Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

On the face of it, this week seemed long and difficult. The blackwoman had to grab herself by her belief system quite a few times.

See, I believe that we are watching the dinosaur die. Listening as it were, to the sound of irrelevance.

For some reason, I’ve been thinking about Freddie Kruger. I only saw the movie Nightmare on Elm Street in bits and pieces (being a romantic comedy, Katt Williams, Great Debaters kinda sistah) but the ending struck me.

As I recall, the last girl standing was in her bedroom and Freddie had shown up to finish her off. Instead of being afraid, last girl standing looked him in the eye and told him he was finished. She told him she wanted her life back, her friends and family restored. I think I heard her tell him he had no power. He reached out to slay her and....vanished. Into thin air

(SistahSpeak con't)

For me this has been one of the things that living for a while has taught me. You have to refuse to be afraid. You have to be willing to take back your power. You have to decree that your enemies are powerless.

I wonder if Obama ever saw the movie. I know he has been making the moves.

This week I have refused to allow myself to stay in the nightmare. I am looking the bullshit in the face and calling it powerless. It is powerless to stop an idea whose time has come. It is powerless to stop the movement of prayer that has been on the lips of my ancestors for a true measure of equality and real justice. It has been the prayer of decent people of every race for a long, long time.

Maybe the reason people tried calling some of us cultist is because those who have held goodwill and racial harmony in our hearts know an answer when it shows up. If this had been a movie, everyone in the theater would know by now who the good guys are and how it’s gonna end.

I believe that most of us carry the same dreams in the culture of our lives. The culture that is doing the filtering these days seems to be more of a blend than days of yesteryear. I for one find no small pleasure observing this.

One of the fears articulated over and over again by the George Wallace’s of that age, was that integration would lead to race mixing. As a young green eyed girl I was wondering if they knew that green eyes don’t grow in Africa . Not these green eyes. These green eyes were planted in the soil of rape. I guess you can call it one of the perks of owning women. You can tell the world that they are not quite people, rape them at will and since it was done often and most everywhere, everybody could pretend not to notice. I have some compassion for the wives of those men who often had to look at their husband’s children daily. Often they were brought into the house, hence the term.

I feel a degree of compassion for Strom Thurmond. What do you have to tell yourself when you have a daughter whose mother was your maid? How difficult to live such a splintered life without the ability at any point, to speak without the abiding stain of hypocrisy.

Now we have Barack Obama. He is Africa . And Kansas . And Indonesia . And Hawaii . And Columbia and Harvard law. He is Chicago ’s Southside and he is Hyde Park . And soon he will be 1600 Pennsylvania.

His enemies are powerless. The sound you hear now is the rattle that the death of an age, an end of an era, and the beginning of a new age and era make. Right now I’m only listening to the beginning sound. Some of the old ways are dying. Those who clearly see this and are doing everything they know to do to forestall what has become necessary have already lost. The energy has shifted. We are on a different course already.

Now is the time to let the rage and anger go. These shadows belong to a time that must shift. Mankind must find and use a different gear if we are to survive as a species.

Time to take back our power. To allow the enemies to disappear and fade out of existence. This cannot be done in either anger or rage. To make them disappear we have to withdraw our permission. Our anger feeds them and prolongs the process.

I was raised to understand that there is a time and place for everything. This is the time. The place is right here. Like last girl standing I decree that you have no power, you were using mine and I take it back. I want the life I would have had if you had never existed...disappear. Now.

Breathe easy. Works better.

The Urban Educational System
Sephius1, Black Kos Editor

Last week we discussed how the financial resources, at different levels, tie into the resources a school has to work with. It was short, but for a reason. As I mentioned in the start of the series, some pieces would overlap with later parts of series that is to come. So I didn't want go deep into the commercial, and governmental aspects of the financials. That will come later.

This week we'll take a look at how people resources are lagging in an inner city kid's life at every level. Just to rehash where we are at:

Safety, Health, and the Environment - this includes drugs and other substances that can be abuse, sexually abuse, bullying, dilapidated housing, school buildings and community infrastructures.

Financial Resources - this includes the poverty levels of the students, surrounding community, and the resources the school has available.

People Resources - this includes the identifying the different learning levels of students early, their socio-economic status, those who play parental roles, inter-personal relationships, self-image.

This also includes hiring compotent teachers, having a reward process in place for teachers who do well in the classroom, instead linking a teachers livelyhood to the number of students they pass, getting teachers to think out of the box, and have more robust training for teachers to keep their skill up to date.

Solutions - I will propose solutions in this section to help develop a strategy at the school level.


1.3 People Resources

- Family -

Every day of childs life is a school of sorts. The first learning environment is the family. It sets the tone for years to come. So much so that when your child is beginning to learn language, and how to talk, scientist have discovered that if you talk to your child in that "goo-goo, ga-ga" language, you actually hinder their speech development, thus making it harder to learn once they start school. We all have done it, but I have tried to not talk that way to my young cousins who are now 5, and 8, but were able to write there name when they started kindergarten. I had some learning software installed on my computer that taught the alphabets, so when ever they came over to visits they always want to jump on the computer and play the "alphabet game". I would write their name on a piece paper and let them write it as best they could. I guess the reason I ultimately took on the responsibility is because their mother is a single parent and they didn't have any positive male role models.

And it's not a female vs. male thing. A home without a good father distorts his daughter(s) view of men. She's never introduced to the idea of a good man, and so she is immediately distrustful of most men. A son never gets introduced to the idea of being a good man that provides for his family. If a home is without a good mother, then a daughter never learns nuturing skills like conflict resolution (my mother always knew how to end verbal disagreement between me and my brother, with civility), intuition, child rearing (that's not to say fathers don't share in this, but the fact the women carry the child for nine months, I think it comes more naturally). And if either parent is absent any child would never see the interpersonal relationship between their mother and father, which is necessary to secure a child's foundation and to give a level of confidence that the child can use to step out and explore the world.

Siblings also add to this learning environment. Having a sibling, hopefully, allows a safe space to allow some "good" rivalries do develop (like competing to get better grades), as well as, an understanding of hierarchy and your place in it (stuff like the oldest child gets more privileges).

- School -

Once your in the school environment, the teacher is probabaly second when it comes to time spent with a child. Most kids almost treat their teacher as a second parent, sometimes confiding in them things that they would never in their real parents, or atleast embarassed in doing. However, teachers are not the only figures school kids come in contact with. There's the school nurse, the custodians, the cafeteria people, the principle, and other administrative people. The kid is not only seeing the different levels of power for the first time, but they are introduce the concept of mentoring, if only on a cursory level. The adults that the kid comes in contact with should keep him/her on the straight path. Unfortunately, those in positions of authority over children sometimes abuse it. You have teachers having inappropriate relationship with the kids, teachers having inappropriate relationships with other teachers, or other adult figure (you don't think the kids know, but children see everything), the concerns of children not being addressed like bullying. Good teachers need to be found, paid better, and encouraged to think outside of box. Teachers need to be just as intuitive about their student, as the parent of the student is. Often times a parent hears something for the first time from a teacher whether it's a learning disability, the child disrupting the class room, self-image issue about weight, or race, and bad interpersonal skills like not sharing. Teachers are our best, and first line of defense, to prevent a child from slipping through the cracks. It would be a worthy venture to pay them more and allow them some latitude when needing to think outside of the box, epecially when a child shows they may have learning disabilities.

Next Week >> 1.4 Solutions

One of the best parts of spring is baseball season. Sadly fewer and fewer blacks are playing in the major leagues.

Comcast ≫ Black Players drop to 8.2% of major leaguers

Major league baseball recived its best grade ever for hiring, even as the percentage of black players dropped again last year.
...... More ►

Stories like this remind people how complex the world really is.

LATimes ≫ An unusual blend of cultures: Mexican and black

Every Sunday, on a chewed-up soccer field in Pasadena, Mexican immigrants play a game they learned barefoot in the dusty pueblos along a remote stretch of the Pacific coast. The Costa Chica team -- named for the picturesque coastline south of Acapulco -- has cut a winning path through the heart of an immigrant-dominated league in Pasadena, capturing three championships in two years.

Its players are agile and swift. And they've quickly earned the respect and admiration of opponents who at first didn't know what to make of their talented adversaries.

