WEEK IN REVIEW APRIL 20th, 2007


The biggest debate in the Majority Black Spheres of the web continues to be over Hip-Hop and how it treats woman. If there is any "good" that comes from Don Imus and his dunb-a*s comments it's articles on Thug life army
like this

Furthermore, as I watched Oprah Winfrey this week, I found myself very disappointed watching some desperate millionaire fall guys speak about NOT blaming filth-spewing rap cr*p artists for the NEWLY arrived heights of devastation among Black American Citiz

Oprah's in studio on stage guests, who have gained from our pain was Russell Simmons, Bernard Chivers, Kevin Liles, and Common (who is among the few positive artists), who made excuse after excuse for the vast widespread devastation of the Black community.

I'm asking all those who watched Oprah not to get confused with their mind-twisting fast-talking bullying tactics that was force-feeding everyone to look everywhere else but inside themselves to make that change; they are their own man in the mirror, who hold the power to rid our lives of the mental trash that cleverly deceived us with beats that were given to us as gifts from our ancestors to be used for loving and healing purposes.

I must disagree with a popular notion that negative lyrics sell. No, the consumer bought the beat and the groove and was tricked into condoning and repeating lyrics that commonly used the rhythms of nursery rhymes to convince us that being horrible human beings would render us massive rewards. The glamorizing of despicable language such as nigga, bitch and ho could have only involved the work of the devil who is THE master of deception.

What is missing are all the non-Black record company owners and executives that hated Black people while smiling in their faces telling them that they will pay them riches for putting down Black people and lying to Black people telling them over and over and over again what is wrong is right.

What Imus said was disgusting but at least it's provoking a much needed larger debate with in the Black community. I don't think Hip Hop sites would be having this type of debate with out such a catalyst.

On the other hand it exposed hypocrites like Media Matters: Neal Boortz, who's said congresswoman Cynthia Mckinney "looks like a ghetto slut," blasted "denigration of Black women through rap music."
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CULTURE
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This debate is happening in South Africa but I think it's relevant to the USA also.

Sunday Times: Say it out loud: I’m black, I’m rich and I’m proud. There are a host of reasons why it is a good thing for wealthy people, particularly blacks in Africa, to display their wealth conspicuously.

IT SEEMS that you can never win as a black person. If you are poor and living in the rural areas, peri-urban areas or in the townships, you are condemned to a life of poverty, unemployment, under-employment, sickness (including, yes, HIV/Aids) and, of course, the big gogga — crime.

If you manage to escape these gevaars, you are still not off the hook. The next albatross around your neck is your wealth — where you got it, how you got it and even whether you display it appropriately or not.

Even black wealth needs to be defensive in this country and ground rules need to be set on what car you must drive, how many suits you possess, how often these should be displayed, where and when.

If you are not cognisant of this “etiquette”, as one journalist referred to it, you may then fall under the new danger: that of practising the evil art of self-enrichment. You may be frowned upon, we are made to believe, by “The Poor”, and found guilty of the offence of “public and wanton display of wealth”, or “conspicuous consumption”.


This is all nonsense, of course.

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POLITICS
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Cynthia Tucker: GOP still can't find those FVs — fake voters. Republicans seem to believe that if they lost an election, somebody cheated. That delusion has not only led them to chase after unsubstantiated rumors of fake voters...

at the ballot box. Harsh voter ID laws have already suppressed voting by people of color around the country.

Now, the GOP's paranoid insistence that countless votes have been illegally cast has mired them in legal and political quicksand. It was the party's determination to prosecute voter fraud, even if it did not exist, that forced some conscientious U.S. attorneys out of office — a scandal reminiscent of Richard Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre.

