Double Penny [my two cents]

2008-05-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

I’ve been thinking lately that the framing of this election needs to change. For one thing I’m weary of hearing about winning and fighting for the nomination. Battleground 2008. That is the old frame that has been rejected by Obama. Its so twentieth century.

This election is not about winning. It’s about leadership.

Winning and losing are a part of the old paradigm. Leadership is new only because we haven’t seen much of it in the last fifty years.

Obama is showing through his example what leadership looks like. It is so unfamiliar that many people see it as his weakness. It is not.

(SistahSpeak con't)

What an extraordinary man he is. He has shown himself unwilling to be baited into combatant status in the blood sport of politics past. Those of us who support him must be willing to recognize the quantum leap this represents in the body politic.

How eagerly some have been to see him strike back at Hillary. Months ago this was the discussion of a NYT article before one of the million debates. The media sharks and sharkettes were salivating at the thought. They were disappointed. I wasn’t. I saw the revolution being telecast.

Make no mistake; whenever you refuse to play by the old rules, you are being revolutionary in every real sense of the word. Obama is a revolutionary. Not fighting is a revolutionary concept in the world of American politics.

We have become so accustomed to violent terms for the political process that it is easy to forget that it is not necessary to speak of elections in terms of fighting and winning and losing. I’ve heard residual anger expressed at John Kerry because he didn’t fight after 2004. Truth is residual anger has become the fuel of the body politic. This anger has morphed into the cancer of our national dialogue. So much talk about fighting and fighting back. Battleground states. Firewalls. There are those who are disappointed in Obama’s refusal to participate.

For the most part many have rationalized his refusal to ‘fight’ back. We have said things like it would only make him appear to be an angry black man and so he can’t. He must appear to be docile in order to gain the trust of white America. This idea supposes somehow that fighting back would be the correct thing to do. This in spite of the fact that the lives and works of King and Gandhi have shown us otherwise.

I have found myself wrestling with the sense of betrayal that none of his surrogates have really stood up to support him. They have not cried foul in unison at the antics and the misbehavior of the so called media as they focused on the idea of derailing this man. I believe it has been his leadership that has restrained those voices. If so, then he has already had an effect on the way business has always been done.

Some people like the idea of continuing the battles that have left our nation bereft of real leadership. I’m not one of them. I want a leader. I want someone who is willing to stand on his principles. I want someone who is willing to speak truth to power and who seeks to hold the reins of power with the help of the people. I want someone who is willing to lead us into self governance. You remember, of ,by and for the people.

I’m tired of the same old same old.

For those asking how he is going to implement the change he talks about I say, watch him. He is already doing it.
Watch him and observe the ways in which politics has already been changed.

Look and learn. We are watching the revolution. It is being televised. Obama is leading.

Obama has more courage and grace in his nail clippings than any other candidate in the last forty years.

Let a leader lead.

Now, run and tell that

The Urban Educational System
Sephius1, Black Kos Editor

Last week we took a look at the people resources that an inner city kid comes in contact with. We also looked at the family dynamics, and school dynamics, pointing to how different links along a child's development, if broken, can cause irreparable harm to a child psyche.

This week we'll take a look at solutions for the 3 areas covered over the past weeks. 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.

1.4 Solution

- Safety, Health, and Environment -

In the first installment of this multi-part series we delve into the issue of safety, the welfare of the child, and the physical surroundings of the child. On of the first things we need to do is start with a grounded home. Kids that are in unstable homes, aren't that productive once they get to school. I think there needs to be an onsite psychologist at the school. Someone who can help a child work through the issues so that they don't express themselves in other ways. There is so much a child is exposed to that they can not process it all. Abuse at the home, walking through rundown neigborhoods, teachers abusing student (whether mental, or physical) all have lasting effect on the child psyche.

Another thing that can help with the sense of saftey is having a cop, or two, come to school once a week and meet with the young students. There's such a mistrust of the police in the inner city that crime flourishes because neither side talks to each. The cop may need someone in the community as an eyewitness, but the community won't help because law enforcement will only provide basic security. But at the same time the community wants the cops to be there to protect them. There must be a mutual respect from each side and it begins at young age, when the child is beginning to understand the authority hierarchy and beginning to place different levels of trust within that hierarchy. By allowing a relationship to develop between school kids and law enforcement it will do two things, (1) it establishes a safe zone with cop, and (2) the kid would be more likely to go to the cop with something that they see a disturbance.

On the health side an onsite nutritionist would be essential. Kids each so much chunk food because it is cheaper for their parents to buy. An it doesn't help that corporation you schools as billboards in exchange for giving money to the school -- usually in the form of vending machine with sugary soft drinks and candy. Then the child goes home and the cabinet is filled with chips, soda, and sugary cereals "fortified" with vitamins. In the inner city you, are more likely to see a liquor store than a good grocery. Although some in the community are taking on the task of growing fresh vegatables.

On the environment tip, and actually creating fun teaching moment, you could have the young students help keep the school clean. Have a day once, or twice a month, where the student and teachers go out pick trash around the school. Of course care should be given if the child happens to walk upon a syringe, drugs, or god forbid a condom. But barring that, it will teach the kids responsibilities and get them involved early in caring for the environment.

- Financial Resources and People Resources -

I'm joining these two together since they meld well. Obviously, if everybody made more money alot of problems probably could be solved, but that is a discussion far bigger than this one. The first thing we need to confront is the self image of the child. Since most inner city schools are public, you are going to have children of different socio-economic status attending the same school. And because some may be better off financially than other, the way they dress will reflect that. And if you are the lonely kid who can't afford the trendy shoes, and clothes, you already see your self as unequal. Therefore, I think school uniforms are needed as an image equalizer. You're not focusing on who's the "it" boy/girl. And while I value free speech, the elementary and middle school years should be about learning and absorbing the world around. They are already going to have cliques -- jocks, cool girls, "geeky guys", etc.

Of course, more up to date books and better teacher pay always help, but when you have different graduation statistics across racial lines, and class lines, you soon see that there may be differences in the way some are learning. I going to propose something I'm calling Continuous Academic Verification, Evaluation, and Reporting, or CAVER, Statistics & Best Practices. This would be a document that would track a childs entire educational track from kindergarden to finishing college. Now, when I say document, I mean a database that captures statistical information. And while I'm sure every state has something similiar to this, that, in it self, is part of the problem -- no consistent narrative. So below I breifly break down what a CAVER is, it's methodolgy, how it is compile, and managed, and some areas where a CAVER statistic can be tracked:

CAVER System

In the simplest of terms, a CAVER statistic is defined as the smallest trackable unit of information. This could be a test question, the test itself, teacher evaluations, overall learning ability, classroom size, information that spans several categories, etc. Along with capturing this information you want to be able to compare and contrast, and produce reports that students, parents, teachers, education administrators, commercial entities, and politician can use these report to provide corrective action early before the child slips through cracks.

The deployment strategy for the CAVER system would be brand-able, web-based, password protected, with user groups and user group administrators. User accounts will be created based on form submission of certain information, since we don't want just anybody seeing student information. However, an area of the CAVER system will be available to the public (the media, researchers, average citizens) to view summary reports since part of the goal is to keep the public informed about the potential workforce.

Some other areas where gathering CAVER statistics could be beneficial are from mentorship programs, after-school programs, from parents at PTA meetings, or tracking those students that will be the first to go through the CAVER system and become teachers themselves. They will add a new dimension because now you will begin developing a knowledgebase within the CAVER system itself.