"Are you really Mexican?" they are sometimes asked. Their skin is dark. They look Honduran, Dominican or even African American. Black Mexicans? "No existe!"

But Costa Chicans -- many dark in complexion with puchunco (curly or kinky) hair -- are Mexicans with cultural and racial histories going back hundreds of years to the Spanish conquistadors and the African slave trade....... More ►

NYTimes ≫ Compromise Is Reached on Harlem Rezoning

The Bloomberg administration’s proposal to rezone 125th Street in Harlem cleared a major hurdle on Tuesday when the area’s three City Council members signed off on a compromise plan that would limit the height of new buildings, add moderately priced housing and provide financial aid to businesses displaced by the rezoning.

The proposal was then approved by the Council’s Zoning and Franchises Subcommittee in a 10-to-1 vote. The agreement between the City Planning Commission and the council members, Inez E. Dickens, Robert Jackson and Melissa Mark-Viverito, virtually assures the plan’s passage by the full City Council later this month.

The rezoning of 24 blocks of Harlem, stretching from Broadway east to Second Avenue, and from 124th to 126th Street, centers on 125th Street — a cultural touchstone for African-Americans in the city and beyond. It has led to widespread opposition in the neighborhood because of concerns that it will change the character of the low-rise street and speed gentrification in the area, including forcing out long-term businesses and low-income residents....... More ►

Humor has been one of the most important tools in the black cultural tool box. It has helped us overcome all sorts of crushing sorrows.

Ebony/Jet ≫ Black Humor on the Viral Web

Redd, Richard, Robin, Bernie, Dave, Tracy, Kat. Here Now, Missing in Action, or Gone to that Comedy Club in the Sky, we have been always been able to make each other laugh. We can’t always make our selves happy, but we can make each other laugh. And that has been hilarious to everyone else as they look on. Mostly we didn’t care if you got the joke or not. We found humor in our selves as being both people and black, without hesitation to bring up our imperfections, quirks, and tweaks that make us who we are. Our best humor is based in reality, as all the best humor is. The fact of the matter is no one makes better fun of us than we do of ourselves.

We use humor to make the bitter easier to swallow. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, the Mary Poppins song says. And most our laughs come from something that is real about us, good or bad. And trust me, most of us never get to see the funniest stuff. Y’all don’t

know Big Dre, from St. Louis. He is the funniest man I know. And you each have your own champ, who cracks up your church, job, frat, lodge all the time. And we do it onstage, on the corner, in our songs, and raps...... More ►

There is nothing worse then watching politicians being used when they should be on the look out for it. Mugabe is using his historic position as the hero of African liberation to stay in power and destroy his homeland. Sadly many nations in southern Africa are being cowered by him and refuse to call him a bully and a despot

NYTimes ≫ South Africa Shifts on Zimbabwe Vote

South Africa’s government, in what appeared to be a significant shift, called on Thursday for the rapid release of results from Zimbabwe’s presidential election, saying it was concerned by a delay that has increased fears of violence. “The situation is dire,” said Themba Maseko, a South Africa government spokesman in Cape Town. “When elections are held and results are not released two weeks after, it is obviously of great concern.”

President Thabo Mbeki had previously said the electoral process must take its course and there was no crisis following the March 29 elections. Mr. Mbeki, who has been a strong supporter of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, reiterated that position on Monday during a visit to the United Nations, chiding Zimbabwe critics who have urged prompt publication of the vote tallies.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Maseko’s statement Thursday reflected a change of position by Mr. Mbeki himself. But Mr. Mbeki has been under criticism at home for his insistence on quiet diplomacy in dealing with the crisis in Zimbabwe, where the economy has collapsed, bringing hyper-inflation, shortages of food and fuel and 80 percent unemployment. Millions of people have fled to South Africa...... More ►

This situation is so on again off again. But at least the violence seems to have quited (somewhat) although there are some reports it maybe starting again.

WaPo ≫ Kenyan President Names Rival As PM

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and his political rival Raila Odinga agreed on the details of a 40-member cabinet Sunday, implementing a power-sharing deal they reached in February.
The two leaders had bickered for weeks over key ministries as Kenyans grew increasingly worried that the country was again slipping into the violence that killed an estimated 1,000 people and displaced as many as a million after the disputed Dec. 27 presidential election....... More ►

As the increasingly affluent black middle class starts to travel around the world more and more stories like this are being told.

The Root ≫ Extra Baggage on a Trip Home

Three weeks into my 5-month stay in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, these words revealed themselves; reached out to the American girl stationed in the country that raised her mother and father. I'd been to Ethiopia three times since the age of ten. Yet, I knew the fourth trip would be different—longer than the others and designed for a little personal, post-undergrad study abroad. Equipped with a basic knowledge of Amharic and the mindset of a seasoned tourist, I opened up a tattered copy of Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name and discovered a travel buddy.

We had plenty in common. Both writers, both expecting our journeys to bring us some concrete sense of self-definition. Baldwin in Europe, me in Ethiopia. But what of this implied ubiquity of racial tension? My hometown of Washington D.C was definitely a hub for menacing social forces: economic injustice, political correctness, racial stereotyping—the usual suspects. Leaving D.C. meant escaping the burden of race-based discrimination. How could there be discrimination in Ethiopia? Nearly every face I saw resembled mine.

Three months into my stay in Addis, a face like mine said "no". Flat out, no. It was late at night. My sister and I entered an upscale, French restaurant to use the restroom. By then, I had learned the rules a bit. Conversations with friends and family had revealed some of Ethiopia's secrets. The ever-increasing foreigner population was often given preferential treatment in stores and restaurants—Ethiopian establishments combining Western ideals with economic interests....... More ►

This sad drama continues.

NYTimes ≫ Protest by Zimbabwe’s Opposition Falters as the Army Makes a Show of Force

The call by Zimbabwe’s political opposition for people nationwide to stay away from work on Tuesday to protest a 17-day delay in releasing the results of the presidential election largely failed to interrupt the normal flow of life in the cities.

The relative ineffectiveness of the one-day protest says much about the long odds the opposition faces in ousting the nation’s long-entrenched autocratic president, Robert Mugabe, despite reports from independent monitors that he badly trailed the opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, in the March 29 election.

People lucky enough to have jobs in a country with 80 percent unemployment explained that they could not afford to lose a precious day’s pay by participating in the work stoppage.

“We have to eat,” said a man who guards people’s cars and identified himself as Michael. He gave only his first name for fear of retribution. Some said they were afraid that the police would punish them if they heeded the opposition’s call and stayed home from work, which is known in Zimbabwe as a stay-away. ...... More ►

There's something wrong with children doing childish things being charged as adults.

Ebony/Jet ≫ Critical Evaluation: Adult Time

It’s tax time again. I can think of a few things I don’t want my taxes to go to: pre-emptive wars, bank bail-outs, no-bid contracts for Halliburton and Blackwater, the salaries of the White House, and jails where children are serving adult time after being convicted of adult crimes.

Each year over 20,000 juveniles are charged and tried in the criminal judicial system. Although current statistics on the exact number of juveniles currently serving time in adult correctional facilities seem to be unavailable to the public, it is estimated that there may be over fifteen thousand juveniles serving time alongside adults in prison. Given the difficulty in obtaining these statistics, that number is probably much higher.

Over the past week, a widely-viewed video circulating in the news and on the Internet shows a teenaged girl receiving a physical beating. The video contains only a short clip of a thirty-five minute battery, which resulted in a concussion, two black eyes, and diminished hearing in one ear. Apparently, the girl was lured to the house where six of her fellow cheerleaders assaulted her while two boys acted as look-outs. All eight kids have been arrested and charged as adults.

It’s the being charged as adults I have a problem with. Certainly, what you see on the video is repugnant. The girls’ actions are vicious and pre-meditated. But what you don’t see are adults, or kids acting like adults....... More ►

The Root ≫ The Latest Wave of Black Genius

As a literary writer trying to navigate a publishing world that seems most receptive to urban romance and street lit (for more on this particular quandary read Martha Southgate's spot on essay in the New York Times Book Review) the issue of genius is both one of inspiration and sustenance. While it is true, I'm sure, that my white contemporaries write with the inspiration of Henry James, William Faulkner or Virginia Woolf, I am not sure that the inspiration feels so direct and personal. For me, black geniuses of yesteryear – Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, James Baldwin – do not feel like distant icons, they feel like family. In this way, black genius, as I define it, isn't a question merely of phenomenal talent mixed in with a soupcon of luck. I look to genius as confirmation that if I study my cultural canon, work hard and apply both my intellect and imagination, I may one day write a book that is meaningful for my generation, and perhaps generations to follow.

