FARAI CHIDEYA, host:
This is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya.
It is a wrap on 2007. Oh, where did the time go? In our waning hours, we're bringing you the last blogger's roundtable of this year. We've got a look back at a couple of big stories and a look forward at 2008.
Here to help us dissect news about Benazir Bhutto and R. Kelly and give us a virtual dose of Black Eyed Peas. We've got Michael David Cobb Bowen. He is the creator of cobb.typepad.com. He also founded the blogger group, the Conservative Brotherhood. Also, Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen, and political commentator Jasmyne Cannick of JasmyneCannick.com. Welcome folks.
Mr. MICHAEL DAVID COBB BOWEN (Creator, cobb.typepad.com; Founder, Conservative Brotherhood): Welcome. Good to be here.
Ms. JASMYNE CANNICK (Political Commentator): Hi.
Ms. LIZA SABATER (Blog Publisher, Culture Kitchen): Habari Gani.
CHIDEYA: Yes.
Mr. BOWEN: (foreign language spoken)
CHIDEYA: Okay.
Ms. SABATER: Kuumba. It's creativity today.
CHIDEYA: Oh, my Lord. We've got a Kwanzaa faceoff right at the beginning…
(Soundbite of laughter)
CHIDEYA: It's like (unintelligible) but only a little more Afrocentric. Anyway, let's move on to the R. Kelly trial. Another perhaps a final date has been set for the trial of R&B singer R. Kelly - six years after he was first charged with soliciting a minor for child pornography. Now, that trial is set to begin May 9th. He's also due in court for another hearing next month.
Jasmyne, you have been all over this one. Why don't you tell us a little bit why you think people are still in his thrall?
Ms. CANNICK: I think a lot if it just had to do with ignorance and denial. I think that we like his music so much we're willing to overlook the fact that he does have 14 counts of child pornography against him. And also, we're willing to ignore the fact that he did marry Aaliyah, when she was underage as well. I mean, it's not like this man doesn't have a history of it.
And like you said, yes, this trial date has been set, but it's been set many, many times. And it's always, for some reason or another, postponed so it would be really interesting to see whether or not this trial actually does kick off in May. And if it does, I hope to be in Chicago sitting in that courtroom.
CHIDEYA: Michael, the date has been adjusted, shall we say, in order to allow for his touring and recording schedules. Is this a kind of special treatment that should not be accorded?
Mr. BOWEN: Justice delayed is justice denied. I'm shocked that it's taken this long for someone with these serious kinds of charges to be brought to justice. And I agree that there is some denial here that we know that wealthy people have the opportunity to use every legal finagling that they can afford. But this is very serious and I wonder why we've given this guy a pass. And my theory is it's kind of bad news. And I'd take an analogy from people who eat a lot of fast food, I mean, that they love, you know, a Big Mac and they just have to see it. And then one day, you got to find out when there's squirrel meat in it, you got to put the burger down. And R. Kelly is a squirrel meat. And…
CHIDEYA: That he is a Big Mac too. That was great analogy.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BOWEN: Yeah, that's true. That's true. But it is…
Ms. CANNICK: It's the midget in the closet.
Mr. BOWEN: Yeah.
Ms. CANNICK: That's true. You know why he hasn't…
Mr. BOWEN: Oh, my goodness.
CHIDEYA: I guess that's a different use of the word Mac. He is, you know, there is certainly a lot of anecdotal evidence - I'm not a lawyer - that he has dallied with quite young girls. Liza, do you think this shows a fundamental disrespect for black girlhood that it's not seen as - by many people, it's not seen as off limits for him to go for…
Ms. SABATER: Oh, my God, yes, absolutely. I mean, I knew it. It had been a long time, but I wasn't aware that it was actually six years since he was actually indicted. And again, you know, it's an interesting dilemma, right, where we have, you know, as people wanting to move our people forward to come together and not see, you know, and not talk dirt about our guys. But at the same time, you have somebody like R. Kelly and you just have to put this man down. You know, you really - we can not continue to upholding this guy as an alleged genius. I'm sorry, but he's, you know, we really need to move on and bring this guy to justice.
But a lot of folk just don't want to do it. He's a successful black man and, you know, who brings in a lot of money to a lot of people. And he will be put before, you know, the welfare of a 14-year-old girl, no matter whether he raped her or not. And that's the sad, you know, reality that it's the money that he produces that is more important than the actual honor or justice brought for a child.
CHIDEYA: Jasmyne, one of the things you have written about is how - and this is certainly not just a black thing, but how girls who have a physical maturity are perceived by men who were of age. When you - and I certainly know what happened to me. You know, you can be 11, 12, 13 years old…
Ms. CANNICK: Mm-hmm. Same here.
Ms. SABATER: Same here.
CHIDEYA: …and have the body of a woman. And so, how do you deal in society with having that, you know, you may be thinking about, okay, what board game am I playing tonight? And some other guy may be thinking of some other game entirely.