The CAVER system is the best way, in my opinion, to coral people resources as well. You can see how mentors and teachers effect the childs learning. However, as it stands right now, CAVER is still in draft white paper form, but once it is done I will be soliciting feedback. This concludes Part I: Strategy At The School Level

Next week >> Part II: Strategy At The Commercial Level

The Root ≫ Making sense of hip-hop's most recent crime wave.

The recent spate of rap stars making criminal justice news will come as a surprise to no one, especially those of you who equate hip-hop culture with prison culture. Nor will it surprise those of us who have accepted the fact that, in the black public sphere, record sales (or any sales for that matter) are often bolstered by an association with criminality.

Clearly all of hip-hop culture is not about criminality. Most rappers do not have rap sheets. If you consider Akon to be a hip-hop artist, think of the irony inherent in the sensationalism surrounding the recent expose of his criminal career. The fact that he has exaggerated his prison status in order to sell his artistic persona (and millions of records) only begins to hint at the promotional potential of prison sentences in popular culture.

That said, it might be worth revisiting this recent string of cases to understand the issues and what they mean for both the African American community and the Hip-Hop Generation(s)....... More ►

To continue with the Hip-hop theme.

Slate ≫ What's behind the great rappers lame rock band combos?

Why do rappers whose work I hold in such high regard have such terrible taste in rock? The answer started to become clear when I gave "Birthday Girl," the Roots-Patrick Stump song, a courtesy listen and was greatly disturbed to discover that I liked it. It's catchy; Stump has the right voice for the mellow hook, and the Roots' estimable rhythm section gives a sharp edge to what otherwise would have been a straightforward mid-tempo rock song:

Upon searching my soul, I realized that I had to admit that I in fact liked almost all the songs that I named earlier. "Let Me Blow Your Mind" is an unjustly forgotten club grinder; "Homecoming," "Heard 'Em Say," and "Sacrifice" all get stuck in my head from time to time; "Numb/Encore" is a staple of the various Workout Mega-Jam mixes that I've made over the years. I was a bit taken aback; cultural snobbery is such an integral part of my personality. I'd have to rethink a lot of things if it turned out I liked listening to Fall Out Boy, Maroon 5, and Linkin Park.

Fortunately, a quick zip through the iTunes store reassured me that I don't. Those bands have recorded some memorably hummable singles but don't have much musical range and seem to almost purposefully employ instrumentation and vocal effects indistinguishable from all the other bands working in their already well-trod genres. (Fall Out Boy seems the most promisingâ€”I could see them making an album I really likedâ€”and while Linkin Park is never going to be my thing, they're not bad at what they do. Maroon 5 is elevator music from the depths of hell.) But these bands' songwriting and production tendencies, I realized, are beside the point. They're not in the studio to write and record a double album with a rapper; they're stopping by for a day to lay down vocals for a single....... More ►

I still am 50/50 on Cosby. But he is out there trying to do good works. He also has been a major donor for years for many good causes. Therefore He has earned my respect.

The Root ≫ Georgia judge who gave blacks-only lecture teams with Cosby

Bill Cosby says apathy among some black Americans about violence, drugs, profanity and teenage sex has sunk to a level of asking someone to "pass the salt."

The comedian, who has made waves by criticizing the black community in the past, appeared Thursday night with a Georgia judge who kicked whites out of his courtroom while he lectured black defendants.

Cosby and Superior Court Judge Marvin Arrington spoke at a forum for at-risk youths from the Atlanta area. Both men are black. "Our children are trying to tell us something," Cosby said to the predominantly black audience at Benjamin Mays High School as he talked about the importance of education and family....... More ►

NYTimes ≫ Seeking the Key to Employment for Ex-Cons

Over the past two years, Peter Santos has hired 40 ex-convicts to help him build and renovate apartments here; 36 did not last, many of them doing unacceptably sloppy work or simply disappearing after a few weeks — or a few days — on the job.

One worker, Ronald O’Reilly, 41, had spent more than half his life in prison, for burglary, drug sales and weapons possession, when Mr. Santos last summer gave him not just a job but a cheap apartment and the furnishings to make the place feel like home. He even paid to repair Mr. O’Reilly’s neglected teeth. “I gave him my all,” Mr. Santos said. “I really thought Ron would be different.”...... More ►

Although you can count me as someone who doesn't put too much into Jeremiah Wright when I decided to support Sen. Obama. But given that fact, why wouldn't a person step aside for a moment if it means advancing many of the goals they say they support? But this continues to be news. (doppero189)

The Root ≫ Is Rev. Jeremiah Wright on the secret payroll of Barack Obama's political opponents?

It's a reasonable question, given the potentially catastrophic damage he wreaked on the Illinois Senator's White House aspirations with his bombastic performance at the National Press Club this morning. At the precise moment when Obama is facing questions about his ability to connect with white working class voters, Wright chose to put himself back into the spotlight, resurrecting the controversy stirred up by widely circulated snippets from his impassioned sermons. At the very least, Obama will now be forced to waste precious time answering questions about his former pastor's absurd views. At worst, Wright's provocative utterances could cost Obama the election....... More ►

I think Sen. Obama had no choice but to do this.

NYTimes ≫ Obama Breaks Forcefully With Ex-Pastor Over Fiery Remarks

Senator Barack Obama broke forcefully on Tuesday with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., in an effort to curtail a drama of race, values, patriotism and betrayal that has enveloped his presidential candidacy at a critical juncture.

At a news conference here, Mr. Obama denounced remarks Mr. Wright made in a series of televised appearances over the last several days. In the appearances, Mr. Wright has suggested that the United States was attacked because it engaged in terrorism on other people and that the government was capable of having used the AIDS virus to commit genocide against minorities. His remarks also cast Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, in a positive light....... More ►

NYTimes ≫ Lincoln Journal: An Irascible Firebrand, Finally Quieted by Term Limits

The senior senator of Nebraska’s unicameral Legislature is going out just the way he came in nearly four decades ago: obstinately, and with a whole lot to say in his T-shirt and jeans.

“I have to remind people as they show great sadness that I’m not dying, I’m just getting out of the Legislature,” said the senator, Ernie Chambers, 70. “But a lot of people are going to be very happy when my absolute last day arrives. In fact, there will probably be so much joy in this corner of the world that it will be picked up on the Richter scale. I’m not liked at all.”

Liked or not, Mr. Chambers, a black, divorced, agnostic former barber from Omaha with posters of Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass decorating his office, managed to rise to an ultimate level of power in a mostly rural, white conservative state on little more than sheer determination to do so....... More ►

A word of caution to Democrats from theroot.com

The Root ≫ Don't Think Black Voters Won't Vote for McCain.

Just ask Kathleen Kennedy Townsend about the price Democrats pay for dissing black voters.
So my home state of Pennsylvania handed Hillary Clinton a win and a reason to keep fighting to be the Democratic nominee. As I write, Terry McCauliffe is probably on CNN pleading his candidate's case, facts about her low delegate and popular vote counts be damned.

But before Democratic superdelegates get too itchy to snuff the Obama campaign, they should consider the new animal that move might spawn: the Obama Republican.