So who are our contemporary black geniuses? As Keith Adkins wrote in his recent post about Daughters of the Dust and Rebecca Walker so powerfully seconded, there was a moment in black film, in the early to mid nineties, when we knew what we were seeing was groundbreaking: Julie Dash, Charles Burnett, John Singleton, Euzhan Palcy and in the next wave, Darnell Martin,Reggie Rock Bythewood, Gina Prince Bythewood and Kasi Lemmons. These filmmakers followed in the immediate footsteps of Spike Lee, our modern day Oscar Micheaux, by making films that spoke to not only our community but to the world. These were all part of what Trey Ellis so presciently called the N.B.A. – the New Black Aesthetic....... More ►

I have always been amazed at how conservatives can keep two conflicting opinions in their heads at the same time.
My Elitist Marxist Insufficiently Black Black Separatist Christian Muslim Terrorist Candidate......More ►
┗ by Laughing Vergil (dopper0189)

This has been a good read so far. Examining black conservatives political opinions.
Diaries by blacksnob (dopper0189)
┗ Fear and Loathing in Black America: Clarence Thomas and Barack Obama......More ►
┗ Juan Williams Thinks Barack Obama Is Kissin' Way Too Much of Your Black Ass......More ►

This has been an incrediable series.
Diaries by StormBear (dopper0189)
┗ Black History: The Native Americans......More ►
┗ Black History: Overseers......More ►

Thank you for reading. As always we hope these stories lead to meaningfull discussions. That's what makes blogging so great. We can talk about the hard stuff, items of substance, the issues the media ignores. Even whe we forget to wear our flag pins.

- Dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

America is a strange place in many ways. On one hand, it is a nation founded on the principles of liberty. This is without question. On the other it was prospered by kidnapping Africans and forcing them into slavery. No liberty. No freedom. No justice for all. For a long time.

What I question is if we are all operating with the same idea about the definition of the word free. I know what I mean by the word. Not sure about some folks.

I define free speech to mean that I have the right to say what I want. I do not have the right to insist that you also say it. That is tyranny.

(SistahSpeak con't.)


The law that makes abortion legal does not make it mandatory. Why do we have so much disagreement about what other people are doing or not doing?

As a happily single woman it seems to me that those willing to make a legal commitment to each other ought to be able to do that. None of my business. Gay or straight makes no difference. Won't impact me or my life in any way. In fact, I’ll admit that I once held the thought that since I couldn’t have him, I was glad no other woman would have Johnny Mathis. (I’ve long since forgiven myself for being so selfish.) Who you love or live with doesn’t interfere with my personal relationship with God. It doesn’t affect my life at any level. Is this concept really so hard to grasp?

When we pay taxes aren’t we all putting something into the pot for the common good? How is it socialism when we use this money for health care for all and not when we pay for policemen and firemen and infrastructure?

It affects my life if we as the citizenry have a fundamentally different view of what a democracy means. It simply cannot mean that if you get enough people together you can do anything you want to those in the minority. The name for that is oppression. Oppression of any falls at the feet of the many. The world has already seen too much of this. I’m personally tired of bullies. This country has had its fair share of bullies. Enough of them. The blackwoman is starting to lose patience.

When this country was founded every effort was made to insure that demagogues would not be able to arbitrarily and indefinitely oppress. Each time we have justified the denial of freedom for any part of society, voices have risen in protest and laws were eventually changed. Hearts are always slower. But they can and do change.

I grew up black and female in the fifties. I remember Emmett Till and the church bombing in Alabama. I have only to close my eyes and I can see the image of young Till in Jet magazine. His mother wanted us to see what had been done to her son. The image haunts me to this day. I am forever changed. I learned too early what man’s inhumanity to man looks like.

The images of my youth contain Life Magazine’s photos of women being knocked over backwards by fire-hoses held by men with mean eyes and cold hearts. German shepherds still make me nervous. The majority, so slow to comprehend what does not directly affect it, changed its mind after seeing those images. Hatred had a face. America saw it. It did not like what it saw.

The images of Kent State and the riots of Chicago changed a nation.

Where are the images of today? Life Magazine does not exist. Neither do the mass images of what is happening in our world. We do not see photos of the carnage in the Sudan any more that we saw what genocide looked like in Bosnia or Uganda. Most folks have to wait until Hollywood decides to make a movie to understand the horror that is real life in Africa or for that matter, on the streets of urban America.

Someone daily makes a decision on what images we see. That is how impacted we are by the photo worth a thousand words.

Things are different. Today hatred still has a face. The face has been surgically altered. Hatred can be manufactured using photo shop and sold in thirty second sound bites .Instead of Bull Connor we have Sean Hannity. Intolerance has a face though it is not contorted with the ravages of covert inhumanity. Racist today use images to convince and convict those who cannot be lynched except electronically. Our hearts have become hardened to the realities of violence and racial hatred. We tend not to think of it as unusual and often fail to hear it unless it shouts at us directly. Even then, too many are deaf.

I’ve seen violence. I’ve seen man’s inhumanity to man often enough to create a space within me that aches and cries out for justice and fairness.

I’ve looked into the faces of people who hated me without even seeing me. They were seeing only my skin color and that was enough for them to throw bottles and bricks. They called me and my mother names that would have gotten their butts kicked if I had not been marching for peace and justice.

The media, conceived as another check on the checks and balances does not want to educate the population. It seeks to entertain and titillate. Why in hell should I or anyone not a family member know what Paris Hilton’s favorite color is? Why in hell do quite a few folks still think Obama is a Muslim?

We are presented with a little information and the idea that there is a real need to tell two sides of a story instead of the facts. Facts are things to be researched. The truth must be searched for and found. Sad really. Not my idea of liberty at all. Certainly ain’t freedom. Time for a change.

The Urban Educational System
Sephius1, Black Kos Editor

Last week we discussed the safety, health, & environmental issues that plaque the inner city. We talk about the journey an inner city kid has to take -- from home to school -- and the daily struggles attached to that journey like being exposed to drugs, abuse, deviant behavior, and unsanitary living and school conditions.

This week we'll take a look at how financial resources tie in at different points along the journey. Just to rehash where we are at:

Safety, Health, and the Environment - this includes drugs and other substances that can be abuse, sexually abuse, bullying, dilapidated housing, school buildings and community infrastructures.

Financial Resources - this includes the poverty levels of the students, surrounding community, and the resources the school has available.

People Resources - this includes the identifying the different learning levels of students early, their socio-economic status, those who play parental roles, inter-personal relationships, self-image.

This also includes hiring compotent teachers, having a reward process in place for teachers who do well in the classroom, instead linking a teachers livelyhood to the number of students they pass, getting teachers to think out of the box, and have more robust training for teachers to keep their skill up to date.

Solutions - I will propose solutions in this section to help develop a strategy at the school level.


1.2 Financial Resources

- Family -

Inner city kids are introduced, fairly early, to the concept of managing financial resources. Their first encounter is often with food, and clothing. A refrigerator that's never full, and stomach that's never quite full, gives a child a first hand account of just how intertwined finances are to their lives -- down to controlling whether they eat, or not.

In area of clothing, or more general, outwardly appearance, lies a true sore spot. The reason being that while you can hide your hunger, you can't hide the fact you might be wearing shoes that are falling apart, or clothing with holes in them because they are hand-me-downs. I can recall my mom, brother, and I going over to "big momma house" on occassion to pick threw some old clothes that had belong to her kids. We also would eat a good meal every once in a while, because our refrigerator was empty often. And during rough months (when our lights where turned off; we had an electric water tank), thus no hot water, we would get early to go take a bath at big momma's. Now, big momma wasn't my grandma, but was a "grandmotherly" figure of community. We don't have those anymore. There was a time, especially in black community, when the mother's of the commuinty would pray over the children, if a young girl got pregnant the mothers would show her how to take care of the baby, how to change diapers, feeding, cooking, and pressing her to finish school as to not become a statistic. The father's of the community handled the young man by teaching him different trades, the value of a dollar and a long days work, to not cut corners. Those days are long gone. Nowadays, "big momma" is 30 yrs old, trying download music to her ipod, trying to find her a man. Just ridiculous.

