However she had a really bad sexual experience at 12, when her 18 year-old brother grabbed her breasts, leered at her young body all the time. Not only that but he actually made her into sexual touching situations with him four times before the poor tearfully told her mother of this horror, who promptly put a stop to the young man’s behaviour, though naturally too late.

The poor girl found out art this time that her father, like most Pakistani men, hated having an unwanted daughter,  only wanting baby boys.  This left her feeling useless and unwanted, but she had behaved herself  before this bombshell dropped, after which she promised herself not  to  be good anymore and started to socialize with bad company in the shape of other girls and  guys always talking about sex. A classmate told her that she should date one guy in particular.

She  was 15 and  went to his home, where they smooched very sensually and provocatively without actually having intercourse, after which the girl went home and wept about why she had behaved that way, deciding to curb such behaviour, but sexual desires woke up again within her and she was soon seducing her long distance cousin, then a guy in her class, but she was making a name for herself that certainly did not want or need at her age.

This unfortunate girl never made even one childhood friend, and she often cried bitter tears because she truly wanted at least one true one, but never managed it. She found her class-mates bitchy, mean and nasty because their encouragement was what led her to behave badly in the first place, as she sees it.  These same peer people threatened to tell all to her mother, and her 21 year-old paternal uncle started to black mail her.

Telling her he knew her secrets, he promised he would help the girl if she would be nice to him, beginning to kiss not just her mouth but her whole body, grabbing her breast and forcing himself upon her.  She cried a great deal, but her feelings of worthlessness got worse, because she was convinced her parents regarded her not as a blessing but a burden, being a girl, and she sought sexual solace in the incestuous arms of her brother – and sleeping with a long-distance cousin, despite not knowing him at all.

She let herself become the bad girl to the extent that even her mother was calling her a whore. Men all say that she is just bad without knowing her real story at all, and she believes that all that ever happens is that people take what they want from her then toss her to one side like so much garbage, enjoying the knowledge of how much they are hurting her. She has no love in her life, so spends all her time weeping and writing poetry that she posts on triond.

All this truly unfortunate girl ever wants is to be loved, but her heart is a dead thing, so her writing is
her way of spitting out the venom within her and getting relief, hoping one day to find love. Right now she mainly feels both numb and dumb, not enjoying her studies, or wanting to I go outside of her home to avoid having to converse with other people. She has always had too great a tendency to
trust every one, but having been hurt so often by those she trusted, she these days takes some perverse pleasure from the pain, which is no longer as bad as it once was.

Her truly awful luck continued in 2011, when she met a Pakistani guy online who was studyng  in Birmingham ,UK, to whom she made a full confession, and was amazed to hear that he was prepared to come over to marry her, take her back and make her happy. He promised not to let her cry alone and that they could chat all the time   It turned out of course that his real interest was nothing more than sex-chat, which the girl eventually worked out for herself.

This poor girl says she has now had thousand of guys in her life – an exaggeration of course – who all seemed to loved her body but nothing more, nobody ever loving her for the person that she is. She went through that phase of loving parties, meeting new people, taking trips, and eating out a lot, but now she hates everything, even herself and her body, loving her heart and feeling so guilty for having broken it and destroyed all feelings.

She has a million reasons to cry, at one point suffering from dehydration problems because she  left her meals and even avoided liquids, crying and sobbing, skipping  meals and I getting sick, though happily she is now on the mend, slowly getting a little better. She was so depressed at one stage that she seriously considered suicide but, thankfully her religion forbids such actions.  She has now embraced her god, whom she worships and prays to for forgiveness.

This talented girl young female poet and her sad story should not be any reason for her to be consigned to the rubbish heap of life just because she made mistakes.  She deserves some happiness and to find one day that someone genuinely  loves her for herself me and will marry her, giving her the secure future she surely deserves.  

This feature is inspired by a short heart-felt expression of concern a writer expressed about cyber-bullying. Josy Varghese’s feature can be seen here. http://webupon.com/web-talk/cyber-bullying-3/ My article started as a response to Josy’s, which I realized quickly, was too long for just putting in a comments box.

THE NATURE OF CYBER-BULLYING

Cyber-bullying is just an Internet version of bullying in the school, or work place. The difference is that the bully may not know or be known by his or her victims. They find a website, blog or social networking page and target an individual or group for sustained and controlled threatening, hostile, libellous behaviour with an aim to generating ridicule, fear, and distress. Cyber-bullying can often be related to bigotry and prejudice, being motivated by racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, etc. It may be casual or systematic.