I know: the notion of black folks and young folks and progressive white folks abandoning the Democrats en masse if the Wife of Bill is the nominee ain't exactly new; Right here on The Root, the writer William Jelani Cobb espoused a McCain protest vote in November, and has since accepted a ticket to Denver as a Democratic delegate in August. But that makes the threat no less real. Any Democratic honcho needing a lesson in the power of disaffected black voters need only Google "2002 and Clarence Mitchell IV."...... More ►

Imagine if Sen. McCain got to nominate Justice Stephen G. Breyer replacement?

NYTime ≫ Supreme Court Upholds Voter Identification Law in Indiana

The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter-identification law on Monday, declaring that a requirement to produce photo identification is not unconstitutional and that the state has a “valid interest” in improving election procedures as well as deterring fraud.

In a 6-to-3 ruling in one of the most awaited election-law cases in years, the court rejected arguments that Indiana’s law imposes unjustified burdens on people who are old, poor or members of minority groups and less likely to have driver’s licenses or other acceptable forms of identification. Because Indiana’s law is considered the strictest in the country, similar laws in the other 20 or so states that have photo-identification rules would appear to have a good chance of surviving scrutiny....... More ►

Kai Wright at the TheRoot.com doesn't pull any punches with this one.

The Root ≫ If They Are So Scared, How Come We're The Dead Ones?

The cops in the Sean Bell case walked because the judge said it was reasonable for them to be scared of three black men in a car. This paranoia defense has been used to forgive the murders of black people for a long time.

Ida B. Wells, at the turn of the 20th century, called it a "threadbare lie." She was talking about how lynch mobs masquerading as law enforcement justified their actions by claiming black men were raping white women. But Wells was on to a larger delusion, one that not only inspired sexual hysteria 100 years ago, but that continues to legitimize all manner of brutality against black men today. The simple and sadly lasting truth is this: We scare the shit out of America. And that fear excuses just about any reaction it spawns....... More ►

A sad day for Jamaica and the world.

The Root ≫ Mourners pay tribute to Bob Marley's mom

Thousands of mourners paid tribute Sunday to the late mother of reggae superstar Bob Marley, whose renowned music promoting social justice and "one love" made him one of Jamaica's most beloved sons.

Cedella Booker's casket was draped in blue, red, yellow and black cloths, the colors of the Rastafarian faith, and displayed in Kingston's National Stadium.

Booker died earlier this month in her Miami home at age 81. She will be buried Monday alongside her late son in his birthplace, the town of Nine Miles....... More ►

I have grown more callous as I grow older and keep hearing bad news from around the world. But every so often a story still finds a way to break my heart. This one is from Africa's broken heart.

NPR ≫ Rape Used as a Weapon in Congo's Civil War

There are reports that mutinous soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo raped women Bukavu after seizing the city earlier this month. Rape has been a part of earlier conflicts as well. During Congo's civil war, which officially ended in 2002, rape and the fear of rape often kept women from working in the fields. Crops failed as a result, and many children died of malnutrition. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports....... More ►

Ebony / Jet ≫ New Voices of African American Women Playwrights

Last year, I experienced a thought-provoking discussion with playwright/novelist/activist Pearl Cleage. The topic was the new generation of African American playwrights and what direction they were headed. Cleage believes that we are at a turning point in terms of the foundation set by the civil rights generation and the new path that current playwrights are forging.

“I’m a child of the 60s, I think in terms of the Black community and I don’t think we have that anymore,” she said of the current generation’s perspective. “I miss it but I understand it as part of our development as a people. We have been able to knock aside racism and sexism and we have dissipated our sense of community. Our sense of danger is lessened.”

With the international fame of playwrights such as Suzan -Lori Parks, the first African American playwright to win a Pulitzer Prize and Lynn Nottage, considered among the best of contemporary playwrights, the role of African American woman playwrights in particular, appears to be crucial. Both Parks and Nottage earned MacArthur “genius” grants for their productions that examine class and racism through unexpected perspectives....... More ►

Diaries by babeuf (dopper0189)
┗ Time to Rethink the Role of the Church in Black (and American) Politics......More ►
┗ America's Racial Porn Addiction......More ►

I love StromBear
Diaries by StormBear (dopper0189)
┗ Black History: Southerners Contemplate Manual Labor......More ►
┗ Black History: First Shots of the Civil War......More ►

So (black) people, do we have his back or what?......More ►
┗ by jazmen8 (dopper0189)

One black man's reaction to Obama yesterday......More ►
┗ by ella-h (dopper0189)

On Black-Blacks, and NotBlack-Blacks, and me......More ►
┗ by risingtide (dopper0189)

(DIARIES OF NOTE ON THE WEB)

There is quite an interesting discussion on the web with regards to how having a "black sounding name" effects a person life.

On Having a Black Name......More ►(Terrypinder)

Growing up White with a Black name......More ►(Terrypinder)

What If My Parents Had Named Me Tawana?......More ►(Terrypinder)

How do babies with super-black names fare?......More ►(Terrypinder)

2008-05-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

I’ve been looking into my heart to find my real feelings about Jeremiah Wright and the events of the last few days.

As I write this, Obama has packed up the baggage left by Rev. Wright and the media. Make no mistake, the media is the thing.

Obama has been taking hits from every direction. Hillary, McLame, Bill, scarred burrow, damnity, Tweety et.al. The miracle is that he has weathered it with more grace than the situation deserved. During these last few weeks, Obama has been grace it’s own self.

They’ve been waiting to see if they could pick a fight and fit him into the angry black male mode. They couldn’t. Only Jeremiah Wright was able finally to wound. Wound him he did. I’m feeling Obama’s hurt. It is not unfamiliar to me, the territory of betrayal. For a moment the light seems to get sucked from the room. Obama had that look. My heart goes out to him.

I keep wondering if in his actions, Wright wasn’t giving Obama what he needed to move forward. Jeremiah is not a stupid man. I do not believe he is jealous of Obama. I do not believe he is a narcissist. The narcissists get the million dollar home as soon as the church can afford it. They don’t put the church’s money into programs.

I’m sure I saw something in Jeremiah’s eyes.

I do not believe for one moment he needs attention. When you have a church for as long as he, attention is something you get plenty of. One day I’ll tell you how I know.

No, what I believe he intended to do was take the attention and shape it to Obama’s need. This he did. He said over a year ago that Obama would need to distance himself from him. Since Obama couldn’t bring himself to do it, Wright did it for him.

I know I heard a message in there. On Sunday, I heard him say that if he was going to promote a candidate at the non-partisan NAACP function he would say “Yes we can!”

He made a point of saying that he was not Obama’s spiritual advisor. And chided Obama for not listening to the whole sermon. Took that one off Obama’s back. I’m sure it pissed Buchanan off. He’s been trying to hang Obama with this spiritual advisor label since the beginning of this farce. Also apparently everyone else goes to church every Sunday and because Wright said Obama hadn’t heard the whole sermon, he took that weapon right out of the punditz hands.

Wright signaled that he was up on things by mentioning the Huffington Post. Then there were the messages that I heard in other things he said.

He said that what God has ordained in terms of the presidency could not be stopped. I heard words of encouragement to Obama. Wright was doing his part.

Finally he parodied the black street brother... Bipping and bopping. He did everything but slap a high five with one of his boys. This man who has known presidents and been in the White House as a guest of Bill Clinton has to go all south side of Chicago? Not feeling that vibe as authentic.

I believe he knew that by giving what even Obama called a performance; he was doing all he could do to put this away.