The clumsy politicization of the Justice Department has created turmoil in its ranks. Democrats have issued subpoenas to try to get a straight story about the dismissal of competent attorneys such as New Mexico prosecutor David Iglesias; meanwhile, high-ranking Justice Department appointees have headed for the exits. The controversy may yet end the tenure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

All this might have been avoided if Republicans were able to face up to a bitter truth: They lose elections because voters don't agree with their politics. That's especially true for black and brown voters, who find it difficult to get excited about a party that caters to xenophobes and mossbacks.

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Michelle Obama is now officially in the game. The Chicago native headlined her first major fund-raiser Monday, parlaying her impassioned, tell-it-like-it-is style into $750,000 for her husband's presidential campaign.
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I just got back from Indiana this week. I learned something there. Listen to audio of Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita as he reviews Republican history...and trots out the Black voters as "slaves" to Democrats talking point. (Black Republicans are leading the revolt on the plantation! Praise be to White Jesus!) Thank you massa!
Just to show how sorry he was he tries to apologize but my poor little slave mind can't figure out what he really meant? Can one of my slave masters please explain it to me?
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I don't know how many of you have heard of this but Petithomme, 32, a Haitian-American U.S. Army veteran, was too weak to continue the strike in protest of the detention of 101 Haitian migrants who landed in South Florida March 28.

For more than two weeks, Petithomme consumed only water and sports drinks.

His protest gained national attention as he posted videos and messages on the Web at tpsforhaiti.com.

He wants the U.S. government to release the migrants while they await deportation hearings.

After he gets medical treatment, Petithomme will continue pushing the U.S. government to grant Haitian migrants temporary legal status when they arrive on U.S. soil, his supporters said Wednesday.

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INERNATIONAL
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Zimbabwe: Defiant voices of victims and eye witnesses of Mugabe's terror campaign

In the past 30 days between 11 March and 10 April the MDC reports that over 600 Zimbabwean citizens among them opposition leaders, activists, trade unionists, journalists, students and civilians have been either arrested, assaulted, tortured, abducted, shot or killed in cold blood during a systematic and meticulous but brutal terror campaign sponsored by the ZANU PF regime.

The MDC says the main perpetrators of this unprovoked violence against innocent citizens, opposition activists, government critics and perceived enemies of the State are the CIO, police, army and ZANU PF militias.

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Democracy disapoints in Nigeria

This was Tanko Bala's life before the arrival of democracy: He had a steady job at a factory, a predictable supply of electricity in his home and a few of life's indulgences. Milk with his morning tea. Movies in the evenings.

This is his life now: The factory has closed. The electricity has all but disappeared. The television has been sold along with the VCR. And the elections that arrive every four years are, in Bala's view, so thoroughly rigged that Nigeria's government seems no more a reflection of popular will than it did during the days of military rule. He expects little more from Saturday's presidential election.

"Democracy, they wanted to do good things, but the cheaters are too much," said Bala, 40, a thin, modest man with a wife and three daughters. "Instead of doing work for the people, they do work for themselves."

Nigeria's corruption, rated by Transparency International as among the worst in the world, has undermined its young democracy by weakening public services and trust in elected leaders. President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose election eight years ago ended decades of military dictatorships, is leaving behind a decaying nation whose citizens are poor and increasingly frustrated.

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In Rio, Death Comes Early

RIO DE JANEIRO -- The sound of crackling explosions entered through the glassless window of Maiza Madeira's home, a hollow-brick shanty wedged deep within the narrow, twisting alleyways of this city's largest hillside slum.

She lifted her chin to acknowledge the noise, paused, then dismissed the sound as quickly as it had come: "Fireworks," she said.

Each time she hears a rapid-fire noise like that, she said, the pause that follows marks the instant in which she takes quick inventory of her children. She has three, and she considers it her mission to steer them through childhood safely. But they live in a favela -- a shantytown that doubles as a battlefield, fought over by the neighborhood's ruling drug gangs, the police and, in some cases, vigilante militias -- and safety is hardly guaranteed.

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MONEY
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NPR: Should Blacks Care that Apple Has Sold 100 Million IPods? Do national technology trends play the same way in the Black community?