A cyber-bully will often incite others to join in the ridicule and the intensifying hate campaign. Cyber-bullies often operate in gangs. Photos published online in all innocence, will be commented on in a very unflattering way, as the target is mocked as overweight, balding, ugly, lacking fashion sense, etc. A few people may join in and assume the bullying is just harmless fun.

A thrashing by a bully in a playground hurts, but at least it ends, even if bruises and black eyes take time to heal. Cyber-bullying can take on an edge of permanence and forever. A comment mocking someone, as effeminate will stay online indefinitely unless someone can have it deleted and blocked.

The adage that ‘sticks and stones can break bones but words can never hurt’ does not ring true. Words can devastate us, especially if rumours can be made to ridicule and harass us throughout cyberspace.

The victim may ignore the remarks or try to delete them from web pages where it is possible to do so, but the bully may well saturate the site with comments and threats so that keeping pace is difficult for the victim. The bully may even set up an independent blog specially to encourage people to mock the intended victim, and this will ridicule and malign everything the intended victim says and does.

While the victim may not know a cyber-bully, s/he (more often he) will probably know or have access to the identity of the victim, and disclose personal, private information about them. Lies will be told, private addresses and phone numbers will go public, and the victim’s lovers may become victims of the campaign themselves. The victims of cyber-bullying are often children and the bullies often children themselves. With schools adopting a zero tolerance attitude to physical bullying, its cyber-equivalent takes over, and instead of being seen by the classmates in the playground, the victim’s humiliation is seen by potentially the whole of cyberspace. Cyber-bullying can be used in chat-rooms, web site comment boxes, and social networking sites and increasingly by mobile phones.

Sometimes cyber-bullying and physical bullying can unite as in video footage of happy-slapping attacks going out on Youtube.

Victims of cyber-bullying can become very introspective loners, depressed and even suicidal. Self-esteem can really suffer when it seems as if the entire world is against you. The local bully in Basingstoke, England can gain support from a bully in Sudan or Australia. The victim can find that friends fail to take the threat to him or her seriously or avoid getting involved from fear of attracting similar attacks.

HOW TO RESIST THE CYBER-BULLIES

In the wider social groups, chat rooms and forums, friends should rally round to protect a friend from harassment, even if the victim doesn’t directly request it. Forum and chat-room moderators should track discussions and close down a bully’s account and block his / her IP addresses. Direct threats and incitements to racism, etc are criminal offences and should be reported to the police.

Sites like Facebook have the power to ban obvious bullies and many sites will let you block the people you dislike – friends should always rally to the support of the victim but often don’t. If possible see who else the bully writes to, and if he / she bullies them too.

The internet is not totally censorship free and bullies can be made to see that their hateful words can be deleted, blocked, banned or used to bring them before school authorities, teachers, head-masters, employers, the police, courts, etc.

The main thing to do if you suspect you are being cyber-bullied is to talk to someone about it, including parents and teachers. Log the evidence too. Keep copies of every insult, threat and defamation encountered.  Copy links to every website used in attacking you. Try to find clues as to the bully’s identity. See if the cyber-name used occurs in other forums or web pages. Does this individual or group bully others also beige? If so, try to unite with the other victims.

If outright threats of violence, crime, etc is made, report them to the police.

A number of anti-bullying groups exist who can advise you further. Don’t suffer alone or in silence. The Internet can be used to fight back and drive the bullies into the cyber-oblivion they so richly deserve. 

A useful link on Cyber-bullying advice – http://www.stopbullying.gov/topics/cyberbullying/

Arthur Chappell

There are plenty of songs about crime and murder but few from the point of view of a suspect who comes across as genuinely innocent despite the evidence and prejudice pinning the crime upon him.

Here, the narrator tells of a young man who finds himself interrogated by the police in a quiet Nebraskan town called Hazard.

We are told that the boy is an outcast, arriving in the town with his Mother when he was just seven. He was always shunned and bulled by the locals, possibly for being just a stranger or for being mentally retarded.

Only one person in the town genuinely befriends him, Mary, and he has been seen in her company over three years. They were often observed walking by the river deep in conversation.

Now Mary has vanished, last seen by the same riverbank. The suspect was seen with her soon before she disappeared and he is unable to offer any alibi that might get him away from the suspicions levelled at him. He sees no hope of escape from the finger of accusation now.

Mary’s fate is never disclosed; abducted? Accidentally drowned? Run away? Murdered? Nor are we sure the narrator is totally innocent though the song’s empathy for him implies that he is not guilty of anything.