I know I would have done the same thing. I would show my behind to ten thousand strangers if it would help my sons. I would make a complete fool of myself if it would help bring their dreams into being.

Anyone who thinks that Jeremiah Wright would consciously sabotage Obama does not understand anything about the man.

In my heart I believe I’ve seen Br’er Rabbit getting thrown into the briar patch.

Nothing else makes sense.

2008-05-02T20:47:00.000-07:00

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

This primary season has served to rip the band-aides off of some of the deepest wounds in our nation. Hillary seems to me to be defiant. Angry. Intentional in her disrespect for Barack.

From where I’m standing her campaign illustrates the anger carried in the hearts of so many older women in this country. It is the bitter that goes unspoken as the punditz look at numbers and try to divine the real nature of the body politic which is apparently having an anger seizure. Some things are obvious.

Women are mad as hell. White women that is. Women of a certain age. Maybe Obama needs to speak to them. Let them know he understands their anger and that he is not the enemy. He cannot,must not stand in proxy for the anger, fear and frustration many of these women feel. If whites can proclaim that they had nothing to do with slavery and can’t be tarred with it by blacks, surely Obama can say I did you no wrong. I didn’t leave you for a younger woman; I didn’t hit you or hurt you. I have neither polished the glass ceiling nor did I erect it. I have not oppressed you. I’m dealing with the same oppressor as you.

This has been a primary in the most illuminating sense of the word. We are looking at the primer of our emotions. Much of what we are seeing pains the eye and pings the heart.

Some are lined up watching with horror as the threads of racism are being subtly woven into the fabric of this primary.

Those of us who are children of the Diaspora flinch as we watch the buzzwords of racism shift while millions are blissfully unaware. For months the feelings that are held by some of our citizens have raged under the radar. Race. We don’t want to talk about it. Not really. Obama tried. No one wanted to respond. Hillary could have. She could have stood up after Obama’s speech and said “Good on you Barack Obama. This is a conversation we need to have.” She could have promised that as president she would issue a presidential proclamation apologizing after all this time, to the descendents of slaves for centuries of slavery. She could have said that she wanted to acknowledge that slavery provided the foundation of this nation’s prosperity. She could have. She didn’t even try.

Instead we have women who are claiming that now it is time for those of us with vaginas to stand together. We are supposed to hold this black man accountable for all the sins of misogyny. How ironic.

A few of these white women actually seem to think that I should see myself first in terms of my gender even as they call me a black woman.( Note that black precedes woman.) Apparently there are those who think I am voting for Obama just because he is black like me. And you know what? They can kiss my black ass. Even if I was, it seems to me to be as fair as voting for white men, year after year after year.

I can give you all the policy reasons I’m voting for Barack Obama. Or I can simply say this... I would never vote for Condi Rice or Colin Powell. I said hell no to Clarence Thomas and find no pride in Bob Johnson. And if someone wants to accuse me of voting for Barack Obama simply because he and I are both black, I don’t give a flying phuque.

These people do not see me as someone capable of making a decision beyond the narrow definitions and parameters of their own bigotry.

Hillary goes around claiming that it took one Clinton to clean up after the first Bush and that she is the Clinton to clean up after this Bush. Bullshit. Let’s look at this another way. Historically, black folks cleaned up after white folk for generation after generation. We been cleaning y’alls messes for centuries. I think it’s gonna take a black man,Barack Obama, to clean up after all these white men. Yeah, I said it. And as Lou Palmer used to say, now run and tell that.

SPECIAL COMMENT
Terrypinder, Black Kos Editor

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 realize I started my last piece with this opening but hear me out. Today, I'm talking about BET.

Before I continue---I don't want people to think I'm some type of moralizing John McWhorter. I have read some of his work, and find that while our life stories sort of match (we're both from middle class, college-educated suburbanites), we diverge greatly in pretty much everything else. I'm a liberal. He more or less is not. So while it'll sound like I'm channeling McWhorter in my critique of BET, to some, it's all me. 100%.

I watch BET and note, that there aren't people like me on there. Outside of the few news programs they have, there's a lot of incredibly vapid programming, rap videos that do little to lift up the community, and Christian televangelist programs that have bought into the Prosperity Gospel (another issue I have, but we can save that for another day.)

It all just looks like a modern-day minstrel show to me. I clearly am over thinking it, but I think the point stands. I can't be the only one.

Oh, I'm not!

Aaron McGruder, of the Boondocks fame, has made digs at BET for quite some time now, even to the point where two recent episodes of The Boondocks were pulled at threat of lawsuit. You can view these episodes on YouTube and elsewhere on the web. They're NSFW, and they're quite possibly the most offensive episodes of the series yet. I won't spoil it for you—you can go and watch them yourself. I felt they made his point about BET well, but they took the most offensive way possible to do it. The Boondocks satire hits the mark though, even when it's like “damn, did I just see that on The Cartoon Network?!”

http://www.enoughisenoughcampaign.com/

They're right. Enough IS enough!

Their goals are

1. We want media and music companies to develop universal creative standards for the music and videos they produce, market and distribute. These standards should include prohibitions against lyrical and visual content that (a) objectifies, degrades, or promotes violence against women; (b) promotes illegal activity; (c) portrays Black and Latino men as "gangsters, pimps, thugs, and players," and (d) celebrates the usage of the word "nigga" (and it's derivatives), "hoe" (and it's derivatives), and "bitch" (in reference to women),
2. We want companies that advertise on television and radio stations to develop the same universal standards for the networks on which they place advertising,
3. We want the Federal Communications Commission to enforce its congressional mandate to regulate indecency on the public airwaves (television, radio, cable, satellite, etc...) between 6AM-10PM,
4. We want the Federal Communications Commission to investigate allegations of "payola" in the entertainment industry,
5. We want Congress to pass legislation in support of consumer choice in the cable industry; i.e. "a la carte" cable. This would enable consumers to not choose undesirable networks as a part of their cable packages. According to a recent FCC study, "a la carte" cable would also reduce customer cable bills up to 13%,
6. We want local, state, and federal governments to divest public tax dollars and contracts from corporations that refuse to end their sponsorship of offensive lyrical content. (We have examples of such contracts and government relationships with such corporations.), and
7. We want mutual fund and pension fund managers to divest funds from investments in publicly traded companies that promote, sponsor, and market material that does not conform to the universal creative standards referenced above.

Perhaps their goals are a little lofty, especially 6. But don't you think #1 is fair? I do.

I mean I do like hiphop and all that, but not the stuff that I see on BET on a regular basis. And frankly, I am tired of the stereotypes.

Enough is enough!

And Bob Johnson (not OUR Bob Johnson, BET's Bob Johnson) needs to go away!

But I don't know, what do you all think?

In regards to the series The Urban Educational System: Part I - A Stategy At the School Level.

Section 1.4 was to be published in this issue of Week In Review, but will not be because my computer has decided to "rebel" against me in the final hour. I think the file is corrupted because it won't let me open it. And I can't find my Flash stick that contains a partial copy. So I'm having to re-type everything from my notes. As such it will be published next week. Deepest apologies. - Sephius1

The Economist ≫ One of America's most violent cities has suddenly become less so—thanks to smarter policing.

Baltimore's police chief, Frederick Bealefeld, prefers not to rely on divine intervention. With 282 murders last year among a population of 630,000, Baltimore was one of the most violent cities in America. But since last summer, the killing has slowed. The six months to March this year saw an impressive 28% fewer murders than the same period a year earlier. Mr Bealefeld credits smarter policing, and says he is cautiously optimistic that the trend will continue.

