I came across the latest atrocity in systematic violence against women on CNN’s Headline News today and investigated further to get a clearer picture through the Ms. Magazine feminist wire.

I’m not sure how this kind of thing happens today. I’m not sure how anyone can view it as entertainment and tape the footage on their cell phones and sell it to a major American news network or other location. Furthermore, I don’t understand how anyone can watch someone’s life being taken without helping.

The news wire article estimates that up to 1,000 men could have participated in ending this 17-year-old woman’s life. That means that there were up to 2,000 hands that could have helped her up instead of pushing her down or that could have blocked her from the countless stones that smashed her body, ultimately and publicly murdering her. News reports say that this is culturally called an “honor killing,” but where is the honor in ending a woman’s life while she is unable to defend herself? I’m nothing less than disgusted.

Cultural norms or otherwise, there are some things that I will never understand, and killing because of love is one of those things. I suppose I’m lucky. No, not lucky. Fortunate. I am fortunate because, in America, it is a crime to murder someone for choosing to love outside of his or her religion. Even twenty minutes later, this story still leaves a terrible taste in my mouth. It is evident that this story is too close to home for me to stomach. I’m in a relationship that spans religious diversity, and daily I do not hide my head or fear for some kind of repercussion. There are people who, of course, find my situation distasteful — and each person is allowed his or her opinion. But I’ve never had to fear for my life like this woman must have. So, as I reflect on my own life and the life of this woman, only one year younger than me, I realize that, no, I am not lucky. She was deprived of the life she should have been allowed to have and love she should have been allowed to express.

It is hard enough to find love, and those who are able to find it are fortunate and should be able to celebrate it rather than wondering if the next day is the day that they will lose their lives because of it. I can only hope that there will come a day when love of all kinds is embraced.

Juana Maria Summers

For two weeks now, I've been biting my tongue about former CBS host Don Imus and comments he made on a broadcast regarding the Rutgers women's basketball team. The phrase "nappy headed hos" has been thrown around far too much, and as a journalist, I'm the last one who wants to give him any more unnecessary publicity.

Now Imus, who also works with WFAN-AM/New York is reportedly suing the corporation for $120 million. In the draft of suits, allegedly Imus argues that the network expected his content to be both controversial and irreverent, and that his comments did not violate FCC rules.

I'm a journalist, and I love the First Amendment. Because of it, I'm able to say what I've got to say, publish articles that people take offense to, and blog on this and other websites. But people need to expect that when they say things that are deviant from society's norms, an audience will get riled up.

I'm a college student, and an editor at my campus newspaper, and because of a story I ran and a source I used, it is likely that someone will be sued. I knew it going in, and Imus knew that his commentary about the women of Rutgers would cause some backlash. Did he think that he would get fired? That's unlikely. But unfortunately in this society, words have recourse.

I'm from Kansas City and have been following the Imus controversy through the sports columns of Jason Whitlock. My boyfriend said that he has made some of the most profound commentary on race and has emerged into this arena level-headed and with a fresh perspective. I agree.

Like Whitlock, I think we need to really, really open our eyes. As a black woman, I'm not threatened by Imus and don't feel like less of a person.

The women of Rutgers are still good basketball players and likely still good people. One ignorant comment did not change their season or personalities. I feel like by talking about this issue so much, we've just worsened the actual comment and magnified it.

If we're going to target one guy for an inappropriate comment, we should be targeting all of rap and hip hop for comments made in a similar vein. I'm not pissed off about Imus; I am simply disinterested.

Don Imus — please just shut up. I can't take another second of you in the spotlight, really. So you're out of a job, but you just got hours and hours of free publicity in exchange for espousing racist and sexist views on air.

I can't help but wonder what would happen if Imus tried to create a media circus and nobody came. Imagine a courtroom not crowded with reporters and interested individuals. Imagine if his face wasn't on our televisions and his voice didn't echo on the radio constantly…Imagine if Imus went back to what he was before — an insignificant, meaningless shock jock. I'd be happier.

So would everyone else.

Juana Maria Summers

Sometimes, it takes looking from the inside to recognize greatness. From the outside of New York City, the media often presents us a picture of coarse New Yorkers, unconcerned with the fates of others, commuting back and forth through their busy lives. But on further inspection, the negligence and head-in-the clouds attitudes doesn’t touch all aspects of the city that never sleeps.

For a week, I was immersed in the New York culture. Like hundreds who live in the city, I took the subway to and from work each day, smashed in between strangers I didn't know, only to be deposited a 20-minute walk from work at Houston St. The subway system and its passengers became familiar to me, but the reality that became more true was that of the people who dedicate their lives to help others.

God's Love We Deliver isn't located in one of the magnificent buildings so typical of New York city, but in stature, it stands greater than all of them. The organization, located near Soho, is housed in a modest brick building, but more than 1,500 clients are served through its swinging doors daily.

God's Love We Deliver is changing the reality of people with HIV and AIDS, as well as other demonstrated medical needs daily by fufilling one of their most basic needs – nutrition. Meals are based on a diet for a person surviving with HIV and AIDS, so they are always over 2000 calories, and are handmade each day by volunteers and paid employees.