A deep, moody song deliberately asking more questions than it answers.

Arthur Chappell

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. 

These words held out a moral imperative for the nation: to end legalized segregation, to offer equal opportunity for all Americans and to eradicate racial prejudice in America and around the globe forever. America has come a long way since the time of Martin Luther King, Jr. It took his untimely and tragic death by assassination to bring many of the legislative changes into reality, and the moral compass of our nation still points to ways that we must reduce prejudice, increase economic and social justice, and make our nation a beacon of hope for all humanity. Many observers around the world saw the election of Barack Obama, America’s first African-American president, as another step towards the fulfillment of King’s dream.

There are many phrases and passages of King’s seminal speech that we often don’t get to hear on the holiday created to remember and celebrate his legacy. These often-forgotten passages help give context to his words, and they help students of social and political history understand the progress America has made since the days of the civil rights marches that Dr. King organized and led.

King opened his speech with these words:

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation

 He was speaking 100 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, a document that began the march towards equality for African-Americans by setting free those slaves held in states in rebellion against the Union during the Civil War. He chose his setting well: he stood before the statue of “the Great Emancipator,” Abraham Lincoln, a symbol of freedom and equality for all.

King had critics in the African-American community who were calling for more direct, sometimes violent action to end segregation and discrimination. One of these critics was Malcolm X, who eventually reconciled with King before he himself was assassinated in 1965. Malcolm X and others felt that King was an advocate of “gradualism,” or a “go slow” approach to civil rights. King addressed his critics in both the black and white communities:

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy.

Above all, Dr. King was a Baptist minister who believed in the importance of peaceful, non-violent civil disobedience, modeled earlier in the twentieth century by Mahatma Gandhi in India, to test unjust laws and actions of the government. He admonished his followers to embrace their goals and their enemies with the love that Jesus Christ commanded and demonstrated in his own ministry. He was very direct in calling for African-Americans to release themselves from violence and hatred:

We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all White people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. 

Still, King had strong words for those forces in the South that held on to the old hatred and prejudices left over after the Civil War. In this passage, he calls out Alabama Governor George Wallace for “interposition,” placing himself in the doorway of the University of Alabama to prevent black students from entering, and “nullification,” a term that indicates Wallace was determined to “nullify,” or refuse to follow, federal laws calling for the integration of public schools and universities. King spoke,”

I have a dream today.  I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

There are many other fascinating and beautiful phrases in King’s speech that sound and read like some of the most beautiful poetry ever to appear in American oratorical history. His speech is still a model for the way America must face its own internal struggles. In fact, the words below appear on the new Martin Luther Ling, Jr. Memorial dedicated this past year on the National Mall in Washington, DC. King speaks to us today in saying,”

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to climb up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. (Emphasis mine. These are the words that inspired the design of the King Memorial).

On this Martin Luther King Day, the nation can best remember his legacy by performing some act of service to the community. By reading or hearing the entire “I Have a Dream” speech, we can gain a better understanding of the challenges Dr. King faced, and through the years of history, he continues to communicate to us today how we can make our nation and our world a more loving place to live.

The entire “I Have a Dream” Speech is available on Youtube.com at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8AxgXxmgFM

Image by George Cassutto
Copyright 2012
Used with permission

Driving down a long dusty road, you see a mob of angry White men. A man swings from a tree in the dark with no support beneath his feet; a rope from one large branch tied around his neck attach him to the tree. The man looked as if he was tortured, beaten, then hung; he was lynched in a ritualized practiced in the deep south of America. His role is one of dishonor and disgrace. The man appeared to have suffered greatly; in fact, it appeared to be a state of great disturbance, suffering, and indignity. What’s more important was that the man will never regain consciousness.

How does a man recover from witnessing the disturbance of a lynching. Experiences like these have since been called racism, a state of unconsciousness characterized by antagonism or hostility  toward other races. Aside from the culturally deviant social roles, many racial and cultural groups have shown similar patterns in how they react to racism. In countries with a cultural majority, the tendency is to exclude minorities from certain activities and affairs whereas those out-groups will more likely seek out social acceptance in prevention of being victimize by racism and racial discrimination ().

Another example of cultural similarities regarding racism is how Dominicans react to Haitian immigrants in both familiar and unfamiliar situations. Haitians cannot seek medical attention without paying out of pocket. In addition, Haitians are not permitted to have birth certificates because they are classified as immigrants. This rule also applies to second generation Haitian immigrants or Black Dominicans, some of whom are biracial in origin ().