Television dramas such as “The Wire” may give the impression that Baltimore is a hellhole. It is not. Most of the city is calm and pleasant. Only a couple of areas are crime-ridden. And even in these areas, relatively few young men commit—and are the victims of—the most serious crimes. Last year, 89% of those murdered in Baltimore had a criminal record.

Mr Bealefeld thinks the murder rate has fallen because the police are paying more attention to the most violent offenders. One helpful new tool is a registry for gun offenders which the mayor, Sheila Dixon, announced last year. Like sex criminals, anyone who commits a crime using a gun must register his whereabouts with the police as soon as he is convicted or once released from jail. Failure to do so can get him imprisoned again for up to a year.

The logic is simple. Of the 135 people arrested for murder in Baltimore last year, nearly half had a prior conviction for a gun offence. So it makes sense for police and parole officers to keep close tabs on former gun criminals....... More ►

Ebony the nations oldest and largest black news magazine has published its list of the "150 Most Influential Black Americans."

Ebony / Jet ≫ "The Most Influential Black Americans"

Since 1963, the section has been one of the magazine's most talked about features, highlighting talented individuals whose influence shapes America.

This year, the "Ebony Power 150" kicks off with a look at 20 young rising stars who are emerging as part of the next wave of Black leaders in America. The complete list focuses on eight categories: Politics & Law, Business, Religion, Arts, En tertainment & Media, Education, Military and Public Service. The list was compiled by the editors of Ebony in consultation with national experts and leaders in the field, the two criteria being:

1) In the past year, did the individual transcent his or her position and exhibit widespread national influence?
2) In the past year, did the individual affect in a decisive and positive way the lives, thinking and actions of large segments of the African-American population, either by his/her position in a key group, or by his/her personal reach and influence.

Although our list is populated by dynamic individuals with extensive resumes, only one accomplishment per individual was allowed....... More ►

Call me an elitist but this next story should be under lack of culture . Black people and white people are sometimes too much alike! We both seem facinated by the same type of dumb stuff on TV.

The Root ≫ Good Luck Finding The Reality in Black Reality TV

The only thing missing from black family reality television is the reality.

The simple formula—high-profile black celebrity and family live a scripted and sometimes not-so-scripted life in front of the camera—has proven to be a ratings winner. This combination of pseudo-reality and celebrity—for which TV audiences seem to clamor, follows a pattern in which mainstream viewers seem extraordinarily willing to buy into a patently false lifestyle portrayals (The Hills, The Kardashians) in which the fantasy of effortlessly acquired wealth and material excess yields a loyal following on TV, turning nobodies into red carpet somebodies, while reviving sagging celebrity careers.

Add black folks to the mix of reality/celebrity/fantasy shows, and you've got the perfect antidote to HBO's The Wire, arguably just as much a reality show as anything else on TV.

Deion & Pilar follows the success, if not buzz, of Snoop Dogg's Father Hood on E!, in which the rapper tries to instill discipline in his brood, against the backdrop of his own history of decadence.

In one episode, Snoop's wife tries to introduce a healthier diet by banning him from fried chicken. In another episode, Snoop takes a yoga lesson, and in a third, soccer star David Beckham gives Snoop's kid's soccer lessons. Ah, the life of a gangsta-rapper-turned-doting-dad....... More ►

This is an interesting story. It also give a chance to plug a new blog the Black and Green Blog. which hopes to mobilize more environmental awareness in urban areas.

The Root ≫ Stay Black (and Green)

Similar to most kids, I liked new things. Especially when they were shiny. I remember how quickly I lost interest in playing with my C-3PO figurine after it started to dull. So you can imagine that I was a little put off by the fact that Paw Paw, my paternal grandfather, would always wash and reuse aluminum foil. Why would we use a scraggly wrinkled sheet when there was a damn-near-full roll of crisp and clean foil available? In addition to foil, Paw Paw reused anything that could be reused until it was on its last leg. Why? "Because it's wasteful to throw it away," as he used to tell me.

If you need to purchase aluminum foil, buy it recycled since up to 95% less energy is used to produce recycled foil than foil made from virgin aluminum. After using it, you can wash it, dry it, fold it, and reuse it at a later date. And when you're tired of looking at a scraggly wrinkled sheet, put it in your blue bin to be recycled again. 'Cause it's wasteful to throw it away. If your city doesn't recycle aluminum yet, first clown them, then raise some hell and take matters into your own hands until they do.

Recognizing that people of color have been protectors of the earth for millennia, a few of my brilliant friends and I took matters into our own hands and started the Black and Green Blog. This blog provides readers with practical tips and tools (like the one above) for living in a way that honors the earth and leaves it intact for our children and grandchildren. Check us out....... More ►

A conversation with environmental activist Majora Carter about integrating the movement, how to stop dumping on our communities, and why planting trees won't kill hip-hop

The Root ≫ How the Bronx Turned Green

It's not surprising that many African Americans give Earth Day a pass. When you live poorer and die younger in the land of plenty, it can be hard to get excited about protecting the planet at large.

The oppression of black people covers centuries of troubled terrain from forced agricultural labor, to contemporary land loss, to racialized proximity, to polluting industries. For African Americans, nature's bounty has always stood in stark contrast to human suffering.

It's not that black Americans don't care about the environment. In fact, public opinion data show that there is no clear "green gap" between black and white Americans. But blacks are more likely to care about green issues that most directly affect their lives. While whites express more concern about climate change, wilderness preservation and endangered species, African Americans express more concern about pollution, locally undesirable land uses and human health outcomes. Asthmatic children are far more likely to turn African Americans into environmental activists than disappearing polar bears...... More ►

This was the best story I have read in a while. It shows what people, and civic organizations like unions can do when their government decideds to sit on it's hands.

NYTimes ≫ Zimbabwe-Bound Ship Heads Back to China

A Chinese ship carrying armaments made by a Chinese state-owned company and bound for Zimbabwe has headed back to China without unloading its cargo of bullets and mortar bombs, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry confirmed at a briefing Thursday.

The Chinese company has already decided to send the military goods back to China in the same vessel, the An Yue Jiang,” said the spokeswoman, Jiang Yu.

The ship had sailed into Durban harbor in South Africa last week. The South African government had already issued a permit to allow the arms to be trucked across South Africa to landlocked Zimbabwe when dock workers declared they would not unload the weapons and an Anglican archbishop convinced a judge to temporarily bar the arms delivery across South African soil.

The campaign has since pressed other countries in the region to reject the shipment, a call that had gained important backing from Zambia’s president, Levy Mwanawasa, who heads a bloc of 14 southern African nations...... More ►

As a Caribbean-American let me tell you we love dominos like laomost nothing else. In times of suffering people often turn to simple pleasures. But as my wife would say "being men they have to do this....."

NYTimes ≫ For Haiti’s Jobless, No Cost to Play. But Losers Pay

There was pain in Jean François’s eyes, real suffering, an awful look of woe. It might have been that he had little to eat that day, or his lack of a job or any real hope of securing one. Perhaps it stemmed from the squalor in his neighborhood, a sprawling and rather depressing slum of tin-roofed houses. Looking on, one wanted to help this desperate 29-year-old man, console him, somehow help him break out of what was clearly a deep funk.

