Precious?

You may have heard about the movie Precious about an obese black teenager who has been repeatedly raped by her father and given birth to two of his children. There's a lot of Oscar buzz surrounding it. I'm sure it's incredibly moving, but frankly I don't think I have the wherewithal to sit through something that depressing.

Although the movie is reportedly based on a novel I was immediately reminded of it when I heard about the sentencing yesterday in Queens, New York of one Brigitte Harris. Harris was convicted of "Bobbitting" her father and then suffocating him two years ago.

She claimed that she didn't want to kill him, just cut off his Johnson so he couldn't return to Liberia with his granddaughters. He'd been abusing her since the age of 3 and she is now 55.

Brigitte was sentenced to 5 to 15 years, the maximum she could get after being convicted of second degree manslaughter. The jury really didn't want to convict her after hearing of the abuse she'd been subjected to. The judge was annoyed with the jury and chided them for being sympathetic.