Stoicism may also have its cultural roots in racism. Native Americans and Asians are thought to be stoic. Religion may prevent them from breaching racial barriers between their culture and Western social practices. Such a system of worship may keep them from seeking the political freedom that would ensure equality. Thus, they learned to be tolerant of racism. They on the other hand may have acquired their demeanor through passive-resistence; during the civil rights movement, African Americans tried to cope with racial oppression through non-violent opposition to authority; as Native Americans and Asians observed the response of White Americans, they may have simply acquired an enduing reaction to racism. In the past, verbal expressions of racism were acceptable. All racial-ethnic groups in America express epithets. But if you belong to the cultural mainstream, such abusive phrases may have typically been in response to someone who was of minority standing.

Social class may also cause people to react indifferently by influencing their ideas about racism. Minorities, who are typically of low socioeconomic status, may appear loud, aggressive, and not highly cultured in intellectual areas. Thus, there may exist conscious experiences of negative discrepancies between legitimate expectations and present actualities. In this case, minorities may give others the mental impression of being inferior, many people in society believing that mainstream Americans would never inherent such indignities under standard conditions of relative deprivation due to good breeding; but, such a cultural attitude is in fact an expression of unintentional racism. In contrast, a few affluent, middle class, minorities believe that Blacks and other people live below the minimum level of subsistence for which their families cannot exist. Thus, they form different outlets to express concern for their inferior living conditions. Such absolute deprivation in fact contributes to specific social conditions many minorities view as cultural racism.

Although there may not be much psychological research on racism, several intriguing factors should be noted. First, if there are cultural differences across nations, then greater degrees of individual variation will exist among members within a single culture. All races have conflict differences that exist between cultural groups, for instance, religious distinction between the Protestant and Catholic Northern Irish. Second, racial and cultural reactions to racism are based on limited findings from small studies conducted by researchers who use cultural-specific methods on not always carefully selected identity groups in their investigations. Third, intermixing cultures are not being investigated effectively for similarities and differences that mimic patterns of racism. For instance, Italians have historically subjugated Jews to relative depravation, a method of racism, later adopted by White Americans in the use and exploitation of Black Americans and  now Hispanics Called ghettos—the first was established on a foundry in Venice—Blacks and Hispanics now occupy segregated parts of the city, especially slum housing that are rented to them by Jews.

                what can you can tell by his Face?

            If this is how you Judge him

          Then let me spray you with Mace

                        ” Don’t judge a book by its cover.” I have heard these words of wisdom repeated several times throughout my life, spoken but not followed. It seems as human beings, instead of simply trying to understand each other, we find it easier to label each other based on appearances. I will admit I am no Saint when it comes to this. I have often looked at other people, and I drew up assumptions based on what I have observed on them. Perhaps the only people truly innocent of judging by appearances are the blind, however I cannot say that for sure.

                   This ability to judge with our eyes allows us to be safe, however safety and isolation are two sides of the same coin. Sure we can guess who the drug dealer is, who the crook is, but we can only guess. That drug dealer might not be a drug dealer, that crook might not be a crook. However because people would rather label them as such and walk away, that “crook” and that “drug dealer” will not be understood and would be rejected for their looks. All the while the judges lock themselves in their homes, and keep their children away from possible friends. I will admit that its a decent method of protecting ourselves, however it doesn’t help much when a serial killer uses a “good” appearance to commit murder on unsuspecting individuals.       

    I am not saying that you should hug and accept everyone, because in the end you could be right, the crooks could be crooks, and the drug dealers could be drug dealers. All that I am asking is that if you have  time to understand them, then please use that time. Otherwise I feel that it will be easier to distrust each other, and easier to make the wrong decisions.

One major form of prejudice would be that pertaining to race.  Even though all humans are part of the same species, races are distinguished from each other through the differentiating features of hair, eye and skin colour. One example would be the prejudice against African-Americans in the United States of America, due the obvious skin colour difference between them and the Caucasian majority. These prejudices led to discrimination against the blacks, as seen from the preferential treatment of whites and segregation of whites from blacks throughout the 1900s.  In return, the black community retaliated with marches, riots and protests.  The Civil Rights movement initiated by Dr Martin Luther King, culminated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King Jr delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech.  The Los Angeles Riots of 1992 was also sparked off by the acquittal of four police officers accused in the videotape beating of Rodney King, an African-American motorist. In all, 53 people died during the riots and thousands more were injured. Property damages were approximated to be US$1 billion.  Prejudice can be deadly and expensive. It is thus imperative that we stop racial prejudice.