Ms. CANNICK: Yeah, you know, I went through that as well like, you know, 14 years old living (unintelligible), you know, having grown men who were fathers, grandfathers, you know, looking at me. And, you know, it's one of those things within our - in our culture in terms of the African-Americans, another one of those issues that we sort of sweep under the carpet that we don't want to really, really address but we know that it happens.
CHIDEYA: Right.
Ms. CANNICK: And this is the perfect example of that because, again, this man has a history of doing this. And it's like - what's really more important here, the money that he brings in or do we really value the lives of young African-American girls? And then, you know, at the same time, you know, for I'm sure you've heard this, you know, it was the girl's fault. It was the girl's fault. It was her as her regardless of whether she was mentally, whether she wanted to do it or not because a lot of times at that age we think we know what we're doing, but we really don't. He was the adult in the situation.
CHIDEYA: Right.
Ms. CANNICK: And he chose to go ahead and do that. And as - and when I tell black folks this, you saw that video, whether you want to admit or not, you saw it. You know what went down and it was wrong. And, you know, one of these days, we're going to have to stand up and we're going to have to start, you know, walking sort of the talk that we preach because the case that's going on in West Virginia with a young lady and the white folks there that tortured, beat and raped her, I mean, as well as urinated on her, you know, we're outraged over that. But then, you know, when, you know, where you have a black man that's (unintelligible) do the same thing to a 14-year-old African-American girl. And we don't have anything to say about that because he makes great music that we stepped to, that we like to step to it on our family reunions.
CHIDEYA: Liza, it sounds like you relate to a lot of this. And the question…
Ms. SABATER: God, yeah.
CHIDEYA: …you know, I think about the way that I was raised in terms of relating that inappropriate male energy at a young age. And there are a lot of different approaches that people take as parents. Some of them say, you know, cross the street if someone is giving you that certain look. Some of them say, you know, stare him down. There's all these different approaches to how as a young physically-developed girl, you might have to deal with inappropriate behavior. Is there enough conversation around this? What can people do that allows young girls to deal in a way that is life-affirming with situations that may be inappropriate, somewhat out of control? I mean…
Ms. SABATER: Well, I think that - yes and no. I mean, when I was growing up - and I grew up in Puerto Rico - and we have the same situation in, you know, in Puerto Rican culture, in Puerto Rican society, and in Latino culture, in general. And there is, you know, at least from my perspective, an oversexualization of girls at a very, very young age in Latino culture.
And, you know, but this is interesting. I mean, I went to a Catholic school for 12 years. And I actually got reproductive health education in school. My children are going to public school here in the United States and they will not get that. And so, you know, so you have a generations of children in this country who are, you know - and the kind of education that I got, I got from a point view, not only of, you know, of self-respect and of protection, but also biology. I mean, simple biology class where you learn about what mitosis and meiosis is. And in order for that to happen, there has to be sex.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. SABATER: You know, so that kind of education is just being absolutely polluted by politics and by ideology in this country, and our children are not getting it. So, and, of course, you know, when you come into minority communities where education is an issue when we are shortchanged so it gets even worse.
So, you know, when I was a high school teacher, what I see the girls do, they would gang upright. They would actually walk around in packs, protecting each other because nobody else was doing it. And they will learn from each other, you know, sexual health and whatnot because some of them were doing it and some of them were not, you know? And then there was the occasional teacher like me that would come and sit them down and I had to do it in situations where the, you know, principle will look away because it was not part of the, you know, New York City public education policy.
So it's - we have a problem in this country that, you know, we are shortchanging our children and we're not even thinking about the consequences. We just basically are thinking about, you know, all this fighting about ideology over something that is so basic as the safety. And it's not just the safety of girls. I mean, rape happened to boys too. And sexual exploitation happens to boys too. So we're not taking - if we are a culture of family values; if we are truly a society of family values, we really need to start looking again at how we educate our children through all different, you know, areas of society in order for them to make the right choices.
CHIDEYA: Liza and everyone, I'm just going to break in and refresh folks' memories. We are NPR's NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya. We were just hearing from Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen. We also have Michael David Cobb Bowen, creator of cobb.typepad.com; and political commentator Jasmyne Cannick of JasmyneCannick.com.
Michael, do you think that there is a role - a stronger role for institutions to play - institutions like schools - in socializing kids about appropriate sexuality? Or is that something that should just be left to parents?
Mr. BOWEN: I think if the father's is failing, then some institutional backup is necessary. But what we haven't heard here is how strong men could make a difference here. And I think any of these young girls who got involved with R. Kelly, I can't imagine them having a strong father. I can't imagine them falling for K. Kelly's game as if it were love if they had known what real love from their father is like.
And so - and when it comes to girls - having to protect girls from men when men are not protecting girls…
CHIDEYA: Right.
Mr. BOWEN: That's a tragedy. That's a social calamity. So men have to step up. And I think one thing that we could all do starting tomorrow is don't use the word shorty. What's that? What's a dime piece? I mean, why do we allow men to talk that way around women. I mean, my father had to correct people, you know, when people were cursing around me as a kid. He said, hey, hey, hey, there are kids here. And hey, hey, hey, there are young ladies here.
