to the pursuit of life, liberty and property. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
Minnesota apartheid February 21 at 6 pm at Zion Baptist Church (intersection of James and Olson Memorial Highway) HIRE Minnesota will
launch its Worst to First campaign. In the Twin Cities metro area, the Black unemployment rate is three and a half times that of
Almost to Freedom
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HIRE TURN TO 6 Suluki Fardan
OBAMA TURN TO 13
Aesthetics
the white unemployment rate. This means that the Twin Cities metro area
HIRE Minnesota rally at the state capitol (2009)
Full Circle
Man vs. Woman: Ending the war of emotions
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Health
How green is the state of our union?
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