Modes are what we call natural, prejudice tendencies. Each reflect our beliefs, opinions, ideas, and values in the scheme of culture. Consider this example. You value a relationship with In Su. However, it is based on the cultural stereotype that all Chinese are great marshal art warriors. In this case, scientists would call your opinion of her positive prejudice or a bias. Why? You have based your understanding of In Su on a generalization about her group membership. In addition, you favor In Su for her cultural characteristics. Similarly, race psychologists would call your preconceived opinion of In Su a natural, prejudiced tendency. How come, you ask? You have developed from oversimplified ideas of China, a tendency to assign Chinese positive traits. They would argue, to whatever extent, prejudgment of a group or member alone does not constitute prejudice. That errors in value judgment show problems of perception. In this case, your understanding of Chinese culture is misleading. Therefore, your misunderstanding of In Su shows unintentional bias. In contrast prejudice, positive or negative, is a problem of categorization and judgment. Before you decide whether prejudice is a bias, consider two important factors: (1) Prejudice has connotations for people invoked by their conforming beliefs. It also presuppose other beliefs we would more formally call racism. (2) Bias is a problem of perception and judgment whereby we develop the idea of human categories from which specific meaning can be attain.

In the scheme of culture, our natural tendency is to base relationships on group membership. People who do tend to make errors in value judgment. For this reason, their failure to understand relationships is caused by poor perception. We only acknowledge prejudice when it becomes a problem of categorization and judgment.

Broad definitions make understanding prejudice a challenge. Just when you think one definition has an exact meaning of prejudice, another will make you rethink your earlier conclusion. To keep from getting frustrated, remember that prejudice and bias are unjust, thus have negative connotations. However, definitions derived from bias accounts for all aspects of its primary or literal meaning. Definitions of prejudice have only contributed a piece to the puzzle. Although, when we define prejudice, many pieces of information are complementary rather than contradictory. Together, each definition helps us to understand the nature of prejudice in all its shortfalls.

In addition to the above Herman Cain has gone on record as saying that Gay people make a “choice” to be gay.  The author here is wondering when Herman Cain came to the conclusion that he was straight and did it stand out in his mind, or did he simply take it for granted as being “the way God made him”?  I have never heard him make an attempt to answer that question, which should have been his first remark … “I remember the day, as a young boy, when I suddenly and without question decided that I would be a straight heterosexual in this lifetime, and as such I know that gay people must choose to be gay as I chose to be a straight man.”  But no, Herman Cain has not made that statement either.  So just how does he figure that he knows what goes on in a gay person’s mind?  Perhaps he is a closet gay person, for that would be the only way for him to know such a thing?  Or is he making a guess, based on his vast knowledge of gay people?  Or, perhaps, he is a total sexist of the most heinous variety.  Would a “normal” person in Cains position be tried and convicted of being a sex offender?  I think the answer is a resounding “YES!”

So now, we have Herman Cain the womanizer and Herman Cain the homophobe and soon to be “sex offender”.  Prejudice is the farthest thing from any President’s mind, or should be, since a President must have an open mind and be free of any prejudices, if he is to uphold the Constitution which holds these rights of sexual identification and a woman’s freedom from harassment to be inalienable rights of all the people of the USA.  

In recent events the Supreme Court has found DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) to be unconstitutional and Diane Feinstein has introduced legislation that will permanently cancel and nullify DOMA and give gay people the basic right of being able to visit their loved ones in hospital and nullifies prejudice against gay partners when it comes to inheriting their partners property and keepsakes upon their loved ones death.  These are basic rights that all people expect but gay people can only wish they had at this point in time.  Not only does Feinsteins Act need to be passed, but people like Herman Cain need to be passed by when it comes to Presidential matters.  Cain was on the news last night saying that his followers need to move on from this “womanizing event” and focus on the matters at hand.  But what Herman Cain does not seem to realize is that the American people can be very forgiving of those who admit they have made a bad choice, but the American people also condemn liars, especially those to aspire to the greatest office in our land. 

So, not only can Herman Cain never become President but it is amazing that women and gay people have not already boycotted Herman’s pizza shops, and put him out of business.

Image via Wikipedia

Once Herman Cain respects women and acknowledges that gay people were made by God to be themselves and that being gay is not a matter of choice he will aspire to the status of being a normal, understanding human, far from what is necessary to be President of the United States.  What sane man would think that gay people would want to be spat upon, frowned upon, dejected, misunderstood, and rejected by society, and choose to be gay?  Only a fool who is incapable of normal logic or reason.