But there was nothing to be done. It turns out that Mr. François’s life was not the immediate source of his desperation. It was his losing streak — and the dozens of clothespins clipped onto his face, arms and belly.

In marked contrast to Mr. François’s glum look, the other men crowding around a raucous domino game under way in Port-au-Prince’s Cité Soleil neighborhood on a recent afternoon were smiling with glee. They doubled over in laughter every time they looked at Mr. François. A chorus of roars rang out each time he lost another game and more of the clips were attached to his ears, cheeks, chin, forearms and midriff.
...... More ►

I always read these diaries

Diaries by StormBear (dopper0189)
┗ Black History: The Causes of the Civil War......More ►
┗ Black History: The Underground Railroad......More ►

Arizona: The Black Student Association Disparages American Values And Western Civilization......More ►
┗ by The Rollback Campaign (dopper0189)

PA and the Persistence of the Race Chasm......More ►
┗ by davidsirota (dopper0189)

2008-04-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-04-01T03:21:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-04-01T02:07:00.000-07:00

WEEK IN REVIEW 3-21-08

Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

It’s been a tough week for a blackwoman. If my sons had not already done so years ago, the media and its relentless harping on Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama would have tap-danced on my very last nerve.

Then I look up today and see this.

Talk about open season on black males, this is the week that was. I love my brothers and this has been a pretty big dose of black as boogie man manic trying to be depressive. It’s been a week of you can do anything you want to my brothers. I’m not having it. Not any of it.

(SistahSpeak con't.)

I’m working real hard not to get mad. And no, I don’t mean angry, I mean mad. A little anger can be the impetus to change. Mad just makes you lose focus. If there is anything that I need right this minute now, it’s focus. My whole life has lead me to the fierce urgency of this moment in time and I intend to be razor sharp moving into tomorrow. Make no mistake, we are moving into tomorrow but not it seems before we have a chance to stroll down memory lane and the glories of yesteryear when we didn’t have the real possibility of having an African American man as the POTUS.

I just need to take a moment and cry foul. Very foul. Foul most.

So I guess Jeremiah is scary because he is not bound to the narrative of the good white man. Looking at the so-called news coverage, I’m having these Roots flashbacks where the language has been updated but the meaning is essentially “Yazza Bahss.” “I’se musta loss my mine whad wid thinkin’ fo mysef.”

You see any other story puts you in the Kunte get your foot cut-off club. Movement must be restrained. At any cost. This week the forces of darkness tried to claim a two-fer. Wright and Obama. Or more accurately, Obama through Wright. The framing has been a subtle house vs. field. The good vs. the angry. Except that the good might as well be the angry since they know each other. Everybody’s getting’ a whipping. I’ve not allowed myself to forget that this original framing of black men and women during slavery was an attempt to offer those offspring of rape a greater legitimacy. It was an effort to separate into even smaller divisions, the divisions of race. A sub race within the black community. All sorts of black folks were trotted out to confirm the suspicions and affirm the fears of white America this week.

How could this man be a friend to such as Wright? Wright they say is angry. Bad black man.

They kept telling us that it was just wrong for Obama to even know him. Obama shoulda this, he shoulda that. For days on end folks been shoulding on Obama like they win points for who can should upon him most often and with the most creativity.

How dare Rev. Wright suggest that America is anything but the most wonderful place on earth? Everything done by this country has been wonderful and the few, very few mistakes (I’m being sarcastic jus’ so you know) ought not be discussed.

Certainly the folks with 1st Amendment rights don’t look like Jeremiah Wright. Pat Robertson can say anything he likes. Ditto Jerry Falwell and Rod Parsley. Jeremiah Wright...not so much. Hell, not at all.

To hear some of the punditz you would think it outrageous for anyone to suggest that the good folks of the U. S. of A. would ever intentionally harm black folks. Not one of the so called intelligentsia while they were savaging Jeremiah Wright, bothered to mention a forty year history of doing just that.

For forty years between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis. These men, for the most part illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama , were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness. Informed that they were being treated for “bad blood,”1 their doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis at all. The data for the experiment was to be collected from autopsies of the men, and they were thus deliberately left to degenerate under the ravages of tertiary syphilis—which can include tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death. “As I see it,” one of the doctors involved explained, “we have no further interest in these patients until they die.”

It was called the Tuskegee Experiment. It happened.

Too bad no one remembered to bring it up.

I ‘m feeing some Amistad right about now. See myself standing on the shoulders of all my relatives since the beginning of time and together we are all shouting... Give us free! Give us free! This is a moment of fierce energy.

I don’t know how to work roots or cast a spell. Wish I did. I’d love to have a magic wand that I could wave across the faces of those who hate without reason in this season of silly. I would like to think that my fundamental human decency would use my powers for good and I would turn those cowardly, hate-filled mongrel carbon units into sentient, compassionate beings. I would too. Second wave. First time I don’t trust myself not to turn them into the texture of their humanity... Rocks. Not grand glorious mountain rocks, but the kind of pebbles that get in your shoes and annoy you. Small, mean, hard rocks

‘Bout the only thing I know how to invoke is the law of Backatcha. It always works. Whatever you have sent out comes Backatcha.

This law guarantees that planting orange trees does not grow cherry trees. What is sown is reaped.

Backatcha!!! All y’all that mean harm. Your day is done. Leave my brothers alone or prepare to meet thyself a little further down the road. Backatcha! Backatcha! Backatcha!

Ah! A blackwoman feels better. Much better.

Political Commentary
Dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

Sen. Obama's much anticipated speech on race was made this week. Ironic isn't it that mass culture that for years told Black people just get over it can't seem to get beyond this issue? Yeah, the Black guy who wants to get over it, keeps on getting dragged INTO IT by the media, pundits, talking heads, and yes ex-presidents. Who needs to get over it? I find Reverend Wright's talk inflammatory, don't get me wrong. I was "schooled" in the economic self help, proud of African heritage, universe of Black thought. I have over and over told Blacks people and progressive of all striped to do the following:

Don't say "America supports Middle East dictators, supported Apartheid South Africa, and over through elected left-leaning governments in Latin America" say "American CONSERVATIVES America supports Middle East dictators, supported Apartheid South Africa, and over through elected left-leaning governments in Latin America."

The first sentence is easy to demonize, easy to look like you don't love this country. It also allows conservatives to hide behind the flag. Many Americans fought against those policies. Many more Americans didn't know about them, and when they are awoken to it fight them. Don't blame America, blame conservatives.

Don't say "White America keeps Black people down", say "CONSERVATIVE policies and demonization of Black America keep them down"

I am angry every time I get pulled over by cops for DWB (driving while Black). I am a law abiding person but it has colored my view of police even though I know they are there to protect and serve. So I ask other balck people think about how a speech like that affects middle of the road Whites who should be our allies? When I'm angry of being profiled just because I'm Black, I can't then profile White people saying their all guilty. Yes we are all human, and we all generalize sometimes, we all blame "others", "them", "those other people" at times. But as leaders, whether behind the pulpit, political, parenting, or just in life we need to do better.

As someone who was once arrested (for being in the "wrong place" at the wrong time) and who later received a written apology from the police department. I understand Reverend Wright’s anger, I have felt it. But we can do better.
**************

NYTimes ≫ Assessing Race in America, Obama Calls Pastor Divisive

Senator Barack Obama renewed his objection to the controversial statements delivered by the longtime pastor of his Chicago church, but declared in a speech here Tuesday that it was time for America to “move beyond some of our old racial wounds.”

