Much to my chagrin, there were multiple things that made my side-eye twitch this week. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

Oh Really, Madge?

Madonna compares the plight of “poor” Britney to what African people have to endure.

“When you think about the way people treat each other in Africa, about witchcraft and people inflicting cruelty and pain on each other, then come back here and, you know, people taking pictures of people when they’re in their homes, being taken to hospitals, or suffering, and selling them, getting energy from them, that’s a terrible infliction of cruelty. So who’s worse off? You know what I mean?”

I vote HELL NO, I don’t know what you mean.

Now THIS deserves a ‘HO SIT DOWN’ in my opinion. I could devote an entire post to how many things are wong with this statement but I won’t bother. This is the way she chooses to shed light on Africa? Save it.

Is this a set-up to adopt poor Britney or is she just trying to stir up shit since she has an album coming out? If this is for publicity, let me not give her anymore help.

Lady, You Got Issues. Check Yourself.

I was enjoying a leisurely lunch the other day at a spot where the tables are practically on top of each other. So you can’t help but be privy to others conversations – whether you want to be or not. Two middle-aged women, one black and one white, were sitting next to me chatting away. After a period of sitting there silently willing them to shut the hell up so I could enjoy my book and lunch in peace, I had no choice but to really listen to what they were saying. The black woman was telling the white woman about a baby in her family that was “ugly” when it was born because it was “really, really dark.” However, when she she got older and lightened up a bit, she got cuter.

That’s YOUR girl. I’m not claiming her.

I Almost Yanked Up An Ungrateful Little Crumbsnatcher

I was leaving Tar-jay (with too many damn bags – why is it you can never just get what you went for in that place) and a father and his two sons were entering. The father was carrying the younger son and the older one was walking beside them. He was about five or six. He says to his father, “Why don’t you spoil us?” I look at the father and he looks at me, shaking his head. I wanted to snatch that kid up and say, “DON’T YOU KNOW WE’RE PRACTICALLY IN A RECESSION? HAVE YOU SEEN THE PRICE OF GAS? FOOD? YOUR LITTLE ASS IS EATING A BUNCH OF JUNK EVERYDAY, AREN’T YOU? YOU ARE SPOILED, TRUST ME!”

Vivrant loves the kids.

These Mofos Are Going STRAIGHT To Hell

You may remember my outrage over the horrific story of Banita Jacks, the woman that murdered her four daughters and left them rot in an upstairs bedroom for an indeterminate amount of time. It still haunts me.

Now I hear that several family members are bringing their trifling asses up out the woodwork, including two of the baby daddies, and plan to sue the city for negligence. One of the fathers is suing for $25 million. Mind you, this nigga (had to resurrect it) was delinquent on the child support.

Where were all these fools when that woman was losing her mind? Where were they when those kids hadn’t been seen for months? Where were you when they were cowering in the house, terrified beyond belief as they watched their demented mother kill their sisters one by one? Now you want to get paid?!

God don’t like ugly.

Vivrant Thang’s Real Name is Roberta Kelly

I actually had to give my damn self the side-eye this week.

My condo community is on the same property as a high school. Over the past couple of days, I’ve seen this kid walking to school who is the spitting image of Chris Brown, but with locs. If this blog goes dark, it’s because the Lord has struck me down for the unnatural thoughts that crept into my head. I must say at 6’2 or so, he certainly wasn’t carrying it like a kid. Clearly he had to be though.

No need to shame me in the comments. I have splashed bleach in my own eyes.

So yes, my side-eye has had a busy week, particularly since I had to turn it on myself!

I’m really excited by how far this blog has come in the three months I’ve been posting regularly. At first since I didn’t share the URL with a lot of people, I was a bit surprised when I got my first comment so soon after I started writing. I thought I’d be talking to myself for quite a while…and I was okay with that. I wanted to find my way a bit and decide just what I was here to do. Knowing that people were reading made me move a little quicker!

I don’t post daily or several times a day like other folks so this is just my 50th post. Since I’m moving right along with one of my blog resolutions, which is to increase readership and comments, I thought I’d do sort of a retrospective for new readers. I don’t know about you, but I appreciate when a blogger does that because as a person that subscribes to over 150 feeds, which I obviously don’t always keep up with, I need a round-up on occasion. So I intend to do this every 50 posts.

Over these past couple of weeks, some great things have happened as a result of a few posts in particular.

• Just today, I discovered that CNN has linked to my rant post about the Banita Jacks case under their From The Blogs section. Lawd, take me now. It appears to be powered by some news aggregator but I’m thrilled that it found my post out of all the blogs that I hope are talking about this. I don’t know if it will change soon so check it out!
• If that wasn’t enough, last week I wrote a post about a HOT party I had the pleasure to attend. Super Producer 9th Wonder and DJ Cuzzin B actually took the time to comment and then 9th Wonder linked to my post from his Myspace blog. If that wasn’t enough, they also added a link to my blog from the True School website, which is also linked from 9th Wonder’s main website. All of this because I simply wrote about what I love: rocking to REAL music. I didn’t expect anyone to find it, much less comment on it. I just had to share it.
• Shortly after all that, I discovered that my post about “Getting Back” with Little Brother was used on the Facebook page for their upcoming concert in London at The Jazz Cafe. (aside: I wish I lived in London. They have some HOT shows coming up there *gasp and swoon*). There were several excellent posts which I referenced in my own, but they used mine.