Medical issues also introduce kids to how family finances can be road blocks to staying healthy. For a child's first visit to an emergency room, they see others that may be in the same financial situation. As we all know emergency rooms are increasingly being used as a form of free health. The long waits, having no insurance, and interferences by HMOs, all lend themselves to a less than memorable visit.

- Community -

One of the first things you notice in the inner city is the urban decay. It's caused by things like white flight, redlining, and urban sprawl. White flight, in my opinion, is actually more devastating because it is based on perception and it reinforces bad stereotypes. Instead of staying and standing along with the minority community when fighting crime, and deviant behavour, whites fled. One of the results was that financial resources were removed from the community. That means less money to pay for law enforcement, and crime ultimately increases. High crime areas turn off businesses from setting up shop in the inner city. Less businesses means less job opportunity. Without job opportunities, people do not have money to buy homes. And with less businesses, and low home ownership, the amount of property taxes collected decrease, which means less resources for the schools to do renovations, buy books, fund after school programs, and pay teachers. Redlining, and urban sprawl, ensures that property values stay low and that certain class of people are kept from advancing. Throw in dilapidated buildings, gentrification, liquor stores on every block, inadequate grocery stores, and some payday loan companies and it's no wonder inner city kids have it bad.

As we see, finances are often used to plug up holes in the ship, that is, inner city life, rather than being used to build a new ship, that is, an inner city that reflects the good of its' community.

Next Week >> 1.3 People Resources








Art is often about pushing boundaries. Great art pushes people together across boundaries.

NYTimes ≫ Dance: Pirouettes and Street Cred: Atlanta's Hip-Hop Ballet

THE rapper Antwan Patton was sitting in the sleek black Courvoisier Lounge tucked into the back of his recording studio here. Mr. Patton, better known as Big Boi, one-half of the progressive hip-hop duo OutKast, was taking a break from finishing his debut solo album, due out this summer. But he wasn’t talking music. He was talking ballet, zeroing in on its image problem.

“I’ve always seen the ballet as being, ‘Here’s a little tea pot, short and stout,’ ” he said, singing and miming the typical gestures of the nursery rhyme with his heavily tattooed arms. “Very, very step-by-step.”

Mr. Patton’s unassuming brick studio is on a sleepy side street, just a short drive from the Atlanta Ballet’s midtown headquarters. But judging from the glass-encased bottles of Cognac that stud his dimly lighted lounge or the OutKast posters trumpeting platinum-selling records and Grammy Awards, the cultural distance is immeasurable. What could tulle-clad classical dancers and a rap superstar possibly have to say to one another, after all?...... More ►

HuffingtonPost ≫ 40 Years after MLK's Death: DOJ's War on Black Voters

While remembering the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King, it's worth noting that Republican operatives and the Bush administration's Department of Justice have turned back the clock on civil rights. They have created a new set of Jim Crow-like policies and strategies with a still-active goal: stopping blacks, who lean Democratic, from casting ballots that count.

Have Justice Department officials and GOP loyalists become essentially an upscale, white-collar version of the Klan, armed with voting lists on their Palm Pilots rather than burning crosses and guns to keep blacks from voting?

This week, a series of articles have been published online underscoring the ways that the racist restrictions of the past have been revived, in often disturbing ways. In the Huffington Post, I reported how the FBI ignored threats to jail voters in Dallas during a hard-fought 2006 state legislative race. The Campaign Legal Center today demanded an in-depth Justice Department probe of its failure to investigate this blatant violations of civil rights. ...... More ►

It's not only China but also India is getting in the game.

The Root ≫ India Pledges Aid to African Leaders

India pledged Tuesday to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in development projects in Africa in an attempt to bolster its presence on the continent, where economic rival China has already invested billions of dollars.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, speaking to the leaders of 14 African nations attending the first India-Africa summit, said India will provide more than $500 million over the next five to six years in grants for development projects. "The time has come to create a new architecture for our engagement in the 21st century," Singh said....... More ►

These are sad lessons, but I really can't dispute them.

The New Republic ≫ Four lessons learned from Mugabe's horrific regime.

Robert Mugabe's defeat in the recent elections in Zimbabwe is the beginning of the end for that country's octogenarian tyrant. Although the government claims that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai fell short of the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff election, only a massive fraud in the second round followed by a brutal clampdown on demonstrators will keep the man who has governed that country for three decades in power for a little longer.

Joseph Conrad could have been describing Mugabe's regime when the character Marlow, in Heart of Darkness, said about an ivory company: "reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage." Many lessons can be learned from Mugabe...... More ►

I had brief hope that with the election in Zimbabwe over maybe, just maybe this would end Mugabe's reign. I'm still hopefull, but less so now. The best source to keep track of the breaking news there is the BBC [ Zimbabwe election news ]

BBC ≫ Blame traded over Kenya deadlock.

There is a much-used saying about Kenya's accord and reconciliation process: "Three steps forward, two steps back." Sometimes it looks more like three steps forward, four steps back.

Certainly the process of forming a grand coalition government, as outlined in the agreement signed by President Mwai Kibaki, the leader of the ruling PNU, and his political rival, Raila Odinga, who heads the opposition ODM, has been slow going. It now appears to have come to a complete halt....... More ►

BBC ≫ Eyewitness tells of Haiti food protests.

"The protests actually started on Monday. But Tuesday was when the protests really escalated. I noticed no activity on the streets. There is normally a little market, cars - there was nothing, just the occasional motorcycle. People were protesting about massive hikes in the price of food.


There was a general atmosphere of disorganisation, I saw people running in panic all over the place. They seemed to be running away from the main crowd. We didn't really know what was going on.

It was only later in the day that we were told by our security people that we had to leave everything because the main protest was going to pass us. They were coming up our street of our office building and might have guns. "...... More ►

The Root ≫ The American Embrace of Ignorance, and Why Blacks Need to Let Go

Our heroes are athletes and entertainers, while we fabricate un-endearing terms like "nerd" and "egghead" for successful students. Our national myth celebrates the self-made man who succeeds by native wit and guile; we've always been a little suspicious of the "pointy-headed" intellectual who succeeds by using his brain.

Until recently, African Americans' relationship to learning has been less conflicted. Through slavery and segregation, whites tried to keep it away from us, while we, recognizing it as the key to attaining whatever freedom was available, risked life and limb to get it. Only in the last 35 years, a period that produced the greatest expansion of opportunity for black Americans since the Emancipation Proclamation, have we adopted a kind of paradoxical schizophrenia about education that mimics the majority culture.

Thus America today is host to two kinds of anti-intellectualism —the mainstream culture's, and our own unique African-American brand. I've just finished reading two books -- one new, the other a few years older -- that take close and disturbing looks at each one. The new book, Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason, paints a compelling portrait of a nation sinking into a quagmire of ignorance that renders America increasingly ill-equipped to confront the massive challenges we face.

The older, John McWhorter's Losing the Race, portrays an African-American community turning its back on the most effective tool available to end centuries of under-privilege. As an American, I find the combined message of these books sobering. As an African-American, I find it downright scary....... More ►

Black Kos: 'Passing' on the phone......More ►
┗ by never forget 2000 (dopper0189)




The Promised Land......More ►
┗ by DHinMI (dopper0189)



McCain didn't think MLK's assassination was "meaningful"......More ►
┗ by Kos (dopper0189)



More great diaries from StormBear (dopper0189)
┗ Black History: Slave Names......More ►
┗ Black History: Birth of Colonial Slavery......More ►



Michael Steele Will Choose Barack Obama If You'll Stop the Bitching......More ►
┗ by blacksnob (Interesting read - dopper0189)




The Black Backlash......More ►
┗ by Jezreel




Fun Stuff

Music is one of the few ways we can see into each other. Our musical taste tell as much about us, as our style of dress and who we hang around.