The kitchen is more than just a mere assembly line. During my week's stay, it wasn't uncommon to strike up a conversation with one of the regular volunteers, or to joke around with visitors from Harvard, or even catch one of the cooks singing a parody of Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars." From helping, God's Love We Deliver does more than just deliver meals door-to-door — it is rapidly creating a fellowship between people who care about other people.

What makes God's Love We Deliver so amazing isn't the numbers or the statistics we can view on paper — it's each individual person who suits up in a hairnet and rubber gloves to try to make a difference.

Derry Duncan, the volunteer specialist who walked us through training for the week we worked there, is one of the most charismatic individuals I have ever met. The woman is an enigma who didn't choose this work — it chose her. Yet her passion is palpable every time she speaks. In the entirety of a week, I never saw her without a smile on her face, and her gratitude for each and every volunteer was so visible.

To me, GLWD is Derry, and people like her, who don't think twice about whether or not they should become involved in helping others — they simply do, and through their enthusiasm and courage, inspire other people to come along.

According to the New York State Department of Health, more than 10,000 people in the city of New York alone live with HIV and AIDS. Though progress has been tremendous since it first prevailed many years ago, we have no scientific cure. But maybe, through feeding those who, perhaps without a little help, could not eat, we are actually helping to find a solution. So thank you to Derry and all others who give of themselves to do this work. It isn't just another volunteer assignment — really helping is a lifetime task.

Juana Maria Summers

According to an article published Friday by the Associated Press, the Japanese government said it has no evidence that Japanese women were forced to work in World War II military brothels, according to a statement made on Friday.

The government has not come across anything recorded in the materials it has found that directly shows so-called 'coercion' on the part of the military or constituted authorities," the statement read, as presented in Tokyo.

These women, better known as comfort women, were a part of an atrocious history of sexual slavery on the Asian continent sixty years ago. During World War II, the victims, according to a report complied by Amnesty International, up to 200,000 women were enslaved sexually by the Imperial Army, between 1932 until the end of World War II.

Following these devastating acts, these

Sixty years later, these women have been unable to find justice from the government that ultimately led to their physical and emotional discomfort.

While the American government has watched from afar, it remarkably has not remained silent. In 2005, and again this year, members of the United States Congress have sponsored legislation which would plead for an official apology for the women involved.

There are few times that there is extreme bipartisan support of a measure, especially when it deals with international relations. However, both Democrats and Republicans in Congress see the requests of the comfort women as valid, and want our government to demand this simple act of justice. I stand with them.

There is a striking possibility that the surviving comfort women will never hear a "sorry" from the Japanese government, and an even more likely possibility that they will die before recognition is made. The surviving women are in their 70's, roughly, and have broken their silence to speak out against the sexual violence attributed to war. Breaking their silence, in the Japanese community, led to shame and ousting from mainstream society. But these women outweighed their own discomfort for a greater good, and for that, I admire them.

I personally became connected with the story of the Comfort Women as an actor in the Vagina Monologues on my college campus. Eve Ensler, who compiled the monologues, interviewed several of these courageous women, and made them the topic of the 2005 spotlight.

Theatre is a powerful tool that liberates those who perhaps can not free themselves from societal entrenchment. The comfort women, though few in number, will be heard. Each year, thousands of women will relate their tale on college campuses across the country. These women will trouble the community to take action, to remember, and to speak out against acts of violence against women in times of war.

When those in our global community have no voices, we must be their voices. When those in our community can not achieve justice on their own – we have to help them find that inner peace.

Perhaps the Japanese government will never recognize these atrocities verbally. There is a striking chance that their history will not appear in the country's history texts – those things, those institutional barricades to truth, are not things we are able to control.

But we have to remember the comfort women.

Juana Maria Summers

A Reuters article announced that the Walt Disney Company will welcome its first black animated heroine to join the ranks of Cinderella, Snow White, Jasmine, and the other Disney Princesses. “The Frog Princess” will be released in 2009, starring Maddy, a girl from the French Quarter in New Orleans. 

The Disney Princesses, in total, have raised over $3 billion dollars in retail sales across the country since 1999. That doesn’t include data from the individual princesses, as they were marketed to young girls. Effectively, this number recognizes the willingness of our society to buy into the happy endings that Disney films promise.

But these happy endings became multicultural only recently. Before Jasmine, the first Disney character of color, was introduced in 1992, all of the princesses Disney marketed to global youth were white: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Belle, and Ariel were familiar faces.

Disney has been heralded as a corporation dedicated to family entertainment and the wishes and dreams of all children. But without representatives from diverse ethnic groups, how can there be happy endings for all?

Furthermore, the company’s animated films, for a great deal of its history, showed only frail women. Snow White, Cinderella, and Ariel all needed saving. So did Jasmine, but to a much lesser extent. Her frailty was far less pronounced. Until Mulan and Pocahontas were marketed, women seemed resigned to have their fairytale ending with a man tied to their hip, or at least predominantly responsible.

Hopefully, with the introduction of Maddy from New Orleans, all that will change. Dreams of a future free of hate and intolerance, the embodiment of the so-called villains that Disney constructs, have no color. Every girl deserves a chance for a happy ending, or at least a dream of one.