“It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years,” Mr. Obama said. “Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy — particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.”

In an address at the National Constitution Center, a building steeped in the nation’s historic symbolism, Mr. Obama delivered a sweeping assessment of race in America. It was the most extensive speech of his presidential campaign devoted to race and unity, a moment his advisers conceded presented one of the biggest tests of his candidacy....... More ►

Michael C. Dawson take "Was it Too Little, Too Late?"....More ►

Is he doing what's best for the city, or for himself?

NYTimes ≫ Stalemate in Detroit: City Council Asks Mayor to Resign, but He Refuses to Go

The City Council on Tuesday asked Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick to resign in light of evidence that he had lied under oath and plotted to cover up an extramarital affair with his former chief of staff. The 7-to-1 Council vote is not binding, and Mr. Kilpatrick has vowed to remain in office.

Nonetheless, the Council’s action is a political blow for the mayor, and support for the measure was greater than expected. Council members spoke highly of Mr. Kilpatrick but said he could no longer govern effectively, given the scandal that has enveloped Detroit for nearly two months.

“It is a vote of no confidence in the mayor’s ability to move the city forward at this time,” said Councilwoman Sheila M. Cockrel, who drafted some of the 33 reasons listed in the resolution for the mayor to step down. “It is a tragedy — an enormous talent that has been squandered.”

The mayor’s spokeswoman, Denise Tolliver, reiterated Mr. Kilpatrick’s determination to remain in office....... More ►

WashingtonPost ≫ Blacks Were Improperly Kept Off La. Jury, High Court Rules

Former Jefferson Parish prosecutor James Williams, who was known for persuading juries to sentence murderers to death, compared Snyder's case to Simpson's both in and outside court and told jurors during the sentencing phase of Snyder's trial that Simpson "got away with it."

The court's opinion, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., did not mention the Simpson remarks but focused narrowly on whether Williams had improperly excluded blacks from the jury.

Snyder's lawyer, Stephen B. Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, said the decision is an important reinforcement of the court's position that judges have an obligation to scrutinize why lawyers reject potential jurors. "The court's decision saying you can't discriminate in choosing juries was really being ignored," Bright said. "The court very resoundingly told judges and prosecutors that striking jurors on the basis of race must end."

Lawyers have great leeway in eliminating potential jurors as unsuitable, including using peremptory challenges, which do not require a reason. But the Supreme Court held in Batson v. Kentucky in 1986, and has reaffirmed in subsequent cases, that race cannot be a factor. In the case at hand, Snyder v. Louisiana, prosecutors used peremptory challenges to eliminate all five of the 36 prospective jurors who, like Snyder, are black.

When defense lawyers protested, Williams said he had eliminated potential juror Jeffrey Brooks because Brooks had seemed "very nervous" and because the college student had been concerned that serving on the jury might interfere with his student-teaching responsibilities. The Supreme Court found the explanations "unconvincing" and said the trial judge gave no reason for accepting them....... More ►

This is an interesting and personal story, well worth the read.

Ebony/Jet ≫ Affirmative Action : A Personal Perspective

Question: What do Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, George Stephanopoulos, Bob Schieffer, Wolf Blitzer, Tucker Carlson, Anderson Cooper, Dianne Sawyer, Meredith Vieira, Campbell Brown, Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh... etc...etc...etc...All have in common?

By now you get it. When it comes to race and racism in America, America’s landscape is sadly in need of balance. So when Geraldine Ferraro declared that somehow Barack Obama was about to be anointed the nation’s first affirmative action president I cringed, then doubled over in the type of pain only a thirty year wasted life on the affirmative action forefront could produce.

Affirmative action was anything but that. There is this belief in white America, and apparently in the house of Ferraro, that when blacks got jobs as a result of affirmative action, the heavens opened up, the chorus sang and all was right in the world. Let me remind the world of what the affirmative action reality actually was.

........ More ►

NYTimes ≫ Black Rabbi Reaches Out to Mainstream of His Faith

Having grown up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Capers C. Funnye Jr. was encouraged by his pastor to follow in his footsteps. Instead, he became a rabbi.

His congregation on the Far Southwest Side of Chicago is predominantly black, and while services include prayers and biblical passages in Hebrew, the worshipers sometimes break into song, swaying back and forth like a gospel choir.

As the first African-American member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis and of numerous mainstream Jewish organizations, Rabbi Funnye (pronounced fun-AY) is on a mission to bridge racial and religious divisions by encouraging Chicago’s wider Jewish community to embrace his followers — the more than 200 members of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation. “I am a Jew,” said Rabbi Funnye, “and that breaks through all color and ethnic barriers.” ...... More ►

WashingtonPost ≫ The Rap on Whites Who Try to Act Black

It was a tale of sex, violence and a young girl crossing the color line. It was raw, gripping, sad and triumphant, tracing the heroine's successful escape from an environment of abandonment, abuse, poverty and gangs. It was supposed to be true. Not a word of it was.

The recent media frenzy over Margaret Seltzer's "Love and Consequences," yet another hoax memoir published by yet another respectable publishing house, has subsided, but the perplexing questions remain: Why would a writer take the huge risk of publishing an easily discredited story, and what enticed a respectable publishing house to buy and promote it?

As a former foster child who actually lived the reality of some of the kinds of black dysfunction that Seltzer put forth as her own experience, I find the answer in a long history of white Americans' voyeuristic fascination with -- and perhaps sometimes even envy of -- black people.

The appeal of Seltzer's work lay in the way she positioned herself between America's two races, black and white: She claimed to be a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up poor in a dysfunctional black world. In fact, she is the daughter of a white, upper-middle-class California family. And her story is only the most recent in a long line of literary narratives, entertainments and ethnologies in which white people put on blackface to act as messengers to their white brethren, telling them what life is or was like in the 'hood or on the plantation. The messages they bring back are of black dysfunction, crime and violence, but also of black sexuality, athleticism and soulful musicality. These stories may then reaffirm white audiences' perception of black dysfunction and allow them to use blacks as a negative counterpoint for their own images of normalcy and to affirm their sense of superiority....... More ►

WashingtonPost ≫ Hollywood's About-Face On Blackface

Blackface fades but never goes away, the greasy rub between the fingers of racial loathing. The insulting nature of it: No one turned out in blackface to play Scott Joplin's "Solace" or, as the 20th century slid by, Duke Ellington's "Solitude." No one used burnt cork to portray Romare Bearden painting "The Street." The joke is ignorance, the subject is black.

Time morphs. Swing, bop, civil rights, modern, postmodern, new century. Now things are complicated. Blackface has long been taboo, but now it's not all about insult. Now olive-toned whites play light-skinned blacks, without a sense of irony (Angelina Jolie darkened herself to play Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart"). Since we're all supposedly post-racial, some white comedians feel it's allowable to use makeup to portray black characters with empathy or just for laughs. . ...... More ►

The Root ≫ Louisiana seeks to highlight its black history with unveiling of the African American Herritage Trail

Louisiana tourism officials have unveiled the first 26 sites on an African American Heritage Trail running from New Orleans to northern Louisiana.

"It will tell the stories of African Americans who have made contributions to Louisiana, to America and to the world," said Chuck Morse, assistant secretary of the Louisiana Office of Tourism. "It makes us proud, but it's not about pride totally. It's also about the economy."