And so it has to do with this thing from a black male has to disappear. You have to be a gentleman. You have to be a man. And you can't just talk about this biological thing. You have to insert some social discipline and say this is what a man supposed to do. And this is how a man is supposed to treat a woman. And this is how a gentleman is supposed to treat a lady. And when you can't even come up with the terminology like that and understand is it a socially acceptable way and puts social pressure on people who are doing it wrong, then you're not going to catch any of this until it's too late. So we have to be proactive and say this is how you treat somebody with respect. And if you have to have a baseball bat at the front door, then that's what you have to have.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CHIDEYA: Well, you bring up 2008 things to do. I'm going to transition and ask you guys about some of the things you've done in 2007 and some of the things that you want to do in 2008.
Jasmyne, you have - on your blog, you have a video of your pretty amazing physical transformation over 2007. Why don't you tell us a little bit about it?
Ms. CANNICK: Oh, pretty simple. I've got dumped. I was…
(Soundbite of laughter)
CHIDEYA: Oh.
Ms. CANNICK: I was 236 pounds. I got dumped. I was really, really, really depressed. You would never know it reading my blog because I always had a really good way of like, you know, hiding that like I could write about everything that was going on in the news like politics, whatever. But we never get personal. But after that happened and as some of it had to do - a lot of it had to do with my weight. I just decided that the best revenge was to lose the weight and do it my way on my terms. And that's what I did. And I lost 75 pounds this year and…
CHIDEYA: Woohoo. Go girl.
(Soundbite of clapping)
Mr. BOWEN: And I'm here in the studio and I can tell you it worked.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. CANNICK: Wait. My dad is right there. Come on, now.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. CANNICK: But speaking of strong men, thank you, daddy.
CHIDEYA: Oh.
Ms. CANNICK: But you know, I that and so that was really important to me. And so I'm trying to do that. You know, we were around the dinner table yesterday at my grandmother's house. Everyone's saying, now, you lost the weight, you really want to takeover everybody else's life. You know, I'm like, don't eat that. You don't need to be eating that. You need - you know? But now, I'm - my eyes are a little bit more wide open in terms of our culture and the foods that we eat and stuff. But that was one thing.
And then the other thing I would remised if I did not say this is that 2007 was a remarkable year for many reasons but also because I had to go home. And I got to go home in Africa, to Sierra Leone with Isaiah Washington. And I will forever be grateful to him for taking me back there with him so that I could really reconnect with my people and reaffirm who it is that I am and what my purpose is here.
So yes, it's been a great, great year. And for the first time in like six years, I'm going to go out tonight.
CHIDEYA: All right.
Ms. SABATER: Yeah.
CHIDEYA: All right. Now, Michael, what about you? Either a retrospective on 2007 or something looking forward.
Mr. BOWEN: 2007, I actually made that great change from the professional world to the executive world. So I've gotten different kind of headaches - the headaches of looking after other folks and making sure we meet the payroll. And then the real good thing about that is that I don't have to travel so much. I spent time in Philadelphia this year, in Fort Worth and in Houston. And the past year, I'm away from my own family. So that's been very tough. But now that I'm back here in Los Angeles, I can spend more time with family and friends. And that's had, you know, a real different effect.
It's been a big year for blogging. We've gotten through a lot of big stories. We've got a lot of attention. We've got some crossover between radio and newspaper and blog. So that's been a really good thing. We've seen an explosion in the number of our blogs. And that's real nice.
CHIDEYA: All right. Liza, you get the last word. It's going to have to be a short word. Maybe something you're looking forward to doing in 2008.
Ms. CANNICK: Well, I'm actually going to pull a Jasmyne and one of the things we're going do is lose weight this year. So…
CHIDEYA: I am with you my sister.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. SABATER: Yeah, you got to come hiking with me, Farai.
Ms. CANNICK: Yeah. Jasmyne does hike every…
Ms. SABATER: I'm putting you on a blast right now. Let's go hiking.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CHIDEYA: All right. I promise I will. I do like the hiking. I don't like the early mornings. What can I say?
(Soundbite of laughter)
CHIDEYA: On that note, I wish you guys health, wealth, happiness, centeredness of spirit, all those good things in 2008.
Thanks you guys.
Ms. SABATER: Same to you.
Ms. CANNICK: Thank you.
Ms. SABATER: And the whole NEWS & NOTES family, thank you guys for helping put black bloggers our there this year.
Ms. CANNICK: Oh, absolutely. And black Latino bloggers.
Ms. SABATER: That's right.
Ms. CANNICK: Oh, yes.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CHIDEYA: The blatinos too.
Ms. CANNICK: (unintelligible) of color.
Ms. SABATER: The blatinos too.
CHIDEYA: All right. We've been speaking with Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen. She joined us from our NPR New York bureau; political commentator Jasmyne Cannick of JasmyneCannick.com; and Michael David Cobb Bowen, who blogs at cobb.typepad.com. Those two were in our NPR West studios.
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