The Fourteenth Amendment (Section 1): "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside.
"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any persons within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Want to avoid drama at any cost, brothers? Then grow up, and just say no to strip clubs
by Gregory Kane BlackAmericaWeb.com
Consider this column an open letter to the brothers, but you sisters should still read it. If you’re involved with a guy who’s a bit slow on the uptake, you might have to interpret this for your boo.
The same week that New York Police Department officers were found not guilty of all charges stemming from the fatal shooting of Sean Bell, Norman Stamp was being buried in Baltimore.
You may not have heard of Stamp. While there are major differences between what happened in the Bell and Stamp cases, there are also striking similarities.
Bell was leaving a strip club with some buddies. Trouble had started in the club, and Bell and his friends were looking to steer clear of any beef.
As Bell tried to drive away, an undercover cop approached his car. Initial news reports said the officer never identified himself as a cop. In fact, he rolled up on Bell and said something like "Yo, my man, let me holler at you."
Those aren’t the words I’m looking to hear if I’m driving away from a strip club to avoid any beef. If I had heard them, I’d have done exactly what cops said Bell did: hit the accelerator and tried to get out of there.
Police fired 50 shots at Bell’s car, killing him and wounding at least one of his friends. The NYPD was guilty of, at the very least, some very bad policing in the Bell case.
Heads should have rolled in the department. But we all knew that wasn’t going to happen, and we had to have some inkling that the cops involved would never be convicted.
Stamp was part of a motorcycle club in Baltimore whose members, according to news stories, often frequented a "gentleman’s club." In other words, another strip joint. About a week before his funeral, Stamp tried to break up a fight outside the club. Baltimore police say that cops had also been called to the scene.
One saw Stamp brandishing some brass knuckles and Tasered him. Stamp fell to the ground and, according to police, pulled out a gun when he got up. One officer then fired a shot at Stamp and fatally wounded him.
Bell was Black. Stamp was White. But that’s not the most glaring difference between the two cases.
Stamp was a cop.
In fact, on the night he was killed by a member of the Baltimore Police Department, Stamp was celebrating his 36th anniversary as a member of that same force. Witnesses to Stamp’s shooting have said that, as in the Bell case, the official police version of what happened doesn’t quite jibe with what other eyewitnesses saw and heard.
So much for the differences. Now for the similarities, which is the reason this column is an open letter to the brothers.
The similarities should be obvious. They boil down to a simple math question: What do half-naked women + booze + guys + strip club usually equal? A mess of trouble.
Come on, brothers, isn’t it about time we give second thoughts to going to that strip club? Now, don’t get me wrong; if I said I didn’t like to see gorgeous, half-naked women shaking their fannies and dancing on a pole, I’d be lying, and you all know I’d be lying.
But you don’t see me in the strip club. There are simply too many bad characters, too much booze, too many guys and way too much testosterone. And those aren’t the only reasons.
I’m a granddaddy now. Being a grandfather tends to change your perspective--and, often, your wallet. I take my grandkids to the zoo, museums and parks.
In fact, I recently took two of them to see "Horton Hears a Who," which definitely ain’t my kind of movie.
After tallying up the cost from each outing, I say to myself, "Well, there goes another $100 granddad won’t be stuffing down some comely young lass’s G-string." But I don’t mind.
Besides, my older granddaughter already, at the age of eight, peppers me with questions about why the government won’t apologize for slavery and segregation. You think I want to explain to this kid why I was in a strip club?
There is a downside--and some obvious risks--to hoochie ogling at the strip club.
Fortunately, according to a story in a recent edition of "Ebony" magazine, pole dancing isn’t just for hoochies anymore. There are plenty of women doing it for exercise.
So, brothers, the next time you want to see a woman dancing on a pole, you might want to make sure it’s your woman doing it in the privacy of your home.