So I wanna know your Top 10 Favorite Group/Band? - Sephius1

Dopper0189
1. Earth, Wind, and Fire
2. Bob Marley and the Wailers
3. Gladys Knight & The Pips
4. The Fugees
5. Parliament Funkadelics
6. Boys II Men
7. Wutang
8. U-2
9. Dave Mathews
10. Monster Shack Crew (a reggae group)


Sephius1
1. Rufus (w/ Chaka Khan)
2. Gladys Knight & The Pips
3. Maze (w / Frankie Beverly)
4. Earth, Wind, and Fire
5. Parliament Funkadelics
6. Average White Band
7. Barkays
8. Atlantic Starr
9. Ohio Player
10. SOS Band


Robinswing
1. Ohio Players
2. Parliament Funkedelic
3. Isley Brothers
4. Rufus
5. Earth Wind ad Fire
6. Jr. Walker and the All Stars
7. Kool and the Gang
8. Commodores
9. Santana
10. Maze


Terrypinder
No favorites, but likes Jazz


IN CLOSING


Thank you for reading Black Kos. Hopefully this little corner of Daily Kos provides both an oasis of calm and sometimes a soap box where issues that people normally only whisper to people "just like them" can be talked of openly. The poll question "Approximately how many times in a given average week do you find yourself not a member of the majority racial population" is design to provoke thought. Do you only deal with people different then you on "your terms"? Do you have a friend of a different race or ethnicity? Have you ever gone to their church? Have you ever gone to a house party of theirs? Have you ever really tried to enter their world? How close is your friendship if you haven't? The more you try and understand, your neighboors, friends, and coworkers the stronger your community will be. - Dopper0189



What a week!

There are a lot of things going on and we try to make sure that you our readers are kept abreast of the latest happening ‘round here. Glad for the infusion of black writers as of late. Thrilled that so many are reading our efforts. Tickled that spring has sprung. Sending the thought this week that anyone reading this gets a huge intake of something wonderful. Hope you enjoyed the communal offerings.

Robinswing

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

I found that leaving the plantation wasn't that hard. For one thing nothing on the plantation was mine anyways. I left the plantation the selfsame moment I realized that hard work is not truly valued. Leisure is what's valuable. Folks who can live in leisure are the respected folks. They are the envy and aspiration of the American Dream. All that bizness about how Americans value working is just so much bullshit. If work had any value, black folks would be treated better. Four hundred years of unpaid working ought to engender a lot of respect. If work was the object of the exercise.

We leave the plantation every time we refuse to buy into the narrative that we are helpless. Each time we are able to see through to the truth we are in effect running away from the plantation. When we stand up for what is right and decent and just we build community. We move off the plantation. Black folks are not the only ones who have to do this. There are fewer of us still on the plantation.


Years ago I met a man who talked about how his family fled Mississippi and share cropping. They loaded their piece of car and pushed it several miles to the highway, started it up and headed north. Leaving the plantation.

During slavery we sang to let folks know when we were leaving. Swing Low Sweet Chariot gave musical notice to everyone but the Boss-man. Music. A huge part of leaving the plantation. Still is. That's what rap is really about.
For the last couple of weeks I have been doing a lot of singing in my head. Music is the way that I deal with life and the things that life offers up to a blackwoman. Stuff you have to. Music is the way I have to.

I don't usually do the blues. I think that there are two kinds of folks in the world. Those who sing the blues and those who inspire others to do so. I like to think of myself as inspirational.

I love jazz and gospel and R&B and classical and I listen to operas and rap. There is always music playing either through the sound system or my head.

The music in my head this week past has run the gamut. One moment I'm hearing Lift every voice and sing, next moment, it's Mama say knock you out!!!

It appears that the week is ending with Trane's A Love Supreme. Winter is over. There is enough possibility in the air that folks that want to can taste it.

Pat Buchanan has up and disappeared. I know that some of you think it is because you wrote those emails and sent all those letter calling attention to his racist rants. No doubt that helped. I'm hoping my spell is working. You know, Backatcha.!!!

Do good, Backatcha. Do wrong Backatcha.

I'm watching the spell of Backatcha ping ponging all over the place.
Bill. Hillary. 'Nough said.

I find myself wondering if living is anything more serious than finding the spell that works for you. All of my life, I passed over the opportunity to seek revenge by invoking the spell of Backatcha. I refuse to let anger and hatred rent out space that ought to be occupied with love and hope. That's what my candidate is all about.

Where I live, love and hope are the fuels of transcendence. Barack never needed to transcend race. I wonder if folks who use the word transcendent even understand that it is an energetic. Obama never had to rise above race. He only needs to rise above racist.

The sound of the last few weeks' worth of media madness was the voice over the loudspeaker proclaiming. Attention, Obama is not on the plantation.

Backatcha.

The Urban Educational System
Sephius1, Black Kos Editor

In America, we tout our education system as the best in world. But in recent years America has been slipping. We were in the top 5, then top 10, then 20. And after that it really doesn’t matter, since we are claiming to be the best and their are 20 or so countries ahead of you. And with test scores fluctuating up and down, overcrowded classrooms, and no across the board standards, it’s no wonder we are slipping. So in starting this series I have decided to talk about this from several different perspectives but all through the lens of the public inner city school systems, which seems to be having a harder time than suburban, and private schools. I will highlight issues, and propose solutions. This is Part I – Strategy At The School Level. Each part will have several sub sections that I present separately each "Week In Review".

There are several prongs of attack, but there must be some method to the madness. And some of the issues I layout will overlap into parts of the series that will be coming.

As I see it, for a youth to be at their best when it comes to academics, it requires an environment that is safe, a school with resources to not only to pay teachers comparable salaries, but to ensure that students have the most up to date books and supplies, one set testing standard that’s not a teach-to-the-test standard, and of course watching the students socioeconomic status. So the subsections I’m going to outline are:

Safety, Health, and the Environment - this includes drugs and other substances that can be abuse, sexually abuse, bullying, dilapidated housing, school buildings and community infrastructures.

Financial Resources - this includes the poverty levels of the students, surrounding community, and the resources the school has available.

People Resources - this includes the identifying the different learning levels of students early, their socio-economic status, those who play parental roles, inter-personal relationships, self-image.

This also includes hiring compotent teachers, having a reward process in place for teachers who do well in the classroom, instead linking a teachers livelyhood to the number of students they pass, getting teachers to think out of the box, and have more robust training for teachers to keep their skill up to date.

Solutions - I wil propose solutions in this section to help develop a strategy at the school level


1.1 Safety, Health, and the Environment


If there is one thing on an inner city kid's mind it is safety. From the time they leave home until they get to school, they are already displaying some of life's survival skills. Sometimes even the home isn't a safe haven. If it is not a struggling single parent home, then one of the parents is a substance abuser, or has a criminal record. And if that isn't the case then the parents work unusual hours, which leave the kids alone for long periods of time, and undoubtedly can cause them to develop unhealthy relationships with things and/or people to compensate for the parents not being there. And if the parent(s) are fortunate enough to have a "babysitter", sometimes the sitter turns out to be incompetent at the very least, or at worst dangerous (eg. child predator, substance abuser, or have a unknown criminal record). And all this is before the child even leaves home. As a matter of fact, the reported cases of child abuse is (on average) 3 million a year but experts says that the actual number is closer to 3 times that amount:

Statistics

• A report of child abuse is made every 10 seconds
  


• 36.7% of all women, and 14.4% of all men, in prison in the US were abused as children
  


• Children who have been sexually abused are 2.5 times more likely to abuse alcohol and 3.8 times more likely to become addicted to drugs
  


• One third of abused and neglected children will later abuse their children

Then the kid has to leave home and pass several run-down buildings which have become nothing but havens for drug dealers, prostitutions rings, and other criminal activities. It is such a problem that alot of inner city kids have learned how to take the "long" route to school. And it's not always the same route each day. These kids have to plan their day to a degree no kid going to a suburban, or private school would have -- how to dodge the drug area, a prostitution area, or other criminal hot spots, and still stop at the store to pick a carton of milk that the kids mother told him to pick when he leaves school because the stores are closed by the time she gets off work. We call this process logistics, or less formal, assessing the situation, and developing a plan. This is a skill set that children will eventually need but inner city kids seem to be introduced to it too soon, and on a level more sophisticated, and more appropriate for adults.

