On hearing the news (did he really hear it right that moment? I’m unclear), Obama immediately makes the connection between the Genarlow Wilson sentence and the Libby commutation.

This is the same connection Obama would go on to use in a speech he has given in a variety of venues, which I mentioned in an earlier post.

Obama in New Hampshire:

And here are some details on the speech the comments above eventually morphed into, and which I discuss further in a previous post, “Obama on Scooter Libby and Genarlow Wilson“:

Related posts at $3.60:

More on Barack Obama

More on Genarlow Wilson

More on Michelle Obama

Related posts by me at Cypher&Syllable:

More on Michelle Obama

Click here for the latest Genarlow Wilson updates at $3.60.

20 July, 2007 @ 11a

• Wilson’s appeal trial is being held right now. It was being simulcast, but the feed from the courthouse has gone out. You can check here for updates.
• The Daily Report (a paper out of Georgia) has one of the best information pages I’ve seen on the case. You can check it out here.
• Radley Balko has a particularly useful survey of some of the more recent issues with the Wilson case, particularly viz. McDade’s release of the party tape. I’m not a fan of the title (I’m just not in a glib mood lately), but it’s definitely worth checking out: “Genarlow Wilson and the N Word.” And here’s the link to my long comment thereon. (Reason.com)
• Democracy Now just posted this interview with Genarlow Wilson’s mother, Juanessa Wilson: “10 Years in Prison For Consensual Sex: Genarlow Wilson’s Mother Speaks Out on Why Her Son Remains Locked Up“ (click to listen).
• CNN transcript in which the actual Genarlow Wilson tape is discussed.

Have you seen this, about the tape being leaked/released to members of the public?

Release of Ga. Teen Sex Tape Draws Fire (NYT)

How could they have not protected the girls involved in this incident? What is going on in Georgia?:

Senator: Release of Wilson sex video should be investigated (AJC)

Following is some important background:

You can read the full story here at CNN, or here at the New York Times. And here is a CBS news story from last year, which more detail, if you are unfamiliar with the case.

After the jump, a timeline of stories on the Genarlow Wilson case.

You might also find this article, “The Harsh Wages of Sin: Why Genarlow Wilson is Languishing in Prison.” It’s written by Sherry F. Colb, a professor of law at Rutgers.

Below are relevant news clippings and videos. These go by date, most recent first:

I’ll come back to this– accusations of whitewashing, blackfacing, and so on– in my next post. But before we jump into the racial representation issue, we should first look at Pearl and Jolie’s story of how they came to be friends through mutual admiration, each seeing the other on screen and realizing that they might be BFF. In an interview in this month’s Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive declares that “Less than five minutes into our conversation, it’s clear that the bond between these two women is warm, respectful and real.”

I totally buy it, because they are both just wide-open empathy-machines. I spent some time at Pearl’s Global Diary site at Glamour. Every story contains some moment of primal connection with her subject-women. One could imagine that, if Jolie were a reporter writing about women in the wake of 9/11, she might be Mariane Pearl. And if Mariane Pearl were an actress trying to, I don’t know, change the world through adoption, she would be Jolie. Or Josephine Baker. I am unclear.

The point is, connection in gender, temperment, and class (frankly) all stand to trump race, which goes unmentioned in the online interview. I’ll get my hands on the hard copy tomorrow, and make this a better post. But for now suffice to say that, while I am willing to buy the idea that Pearl and Jolie are simpatico, I do find it strange that the article never approaches the most notable aspect of the decision. The decision to cast Jolie as a woman of color is second only to the fact that the film is being produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B production company. This latter matter, however, is referenced quite compulsively throughout, mainly in all parties pointing out that Pitt committed to the film before his involvement with Jolie.

So we’re to imagine that that awkwardness has been cleared away. So why not at least mention the brown thing?

Or, to read it another way, might we imagine that that is what the whole simpatico thing is really about, consciously or unconsciously?

6/24/07: I’m adding this video b/c it touches this sense of the simpatico and this sort of heavy valuation of global empathy…

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

In s7, an evil being called The First is killing all of the girls in the world who are potential slayers. For protection, girls from around the world come to live with Buffy, who must train them in the fight against the First.

In the following scene, Buffy has been cast out as leader, because the other girls think she is too hard on them (there are also tinges of jealousy; after all, she has the power they all ultimately want). Also, she has led them into a disastrous battle against Caleb, the emissary of the First who repeatedly defeats Buffy. Floundering in her role as leader, which is quite different from her role as warrior, Buffy is ready to give up.

Spike, who is a vampire who used to be evil but who is now on the path to redemption, tries to revive Buffy’s lowered morale:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NiIYZz3Z5c]

Buffy’s “always alone” speech has roots in the show’s history of her power, which has always required her to feel like/worry she must stand alone. This is first consolidated at the end of season two, in an episode titled (appropriately) “Becoming, Pt. 2” In the scene below, Buffy battles Angel, a vampire who is her first-love-turned-evil, having lost his soul as penalty for finding true happiness, i.e. having sex with, Buffy. Now he is trying to end the world, by opening hell with the stone demon thing in the background (properly known as the acathla). As they battle, Willow (the red head in the bed), is trying to restore Angel’s soul, which Buffy does not know:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H2gZFf0JyE]

Being “chosen” is always synonymous in BtVS with being alone and making sacrifices in relationships–a theme you are also familiar with from the Alias pilot. At the end of season 7, however, she begins to develop new strategies against the First and Caleb.

Continued here…

Here are some clicks some of you might find particularly interesting, viz. our discussions:

For the passing people, I thought you might find this essay on “The Tragic Mulatto” interesting. For my taste, it’s a touch too slippery with its terms (‘hybridity,’ ‘passing,’ and so on–as we we’ve discussed in class), but it’s also chock full of important historical and visual references.

You girlpower people, meanwhile, might particularly find this entry on the “Jezebel Stereotype” interesting, particularly when thinking about representation of black female sexuality, which ties also to how girlpower is sometimes figured and racialized in popular culture.

And, finally, below is a little video of two young women from GumboTeen Magazine Online, doing a review of the “Hateful Things” exhibit, which is part of the Jim Crow Museum. GumboTeen also has a YouTube space, with a variety of videos examining today’s big issues from a teen perspective.

I have a post below on Kiri Davis’ A Girl Like Me, which I feel is especially in the midst of this terrible Don Imus/Rutgers moment. And if you are at all interested in how girls today are representing their own concerns, please, please, please check out all of the videos (the link above will take you there). Also, Melissa on the Girlpower 2 blog has a post with the Davis video in it, as well as the original video the film is based on. There are also some comments on the post.

I thought both classes would find her film interesting. Passing people may have seen it alongside the Bill Cosby video we watched earlier in the semester, and Davis also references the black doll/white doll thing, as mentioned in class today.

It would be pretty cool for Davis to win the scholarship, but all three videos are interesting, and particularly relevant to you girlpower people.

Maybe you should vote!

The videos are after the jump, and you should also check out the comments on YouTube and Racialicious, which has also posted the video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abGQ_ehWm2Y]

and here is “the original”:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj9swNR5-lY]

It’s the latest episode on the Superficial Friends internet show.

[myheavy=embedID=e03c35df12f9d3a9bb48427050bb7e72&videoID=10282&autoPlay=false]