Today’s photo of the day shows the legendary Duke Ellington, who was born 109 years ago today!

Today’s video of the day shows Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s speech at the National Press Conference. Thoughts?

You see I loved hard once, but the love wasn’t returned
I found out the man I’d die for, he wasn’t even concerned
And time it turned,
He tried to burn me like a perm
Though my eyes saw the deception, my heart wouldn’t let me learn
From um, some, dumb woman, was I,
And everytime he’d lie, he would cry and inside I’d die.
My heart must have died a thousand deaths
Compared myself to Toni Braxton thought I’d never catch my breath
Nothing left, he stole the heart beating from my chest
I tried to call the cops, that type of thief you can’t arrest
Pain suppressed, will lead to cardiac arrest
Diamonds deserve diamonds, but he convinced me I was worth less
When my peoples would protest,
I told them mind their business, cause my s*** was complex
More than just the sex
I was blessed, but couldn’t feel it like when I was caressed
I’d spend nights clutching my breasts overwhelmed by God’s test
I was God’s best contemplating death with a Gillette
But no man is ever worth the paradise MANIFEST

Marc Lamont Hill

Melissa,

As you know, the three officers involved in the murder of Sean Bell were acquitted of all charges on Friday.

When I first heard the news, I was so angry that I was unable to think of anything but retaliation. Where should we riot? What can we destroy? Who can we hurt? Like many people, I craved the sense of power, however ephemeral, that is produced by making our enemies hurt the way they’ve hurt us. Even now, as I make an unequivocal call for peace, a huge part of me wants to see somebody pay for this egregious miscarriage of justice.

The problem, however, is that reactionary violence doesn’t help. All the rioting and looting in the world will not return Sean Bell to his wife, child, parents, and friends. Destroying police cars will do nothing to stop the next detectives from seeing unarmed black bodies as a threat that warrants lethal force. Inflicting bodily harm on the three officer-assassins will not prevent the next judge from ignoring the evidence and ruling in favor of an arrogant, white supremacist, proto-fascist police state.

Although I understand what we shouldn’t do, I am at a loss about what we should do. This brings me to my questions for you, Melissa: How do heal from this latest tragedy? How do we achieve justice for Sean Bell and his family? How do we prevent the next senseless murder from happening? How do we fight back?

Melissa Harris-Lacewell

Marc

I am with you my friend.  Did this ever happen to you in childhood? You are upset about something small and your father says to you, “hush up or I will give you something to cry about.”

That is how I felt this week. I was in the corner licking my wounds about Barack’s loss in PA and the ridiculous media coverage about the working-class, white, male vote that followed when suddenly the Bell verdict really gave me something to cry about. My anger and pain did not make me want to riot; it made me want to withdraw. I called my friend who teaches at a University in Toronto and asked about life north of the border.

How much more must black communities endure? How many more times must we be told by our political system that our votes don’t count or told by our criminal justice system that our lives are irrelevant? The murder of an innocent, unarmed father by representatives of the State is an act so low and disgusting that any decent nation would punish it swiftly and surely. Now we are reminded that we live in a nation that is often indecent and unjust.

Marc, I am not sure what we do. We follow the example of Sean Bell’s family who have shown dignity, resolve, hope and love at every moment of this tragedy.  We write to every elected official under whose jurisdiction we fall: mayors, state representatives, congressional representatives, senators and our Presidential candidates. We write them and tell them to publicly condemn this ruling and the violence that preceded it.  We hold informational sessions in our neighborhoods and demand that our police and their leadership show up and answer the community’s questions.  We seek out people running for office at the local and national level and demand to know what they think about the Bell verdict and then hold them accountable on election day.

We march, we write, we cry, we rage, and then we have to love. We have to love our own black selves because it looks like no one else is going to do it.  We have to love ourselves because each of it Sean Bell.

Noble prize winning author Toni Morrison gives us this great lesson in her exquisite novel, Beloved,  through the character of Baby Suggs, holy. When faced with the brutality of life in America she tells her people to love themselves.

“She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and sin no more. She did not tell them they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek or its glory-bound pure…She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it…’Here,’ she said, ‘in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it.

They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick ‘em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ’cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you!