Now, on a more abstract level, imagine having to see a run down community on a daily basis on your way to school. You see the good/bad/ugly, but mainly the bad and ugly. There was a time when the neighborhood kept the value of its surroundings up and watched out for all the kids. I remember one time trying to set some dry leaves on fire with a magnifying glass. I was on the side my house that didn't have windows, so my mom couldn't see me. All of a sudden my mother came out screaming "What are doing...get yo ass in the house...right now....wait til I tell you daddy...". Needless to say I got the whippin' of my life (what if one of those dry leaves had blown into someone else's lawn). I later found out that one of my moms good friends, that stayed in the house facing that side of my house, saw what I was doing and call my mother. Nowadays, if you do something like that my moms friend may have been assaulted, possibly shot. The mentality in most inner city neighborhoods now, is "You leave me alone, I'll leave you alone". And forget reporting a crime. Most will watch but will swear up and and down they saw nothing. No one is watching out for their fellow man's safety, and what does this teach our young people about character, and responsibility.

Finally, the kid gets to school. And the first thing they notice are the old rusty lockers, the ceiling panels are stained, and moldy from years leaking when it rains. The air condition has been broke all year, not that you would want actual air blowing through the ventilation system since it hasn't been cleaned in years, either. The pipes are old and falling apart. The desk are old and rusty (and truth be told, not suitable for any one to sit in; c'mon when was the last time you saw someone clean a desk....and I mean with an anti-bacterial cleaner). Classrooms in the inner city schools are more like incubators than places for learning. Rates of respiratory ailments like asthma are higher for inner city children. And it's not only asthma, and it has become generational (especially with "babies having babies"). You now have multiple members within a family unit being diagnosed with asthma, or not being resistant to certain bacterial infections, like staph.

It's hard to wrap your head around everything since there are so many tentacles. Not only must or children have suitable learning facilities, but we must ensure their "route" to educational success. We have our work cut out for us, but it is not hopeless.

Next Week >> Section 1.2, Financial Resources








After watching the Rev. Wright "discussion" I am certain the media will bring this up down the road. Although this article includes too many conservative talking points for my liking, it's a good starting point to begine talking about this issue.(dopper0189)

Slate.com ≫ Affirmative action is probably the most difficult race issue [Obama] will have to face.

In an interview last May on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos, he was asked whether his own daughters should someday receive preferences in college admissions. His response was unexpected: "I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged." He added, "I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed." His comments lit up the blogosphere with speculation that as president he might spearhead a major policy change, shifting the basis of affirmative action from race to class disparities.

The ABC statement fits into Obama's record on the issue, which has never been black and white. As a 28-year-old at Harvard, Obama attended meetings of the Black Law Students Association and spoke at at least one event, demanding greater diversity on campus. But his classmate David Troutt, now a law professor at Rutgers, says he was no militant. "There are a lot of people that spent a tremendous amount of time on that issue. They sued the school. They camped out at the dean's office," says Troutt. Obama wasn't among them. His head was in a different place....... More ►

This is something I have long suspected, this article sadly confirms many of my hypothesis.(dopper0189)

NYTimes ≫ Race and the Social Contract

In 1893, Friedrich Engels wrote from London to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, another German Communist then living in New York, lamenting how America's diversity hindered efforts to establish a workers' party in the United States. Was it possible to unify Poles, Germans, Irish, the many small groups, each of which understands only itself? All the bourgeoisie had to do was wait, and the dissimilar elements of the working class fall apart again.

America's mix of peoples has changed in its 200-plus years. Yet when Barack Obama delivered his bracing speech on race, he was grappling with a similar challenge. Realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams, he said. Investing in the health, welfare and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

It is a tall order. Ten years ago, William Julius Wilson wrote that American whites rebelled against welfare because they saw it as using their hard-earned taxes to give blacks medical and legal services that many of them could not afford for their own families...... More ►

NYTimes ≫ The Topic Is Race; the Art Is Fearless

In the 1970s the African-American artist Adrian Piper donned an Afro wig and a fake mustache and prowled the streets of various cities in the scowling, muttering guise of the Mythic Being, a performance-art version of a prevailing stereotype, the black male as a mugger, hustler, gangsta.

On Race and Art In the photographs that resulted you can see what she was up to. In an era when some politicians and much of the popular press seemed to be stoking racial fear, she was turning fear into farce but serious, and disturbing, farce, intended to punch a hole in pervasive fictions while acknowledging their power.
...... More ►

Just for a different flavor.....

Ebony / Jet ≫ Toumast :The music of African nomads finds a comfortable place on contemporary playlists

Toumast founder Moussa Ag Keyna fought for four years with guns. When he was injured and a bullet ripped an open fracture in his leg, he picked up his other weapon, his guitar. The result is Ishumar (Real World Records), an impressive debut of rolling guitar rhythms layered with trance undertones and melancholy lyrics. Enveloped by traditional melodies and contagious electric blues riffs borrowed from Jimi Hendrix and B.B.King, Toumast's music offers the freshest take on the growing genre of Tuareg desert blues.

Formed in 1990, Toumast represents the second generation of Tuareg ishumar musicians. The term derives from the French word for unemployed and was the label given to displaced young Tuaregs searching for work. Clustered in refugee camps, military camps and shanty towns, the young people began to produce music reflecting their fight for freedom....... More ►

((youtube tZqS3xEVaJQ))

Let's hope this ends peacefully, and Mugabe's reign is at an end

BBC ≫ Mugabe's Zanu-PF loses majority

Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party took 97 of the 210 seats, while the opposition MDC won 99, final official results showed.
Presidential election results have yet to be declared, but the MDC said its leader had won the election. Zanu-PF said this was "wishful thinking".

The MDC released its own results to back up its claim of victory in the presidential poll.

MDC Party Secretary General Tendai Biti said its leader Morgan Tsvangirai had won 50.3% of the vote to President Robert Mugabe's 43.8%, so avoiding a presidential run-off....... More ►

As a Jamaican-American with strong ties to the island (frequent visitor, own land, married a girl from there) I sadly must say the next story is true. Jamaica is doing a much better job of protecting tourist, but not the people of it's large cities (Kingston, Spanish Town, Portmore).

BBC ≫ Jamaica's poor have been abandoned by the government and left to the mercy of violent criminal gangs, Amnesty International says in a new report.

The human rights group said inner-city Jamaicans were being "held hostage" in the battle between gangs and the state.

Amnesty said Jamaican authorities had stigmatised and "wilfully neglected" inner-city communities....... More ►

Education In America......More ►
┗ by Muzikal203 (Sephius1)

One Black Perspective on the Wright Discussion and Race......More ►
┗ by Vyan (Sephius1)

In Praise of Condi Rice...... More ►
┗ Bandaloo (Sephius1 -- While I don't agree everything, I offer it in the spirit of discussion)

Does the D in MyDD stand for Dixiecrat?......More ►
┗ by Deoliver47 (Dopper0189)

Series by StormBear (The continuation of a great series. - Dopper0189)
┗ Black History: Slave Market of Charleston......More ►
┗ Black History: Inside the Seasoning Camps......More ►

Race, the Rust Belt, and Me......More ►
┗ by paintblue (Dopper0189)

NEW REPORT: The Race Chasm & the Clinton Firewall......More ►
┗ by davidsirota (Dopper0189)


IN CLOSING

As a 26 year old man living in our "post-racial" society I'm often struck at just how far we still have to go. I mean, clearly, I'm not looking to forcibly integrate neighborhoods. But I am looking to equal the playing field completely. A simple acknowledgment of American slavery would work for me. And so it goes.

But I am indeed lucky to live in a time where we've sort of narrowed the gap (as the white Right paternalistically notes and whines about at our alleged ungratefulness). Sort of is still not good enough.

I am not going to turn this into a candidate diary, so I won't go into the many reasons as to why I wholeheartedly support Senator Barack Obama. I will note that whether he wins the nomination and then the Presidency or not, his A More Perfect Union speech is the most brilliant speech in 40 years. It has the ability to make us sit down and just think, and just listen, and then just act.
We are indeed just one nation, and now it's time to sit down, think, listen, and act.