Juana Maria Summers

When I agreed to begin writing for InTheFray, I promised that my personal biases, thoughts, and experiences would not dominate the things I wrote here. As an avid blog reader, as well as a journalism student, I believe that blogs beginning with the words “from my experience” are often uninteresting to the readership and convey little more than a narrative. However, today’s topic was literally handed to me from my own experience, and that is what I have to go with. I hesitated on posting this for more than a week, just to make sure I was giving the incident its social and political justice, and that I wasn’t just using this as a place to rant. But I think it makes sense when you look at it from the outside.

I live in a small-city-turned-college-town by its home to, historically, one of the strongest athletic programs in the Big 12. I live on the edge of campus, right near downtown, and am able to watch the city and the university mix together in a unique fashion. Although I write crime for the university’s student newspaper, I have never feared walking alone at night from my job or doing most activities independently.

But today everything changed. I had my car battery replaced and decided to stop at a gas station down the road from my dormitory. I had walked there before over the fall; it wasn’t that far away. They had good prices. It seemed a perfect fit.

But I didn’t fit in. As I walked into the store, a man with dreadlocks in a newer blue car stopped me, asking repeatedly what my name was and then for me to get into his car. I stared at him blankly, refusing any other response except to walk into the store to buy glass cleaner. I just wanted to get my windows clean.

I exited the store, Armorall and Mountain Dew in hand, and started the lengthy task of washing the windows on my Jeep.

I didn’t realize how out of my element I apparently was until two young men, close to my age, started shouting at me. Then, I started getting scared. But I tried to just keep washing my windows and the seat covers in my car. I didn’t want to seem scared. After all, I paid taxes here, too – it’s my city, too.

After the men retreated behind the side of the building, my heart stopped racing a little bit, and I began to put everything back into my car so that I could leave and head back to the dorm before going to classes. But I didn’t get much time to relax, or slow the adrenaline that was pulsing through my veins like fire.

All I could think at that moment was how much I wanted to go home. No, not to the dorm on the campus I’ve lived since August, but home, to my home. Where I drive everywhere safe and secure in my two-door Jeep. Home, where my mother is a vigilante and watches out the back door when I drive in from work late at night. Home, where I’ve never felt insecure and never questioned my own safety while trying to fill a car with gas.

But I just calmly drove back to my dorm, taking the long route as to avoid being followed, and dialed my mother on my cell phone as I did so. It took all of my willpower not to burst into angry tears.

“You go to college in a small town with a small-town mentality,” she said. “You guys need to keep traveling in packs.”

I knew she was right, but I didn’t want to be confined to leaving the dorm or the vicinity of my classes to only when two or three of my friends could tag along. These were my streets – the streets where I had wandered excitedly after making my college choice less than a year ago. These are the streets I was supposed to feel comfortable and at home on. Now, all I want is to get away from them.

What right do men walking at the corner of Providence and Walnut have to rob me of my security, of the knowledge that any streets I choose are my own? They don’t have the license to take away my safety – but I’ve given it to them by my own fear.

Tonight, I am driving around a campus I usually walk with abandon because I do not want to be caught off guard. I will drive to another part of the city to fill my car with gas. It is likely my boyfriend will fill a role he was never meant to – a watch guard of sorts, because I am too wary to wander on my own at night.

Follow-up postings discussing the issues of women’s safety and offensive attitudes in small towns will follow shortly. Sometimes the personal and the political merge in a unique matter. Sometimes, we can’t help but speak from what we know, rather than what we have to say.

Juana Maria Summers

You can keep the politics out of the Academy Awards.

Well…not really. Tonight’s winner for Best Live Action Short Film, West Bank Story, makes sure that the Oscars see a dose of what’s really on intellectual America’s mind.

Beyond the questions of what exactly Nicole Kidman is wearing and who will win the coveted Best Picture award, the reality is that America still exists outside of the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, even tonight.

Two fated lovers meet West Side Story-style between two opposing falafel stands in Ari Sandel’s comic take on the conflict between Pakistan and Israel. The dance clips, found both in the trailer and the film, could compete with any Broadway musical.

Short or not so short, this film can roll with the punches. And Sandel encapsulated the tension between the film’s weighty subject matter and lighthearted approach perfectly for the billions of viewers.

“One of the things I wanted to do was combat all of the negative news that’s constantly in the news about the situation, and I felt that the best way to do that would be through comedy,” said Sandel.

And his approach on the always-pressing situation in the Middle East was not the only political commentary, to be sure.

As Leonardo DiCaprio and former Vice President Al Gore announced, the Academy Awards have “gone green.”

“Though we may have a long way to go, all of us can do something in our own lives to make a difference,” said Gore, after gracefully refusing DiCaprio’s bait to announce his often-debated position on running for Commander in Chief of the United States.

We still don’t know what Gore’s up to as for 2008, but we do know one thing for certain after tonight’s awards — the American public and the global public is not as vapid as commonly teemed.

While fashion, fun, and entertainment matter, so do national politics, international politics, and thinking green, even in the entertainment industry.

Juana Maria Summers