And, no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don’t love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I’m telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver – love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than the eyes or feet. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.”

Marc, we got to love ourselves.

Melissa

Question to the Sexpert:

“I recently noticed an emotional pattern in my sexuality. I am addicted to taboo relationships. I have been in relationships with married men, “off limits” co workers, married women, people much older, much younger (legal age), professional contacts, and now a possible liaison with a stepbrother (no blood lines, thank you).
I only seem to be interested in taboo relationships. Even in my previous marriage I was usually more interested in exploring BDSM, having sex in unusual places, and just overall being kinky than I am just doing things in a normal way.  I know that part of it has to do with the fact that my first full sexual encounter was with an adult when I was a child who told me not to tell…..
Although I am not ready to completely alter my behavior (since I actually would like to find a real relationship with a person who likes what I like), I would like to hear your take on a person who feels a compulsive need to be in taboo encounters and/or relationships often times to the point of distraction.”

Have you ever had a dog or cat who knew damn well that you were entirely uninterested in sharing your peanut butter cup ice cream but they tried to cute you into it? You’re the one going “No. Bad Picklechips! Get down,” and they’re the one trying desperately to convince you that without a sampling of food they would surely die a wretched, horribly painful death within the next few minutes and it would be all your fault and wouldn’t you feel bad then?

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a result of two things: you being a lazy pet owner who doesn’t have the heart to train your animal properly and the fact they, like all developing creatures, feel the need to test their boundaries in order to find out what they can get away with.

You, like dogs, cats, teenagers and other wildlife, are doing what comes naturally: checking out the borders of the acceptable to ascertain the full range of behavioral options available to you sexually. While not everyone seeks out or accepts the advances of a non-biological sibling or takes a cat o’ nine tails out for a test drive, if we are to continuing growing as people we must seek to find out what the world holds that we have not already tried.

A lot of people use other venues to engage in this exploration, some more adaptive (and legal and safe and healthy) than others: like rock climbing, drug use and participating in whip cream bikini contests despite wearing fugly underwear. While I don’t know for certain that this behavior, which you label as compulsive, is your only outlet for seeking novelty, it seems like it’s one of them.

As per my usual response to queries about non-traditional sexual behaviors, as long as everything is safe, sane and consensual and you feel like the consequences of your behavior are a positive force in your life, then knock yourself out, darlin. Neither I nor anyone else is in a position to judge you banging out someone, even if that person has a spouse and the sex is deleterious to their relationship and you’re not obtaining their consent, even though they are clearly affected. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it may not be good form and it may bring really bad results for you, them and their partners, but I’ve not to meet a person who had yet to make a decision that hurt someone else.

The question is, though, since you suggest you’re not entirely interested in changing, what the issue is that inspired you to write in about it. You offer up potential causes for your interests, namely a childhood sexual experience with an adult that may or may not have been perceived as damaging (or affirming or both) as though you desire an explanation for pathology. You describe your dalliances as being compulsive and driving you “to the point of distraction” but don’t give any examples of the sex as causing you heartache, depression or even a good old fashioned baseball bat to the windshield.

A therapist might say you seek these relationships because the taboos prevent you from having to genuinely commit to these people with whom you are involved; there is always the automatic out of “but, we musn’t!” As long as you label these interactions as “wrong,” you get both the thrill of being naughty and the easy exit strategy should things become too real for your taste. But a therapist would likely only guide you towards changing your behavior if you experience distress as a result of your sexual thrill seeking.

But, by all means, seek to have invigorating, exploratory, kinky sex that makes your heart (and other parts) flutter. I encourage that mightily.

If you’d like to change your ways, consider branching out in consensual BDSM or try out role-playing these inappropriate relationships instead. If you switch to role-play, you can go from simply hooking up with a professional contact in the bathroom stall to being the scandalous junior high teacher who takes great liberties with the naughty school student…or at least pretend to.

Timaree Schmit is a trained sexologist who has also worked as an HIV prevention counselor and sex educator. She has written widely for numerous publications and was recently recognized by Coed Magazine as one of the 10 Most Famous College Sex Columnists in America. Timaree is completing a doctorate in Human Sexuality at Widener University.

Do you have a question or comment? Please email Timaree directly at sexpert@MarcLamontHill.com