I admit I have much frustration in my almost 3 years here at Daily Kos that our periodic conversations on race fall flat, and some deep annoyance at the naivety of some and the harshness of a few others, whether they were being deliberately hurtful or not. The problem was we simply weren't thinking, or listening. Again, now with A More Perfect Union as our guide, I am hoping that we can.

Sit down, think, listen, and act. - Terrypinder, Black Kos Editor

REMEMBER MLK TODAY for what he lived for, as well as what he died for!

Welcome to Week in Review! The diary series where issues affecting Americans of African descent, and others are highlighted as our great nation begins to heed the call of A More Perfect Union and move forward. Come, sit a spell and join the discussion.

This diary series isn't meant to balkanize, ghettoize, or separate. It is not a campaign or candidate diary. Instead, it is designed to highlight issues that a significant portion of the Democratic electorate faces daily, whether we live in the inner city or we're solidly middle class suburbanites or we're young urban professionals, or retirees on pensions and social security. America has a rich story, made up of all of us. This is just one small chapter of that story. Take a read. -- Terrypinder





Again, welcome to first issue of group week in review. We hope you enjoy. As this is our first issue, we would like all our readers to give us feedback on the new layout, type of content, amount of content (Is it too much, or too little?), etc. In future issues, we will be including some fun items like Recipes Of Week, Favorite [insert thing here] Polls, and an Acknowledgements section to pay honor to those who are helping to solve problems in their communities -- Sephius1






Black Kos is not an "electioneering diary." On the other hand this diary isn't written in a vacuum. So with the issue of race rising to the level it has, much of this focus is on Sen. Obama. One of the reasons Black Kos was started is the following conversations "Obama's speech called for a conversation that not everyone wants."

LATimes ≫ Talking about race: Um, you first!

How do we start a national dialogue on race?

Charlotte Griffin was at a restaurant one evening when a white woman complimented her on her children's behavior. The stranger may have meant to be kind. But Griffin wondered if she heard a note of condescension -- an assumption, perhaps, that black kids aren't usually so polite.

How do we navigate that minefield?

As a teenager, Stan North went to work on the assembly line at Ford. He made good money. But he noticed that he -- like all the other white guys -- always got the dirty jobs. Seething, he concluded that the boss wouldn't dare give a black man heavy lifting, for fear of being tagged a racist.

How do we acknowledge that anger?

In his recent address on race relations in America -- prompted by his minister's explosive sermons on that topic -- Sen. Barack Obama declared that whites must understand the black experience in America and blacks must appreciate the white perspective. Otherwise, he said, we face a grinding "racial stalemate."...... More ►

Unless your living in a vacuum you have to have heard of this man.

The Root ≫ Tyler Perry's Conservative Tent Revival

I accept that Tyler Perry is a pop culture phenomenon. His new film, Meet the Browns, took in more than $20 million its opening weekend and his TV sitcom, House of Payne, won three NAACP image awards. But I find myself wondering how thoughtful folks are supposed to respond to the retrograde spirituality and formulaic humor of his work.

Are Mr. Perry's creations an embarrassment to the race or gospel genius Are his cultural contributions ultimately useful for black people or merely cheap products from a salesman who aims to get rich? In terms of Black Christianity – recently a hot topic of national discussion -- where does Tyler Perry fit?

Without a doubt, Perry's work represents the most prominent expression of black evangelical spirituality in mainstream television and film. As a producer, writer and actor, he has generated an intensely loyal following from a segment of the market that has long been overlooked by Hollywood—black, urban, Christian women. He has crafted a product to meet their needs: an African American festival of laughing, singing and praising the Lord, centered on a stereotypical and unrestrained Southern grandmother (played by Perry in drag) who renders a comical but visceral black rage.

Ten years after his start doing gospel plays in black theatres, Mr. Perry has made $500 million and is the most prominent Black conservative evangelical on earth....... More ►

Sunday mornings have long been and continue to be the most segregated day in America.

WashingtonPost ≫ A Failure to See Shades of Gray in The Black Church.

On any given Sunday, the tourists are easy to spot by their casual dress -- they may be headed to the Statue of Liberty afterward -- and the fact that most of them are white. Some are eager to see the exquisite stained-glass windows at Mother, which was founded in Lower Manhattan in 1796. Or perhaps they are looking to see the famed church ladies in their elaborate hats. Today, Easter Sunday, their millinery is sure to be extra special. But mostly the tourists come to hear the gospel music. After the choirs have sung and just before settling into the morning's message, the minister asks anyone who does not plan to stay until he has finished to leave now, so as not to interrupt the sermon. The vast majority of the tourists quickly depart.
The ministers welcome these passersby with blessings from the Lord. But it is also clear why they have come: for the entertainment. The service is not so much a sacred ritual as a concert.

In the past week's conversation about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama and the scorching rhetoric that sometimes is delivered from the pulpit, much of the acrimony might have been avoided if white tourists were just as interested in praying alongside blacks as they were in listening to them sing....... More ►

Hope everyone who celebrates it had a happy Easter.

NYTimes ≫ Obama Talk Fuels Easter Sermons.

This Easter Sunday, the holiest day of the Christian calendar, many pastors will start their sermons about the Resurrection of Jesus and weave in a pointed message about racism and bigotry, and the need to rise above them.

Some pastors began to rethink their sermons on Tuesday, when Senator Barack Obama gave a speech about race, seeking to calm a furor that had erupted over explosive excerpts of sermons by his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

The controversy drove the nation to the unpatrolled intersection of race and religion, and as many pastors prepared for their Easter message they said they felt compelled to talk about it. Their congregants were writing and e-mailing them: some wanted to share their emotional reactions to Mr. Obama’s speech; others asked how Mr. Wright, the minister, could utter such inflammatory things from the pulpit....... More ►

A lot of people outside of the Black community don't understand what an explosive issue this is inside the Black community.

The Root ≫ The Perilous Politics of Hair.

A strange and sad thing happened to me on my job search this year. I missed out on an opportunity not because of my skills, but because of my hair. I was looking for a little extra money for college this past February, so I applied for a job at my old place of employment, Ruby Tuesday. I had worked there last year as a server, and the restaurant in downtown DC was undergoing a facelift—along with the surrounding Chinatown neighborhood – so I thought it might be fun to return there.

When I sat down to have an interview with the general manager, he seemed enthusiastic to have me come back as he discussed all the changes that the restaurant was going through. One of those "changes" surprised, confused and angered me: In order to get hired there, I was told, I would have to remove my braids from my hair....... More ►

I wish I could remember the name of the author who wrote these words. "The worlds great divide isn't between East and West, or North and South. It's between the connected and unconnected world. It's between those who grow up connected with access to a woking economy and political system along with the hope that brings, and those who don't".

WashingtonPost ≫ One Man's Personal Mission To End Slavery in Mauritania.

Boubacar Messaoud remembered strolling from the flatlands of Mauritania toward the southern town of Rosso, a watermelon poised on his head. Beyond a riverbank, he could see a row of children in a yard. Messaoud, then 7, stopped to find out what was going on, with the pure curiosity of a child.

He found out that the children were being signed up for school. Messaoud, the son of slaves who toiled in the fields of landowners, recalled that he was still unaware of the privations separating him from others.

Among a knot of parents, Messaoud noticed the cousin of his family's owner and asked him to help him enroll, too. "I can't," the man replied. "What will your master say?"

Messaoud put down his watermelon and cried.

The ancient tradition of slavery endures in Mauritania, although it was officially abolished in the 1980s. There are roughly half a million slaves among the country's population of 3.3 million, and at least 80 percent do not have access to a formal education, Messaoud said. Many remain illiterate....... More ►

The IMF and the World Bank with their "helping" of poor countries, helped make me more of an economic progressive.

BBC ≫ Farmers in Haiti have become the accidental victims of US imports and international aid as food writer Stefan Gates explains.

Maye's mood turns sombre though as he takes me around the village rice fields. This valley used to produce nearly enough rice to feed the entire country, but back in the 1980s the International Monetary Fund and World Bank demanded that Haiti drop import tariffs in return for loans.

Haiti was soon flooded with cheap and heavily subsidised US food.

"We can't compete with imported rice," Maye says.