Here are some other posts I’ve written that I’d like to spotlight:

The Daily News

• She’s In a Better Place (rape and murder of 10-month-old Da’Niyah Jackson)
• Unpretty (death of Dr. Donda West)
• Why? My Thoughts on the Michael Vick Case
• Self-Destruction (thoughts on TI and Michael Vick)
• I Am Not My Hair

Concert Reviews

• From Erro to Prince: I Gets Around!
• The ERRO Concert Experience
• Let’s Rock with Chrisette Michele
• There’s Something About Keite Young
• Love It: Bilal Concert Reviews and Videos
• Let’s Rock: Highlights from the Van Hunt Concert

Here are the posts that have been among your favorites, according to the stats:

• My Favorite Things: Top 50 R&B/Soul Songs
• Other Woman
• My Favorite Things: Top 10 Songs of 2007
• No More Drama
• Young, Gifted, and Black!

I’m also really proud of the blog campaign I participated in last month for World AIDS day. You can see all of the posts here.

For the newbies wanting to know more about Vivrant Thing, check the “Who’s That Girl?” page and the All About Me section.

So there you have it…the highlights thus far. I’d love to hear your comments on some of these past posts if you missed them the first time around.

I have a lot in store for the next 50 posts. So hang tight and enjoy the ride!

Mother, mother
There’s too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There’s far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today

I often joke that the future Mr. Vivrant Thang will not only need to have the patience of Job, but should also have experience dealing with mental patients in order to live with me for the rest of his life. It’s cases like this that remind me that there are some issues that just aren’t a laughing matter.

I was talking with The First Lady yesterday and realized that people outside the area may not have heard about this case, although it has been picked up nationally.

It’s a difficult story to report on several levels because so much of it doesn’t make sense and there are so many details that are still unfolding. I suspect there are some things that will never be fully explained because there are no explanations.

Last week, authorities arrived at the home of 33-year-old Banita Jacks’ to evict her from her DC residence. Instead, they essentially stumbled upon a house of horrors. Inside the home were the badly decomposed bodies of her four daughters; Brittany Jacks, 16; Tatianna Jacks, 11; N’Kiah Fogle, 6; and Aja Fogle, 5. It’s unclear how long the children had been dead. The medical examiner says at least two weeks.

Jacks claims they were possessed by demons and died in their sleep some time before her electricity was cut off , which was back in September 2007. However, the girls were found to have blunt force trauma, stab wounds, and ligature marks around their necks. Jacks also admitted she starved them before they “died.”

There are many more details to this story which you can read about here and here. After you read them, I’m sure you’ll be left with several questions.

Here are my issues.

There were 30 family members in the courtroom at Jacks’ first appearance. Where were these same family members when these girls went missing?Reports have said that the family would come over there and she wouldn’t answer or she wouldn’t let them in. See, this brings up an issue in the Black community that I need to talk about in another post. We don’t have “Big Mommas” anymore. Big Momma would have gone over there to see about her babies. If Jacks’ would have dared to fix her lips to say that she couldn’t come in, she would have been backhanded and shoved to the side.

Apparently, there was a grandmother to two of the girls in the picture. She gave the same sob story about trying to contact them but had gotten cussed out and turned away. I guess she gave up.

What about the two fathers of the oldest girls? Did they not notice their daughters were missing? No, because neither of those negroes were paying regular child support so they probably couldn’t have cared less about seeing the girls. They probably were glad not to have seen or heard from Jacks. We won’t even get into how social services and the school system failed this family. Just like any inner city, you got a bunch of lazy heifers and negroes sitting up there collecting fat checks while claiming they are underpaid and overworked. Sure, the system needs major reform and Mayor Fenty wasted no time cleaning house, as he should have. It’s unconscionable that a school social worker actually did her job and after a visit to the home in April, had to plead for authorities to help the girls. At that point, they had missed over a month of school and were essentially being held hostage in a nasty house by a deranged mother. The social worker reported all of this and the cops went over there and left, apparently without laying eyes on them. Those girls could have been dying then. Can you imagine how terrified they must have been? The older girls probably tried to comfort the younger ones while dealing with their own hunger and fear. Horrible.I know there are rules that have to be followed, but officials seriously dropped the ball here.

Cellmates of Benita Jacks have said she admitted to killing the girls and that she is “crazy.” There is no question in my mind that this woman is indeed mentally ill. Apparently after the father of the two youngest died of cancer, the family situation changed drastically and something inside of her snapped. Why didn’t someone recognize this and get this woman some help?

Mental illness is a serious problem in this country that is not being addressed. We are quick to dismiss someone as “crazy,” and keep it moving until something like this happens. A girl that I hang out with on occasion is battling depression and I am the first to admit that I often avoid her or become impatient with her moody behavior and what I deem stand-offishness. I don’t know the extent of her illness because she doesn’t talk about it, but clinical depression is also nothing to ignore.

It’s time for us to go back to the days of it taking a village to raise a child. If we don’t start speaking up and getting involved when something ain’t quite right about a situation (and not stopping until there is a resolution!), we are going to keep losing our children.

Based on some accounts, it seems Jacks was a good mother before she snapped. So if she had gotten some help, there’s a chance this tragedy could have been avoided. Who knows what these girls could have accomplished had they actually had a chance at life? Perhaps this? Or any of this?

Sadly, we’ll never know.