It is estimated that the US rice crop costs $1.8bn (£900m) to grow, but its farmers get subsidies of $1.3bn (£650m), and there was no way that Haiti could cope with competition like that.

Agriculture - one of the few sources of employment in this desperately poor country - effectively collapsed. Rice production halved and imports increased 50-fold, making Haiti the USA's fourth-largest market for rice....... More ►

One sad fact of life is that chaos breeds authoritarian dictatorships. Napoleon, Hitler, Lenin, Mao, (Putin?). All came to power after flaud elections in a chaotic atmosphere produced a population willing to "trade freedom for safety". This is a warning to Iraq, but this is a story about Haiti.

NYTimes ≫ Haiti’s Poverty Stirs Nostalgia for Old Ghosts.

The imported granite was smashed. The giant cupola was toppled. The grave of François Duvalier, the longtime dictator, is a wreck, much like the country he left behind.

But Victor Planess, who works at the National Cemetery here, has a soft spot for Mr. Duvalier, the man known as Papa Doc. Standing graveside the other day, Mr. Planess reminisced about what he considered the good old days of Mr. Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude, who together ruled Haiti from 1957 to 1986.

“I’d rather have Papa Doc here than all those guys,” Mr. Planess said, gesturing toward the presidential palace down the street. “I would have had a better life if they were still around.”

Mr. Planess, 53, who complains that hunger has become so much a part of his life that his stomach does not even growl anymore, is not alone in his nostalgia for Haiti’s dictatorial past. Other Haitians speak longingly of the security that existed then as well as the lack of garbage in the streets, the lower food prices and the scholarships for overseas study....... More ►

Sometimes I wish this country had oil, we know what would happen then.....

BBC ≫ Zimbabwe ballot papers spark row.

Zimbabwe's main opposition party has accused the government of printing millions of surplus ballot papers for the presidential and legislative polls.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says leaked documents show nine million papers have been ordered for the country's 5.9 million voters....... More ►

NYTimes ≫ Peacekeeping in Darfur Hits More Obstacles

As Darfur smolders in the aftermath of a new government offensive, a long-sought peacekeeping force, expected to be the world’s largest, is in danger of failing even as it begins its mission because of bureaucratic delays, stonewalling by Sudan’s government and reluctance from troop-contributing countries to send peacekeeping forces into an active conflict.

The force, a joint mission of the African Union and the United Nations, officially took over from an overstretched and exhausted African Union force in Darfur on Jan. 1. It now has just over 9,000 of an expected 26,000 soldiers and police officers and will not fully deploy until the end of the year, United Nations officials said....... More ►

NYTimes ≫ Glimmers of Progress at a Failing School.

THIRD grade has always been a hard year for Rahmana Muhammad’s children, and therefore for her. All of a sudden, it seems to this mother of four, their textbooks have fewer pictures, their homework lasts for hours, and their test scores plummet.

So Ms. Muhammad, 39, was not sure what to expect last month when she arrived at the Newton Street School in Newark to pick up a report card for her youngest child, Dyshirah, 9, who is in third grade. After climbing the concrete stairs to Dyshirah’s classroom, Ms. Muhammad greeted the teacher, Kevin Kilgore, and hunkered down at a low table with the report card. Opening it, she found a C in reading, and a D in math.

Ms. Muhammad looked over at Dyshirah, a slight girl with a head full of braids, who was tracing sentences in a book with her finger. Mr. Kilgore, 22, assured Ms. Muhammad that Dyshirah had made a lot of progress, earning an average of 51 percent on her class math tests compared with 17 percent at the beginning of the marking period....... More ►

As reported by Crook and Liars -Fox News- Faux News -hound- dog Bill O’Reilly and The Factor has turned their attention away from attacking Daily Kos over and over again so that Bill O’Reilly could embark on a sick crusade against Huffinton Post over anonymous comments posted on Arianna’s blog. BillO had his team of producers harassing her at the Take Back America conference yesterday before she went on a panel. You know, coming after her, yelling, “why do you allow these to appear on the HuffPo?” Well, with billions of dollars at NewsCorp’s disposal, what’s Ruppert Murdoch’s excuse for these kind of posts to find their home on FOX, Bill? Look at this Post?

FOX News ≫ Comments

Comment by THayne843

March 19th, 2008 at 5:57 pm

Wow! Jan L. nailed it right on the head!

Reparations? I’m waiting for my thank you! You blacks would be naked and eating bugs if it weren’t for white people. Name ONE successful society started by blacks. Any sign of civilization in Africa was started by Europeans. Any city in America with predominately black leaders is a cesspool. Look at New Orleans, Philadelphia, D.C., Detroit...


Comment by David Tucker

March 19th, 2008 at 5:47 pm

I am sooo tired of hearing how the black man has been mistreated since he was shipped over here to help build America! All I hear is them groveling over being victims.

They are the ones making themselves the victims with their attitude that whites owe them something for bringing their ancestors to the best country that has ever existed. All my life I have only witnessed the blacks with their hands out to the government expecting it to give them everything they want and shouting racist if they don’t get it! No wonder most whites have the opinion that blacks are worthless, lazy sloths who know only how to make more babies and steal everything not nailed down. Barak Lenin Obama, the big eared Muslim, is only fostering this “wo is me” attitude with his obvious prejudices. I, for one, like my white race over that of any other, so does that make me a racist? I don’t thing so. The black man will not break free from his self-imposed shackles until he picks himself up, dusts himself off and begins to provide for himself just like every other race has done who came to this country. Before the blacks can do this, however, they have to rid themselves of the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Farakan, and the good reverend Wright....... More ►

Oh yeah don't forget the best part on FOX’s blog rules:
please note that all comments are moderated and therefore may not appear immediately after submission. IOKIYAR. (sigh)



julimac passed this story on to me, it's part of NPR storycorps recorded American history series. It's one of the most terrible stories I have ever heard.

NPR ≫ Seeing Red over Injustice

One night, Noone was painting her fingernails when her great-grandmother said, "You know, there was a time we couldn't wear no fingernail polish."

To explain, Powell told a story from when she was a girl. Around 1910, Powell lived on a plantation in Lowndes County, Ala., where "she would wash and iron for this white woman."

"One day the lady had thrown away some of her old perfume and nail polish that had dried up. So [Powell] took it home and added some ingredients to the nail polish that made it pliable," Noone says. "Well, when Sunday came, she got all dressed up and painted her nails and put on that perfume and went to church.

"On Monday, she went to the general store, and when she was ready to check out, the white owner asked her, 'What are you doing with your nails painted up like a white woman?' He proceeded to pick up a pair of pliers and he pulled out my grandmama's nails out of its bed one by one."...... More ►

NYTimes ≫ Florida Legislature Apologizes for State’s History of Slavery

The Florida Legislature formally apologized Wednesday for the state’s “shameful” history of slavery, joining five other states that have expressed public regret for what Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, recently called America’s “original sin.”

The two-page resolution passed overwhelmingly in the Senate and then the House, bringing at least one lawmaker to tears. Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, called it a “significant step” toward reconciliation....... More ►

NYTimes ≫ Early Dazzle, Then Tough Path for a Governor.

Gov. Deval Patrick has lately addressed doting crowds around the country as a surrogate for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, his friend and fellow gifted orator. Last month, Mr. Obama even acknowledged borrowing language from Mr. Patrick’s stump speeches, casting a flattering light on a novice politician barely known outside Massachusetts.

But there is no such glow at home for Mr. Patrick, the first Democrat to lead his state in 16 years and the nation’s second elected black governor....... More ►

Obama and My Family...... More ►
┗ by ProdigalBanker (Robinswing)


Why the Media attack on the Black Church must stop...... More ►
┗ by thats not funny (dopper0189)


A typical black immigrant (an African American perspective)...... More ►
┗ by notablyzen (dopper0189)



Friday Night at the Movies: Blacks in Film ...... More ►
┗ by land of enchantment (dopper0189)


Series by StormBear (dopper0189)
┗ Black History: Sailing to the New World...... More ►
┗ Black History: The Slave Coast...... More ►
┗ Black History: Slave Factories, The Middle Passage and Seasoning Camps...... More ►



Continuing the dialog on race begun by Barack Obama last week (with poll)...... More ►
┗ by mkfarkus (dopper0189)