There are 26 stops on the trail to begin with, although that will be expanded. Included are the expected — plantations with details about slaves' lives, and the early roots of jazz — and the unexpected — such as Melrose Plantation, built and owned and operated by a former slave, who in turn became a slave owner....... More ►

I often point to Brazil as a cautionary tale about "trickle down economics". If they worked Brazil should be wealthy with it's large class of wealthy people avoiding taxes. But Brazil points to another danger, lack of police protection as wealthy people huddle behind gated communities. This leads to the creation of large -deathsquads- "private security forces" that quickly grow out of hand -becoming deathsquads-

WashingtonPost ≫ Brazilians Look to Regional Force to Root Out Death Squads

The name was on the tip of Rosario Lapa's tongue, but it stubbornly stayed there. She tapped her forehead to try to shake it loose, then turned to her friends for help.

"What do they call the death squad here?"

Five middle-aged women, all of whom were visiting a church in their neighborhood's central square, answered in imperfect unison: "The Thundercats."

If you want someone killed in this working-class district, that's the name to remember. Almost everyone here in the Jardim Sao Paulo neighborhood has heard of the group, even those who have never had a reason to seek out its members.

Officials say that death squads in the murder-for-hire business are responsible for a majority of the killings here in the state of Pernambuco -- Brazil's deadliest, based on figures for homicides as a percentage of population. Because the rosters of those squads routinely include police officers and other prominent residents, talking freely about their influence has long been considered an invitation to trouble.

"I'm pretty brave, but it's scary to think about speaking out if you see them committing crimes -- they could do something to my son or my husband, and that would break my world," said Lapa, 63. "There's always a police officer involved, so if you have seen something, how can anyone be trusted?"

The presence of such squads has plagued many parts of Brazil for years, but growing public demand for justice last year prompted officials here to create the first large-scale, regional task force to combat them.

Now, authorities are working against authorities in what resembles an enormous internal affairs investigation. In the past year, about 200 people have been nabbed in several high-profile busts of various squads in Pernambuco, and many of those arrested have been police officers and other officials....... More ►

Ebony/Jet ≫ Afro-Bolivians, A forgotten people in South Americas poorest country

Giovanna is one of approximately 3,000 to 10,000 African descends living in Bolivia. The rough population estimate is just one of the problems plaguing Bolivia’s least recognized and most discriminated-against ethnic group, one of 36 different ethnicities in South America’s poorest country. Afro-Bolivian leaders are working to change the dire situation of their people, who say their communities sorely lack schools, health care, infrastructure, and basic services such as electricity and water.

Jorge Medina, director of the Afro-Bolivian Center for Community and Development (CADIC in Spanish), in La Paz, says lobbying for Afro-Bolivian rights to be included in the country’s new constitution is an uphill battle.

“The new (Morales) government was supposed to represent all the communities that didn’t have a voice. But it wasn’t that way for the Afro-Bolivians,” says Medina, thumping his fist on his desk and leaning forward in his chair. “For this government, Bolivia is indigenous. They don’t recognize us because we came here as slaves. But we worked day and night and now we have an article in the new constitution that recognizes us as an ethnicity of Bolivia.”

[snip]

Both children and adults dance the Saya, dressed in a combination of Aymara and African clothes and using only their voices and wood drums. Accompanied by homemade drums, women spin in their white Aymara-style skirts and petticoats. With a pastel blue shawl folded over their right arm and a black bowler hat in the other hand, the dancers sing about bringing their African roots and rhythms to Bolivia.

Barra wants to translate the Saya lyrics into an African language, saying that it was originally African but her ancestors were forced to sing it in Spanish. She and her neighbors want their children—and all children in Bolivia ideally—to learn the history of Afro-Bolivians. “It would be nice to work with an African-American from the United States. We want to hear how they fought for equality in the states. We want to learn how to do that too.”........ More ►

The Root ≫ Black Women Are Not Feeling the Feminists' Pain

Note to Geraldine Ferraro, Gloria Steinem, and complainer in chief, Hillary Clinton: Get over yourselves.

Your cries of reverse racism, your complaints about overt sexism in the campaign, your vocal protests about media favoritism being shown Barack Obama, ring hollow.

We are not feeling your pain. None of you are symbolic of female oppression. You are all well-educated and well-connected. You are influential and have ready access to the media. You have had more opportunities than most black women could ever dream of and we doubt you could ever relate to the level of sexism and racism we regularly face. We know you couldn't even begin to understand what it's like for black men...... More ►

The Root ≫ That's Why I'm a Linebacker

I hate her. I've never seen her before, and don't know her, but I don't need to. I see what she looks like. I see what she's wearing. I see who she's with. That tells me everything I need to know. She can't be trusted--her kind never can--and all she wants is to push her own agenda and obliviate mine. So, for the next hour, my sisters and I will do everything in our power to show her and her little girl gang how we feel about having to share our turf with them. They will leave here, battered and bruised, with their heads down and their tails between their legs. And we will remain superior.

[snip]

Women's football? I know, I know. A seemingly unfathomable mix of delicacy and draconian male ritual. The questions and looks I receive make me think people doubt not just my ability to play tackle football...... More ►

For Barack Obama: My Negro Problem by zwerlst...... More ►

Can we move beyond bungholery on race? by Xpatriated Texan...... More ►

African Americans View of the O.J. Simpson Trial by a Black Guy by CalexanderJ...... More ►

My thoughts on Obama, race, and the media by dopper0189...... More ►

WHY THIS IS MY LAST BLACK KOS WEEK IN REVIEW DIARY?

As you can see from reading this dairy, Black Kos is "going community" on you! Starting next week Black Kos will be a group effort, Robinswing,Sephius1, Terrypinder, and myself will colaborate on writing "Black Kos week in review" diaries. The new home starting next week will be at Black Kos. Thank you Markos and Meteor Blades for giving us permision to do so (and understanding this isn't a "sockpuppet" but a community effort). So in the future please hotlist "Black Kos". Thank you everyone who read and helped make this diary possible, I will still be around as dopper0189, but the week in review will now be done by the group ID Black Kos. Once again thank you everyone!

2007-05-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO BUY THE CBC?

You would think the CBC would take heed from their base and stop this madness. But they are pressing forward with the Fox Debate anyways, but as the New York Times reports in, For Democrats, Debate on Fox Reveals Divide

The caucus is bent on salvaging what remains of the debate, and of a relationship that has produced other benefits. Not only has Fox given over precious air time for the debate, but an examination shows that its parent company, News Corporation, has also taken other steps to reach out to the group’s constituency, including making campaign donations to the caucus and its members and creating internship programs at predominantly black colleges.

As I wrote a few day ago I was going to research the financial link between FOX News (News Corp) and the CBC. I didn't have any hard evidence of one at the time I made that statement. But I have found over the years that when politician make a move that seems counter to their normal political behavior money is usually involved. So I will answer the question: How much does it cost to Buy off the CBC?

First price quote:

...News Corporation also gained currency among black and Hispanic leaders by helping orchestrate a campaign to increase the participation of minority viewers in the television ratings system, a task it entrusted to a consulting firm with strong ties to Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mrs. Clinton, in turn, has established a relationship with Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corporation, who, for example, held a fund-raiser for her last year during her Senate re-election campaign.

It seems that wasn't enough as Bill is very popular amongst Blacks but isn't a member of the CBC.
Second price quote:

Despite a fierce debate within the 43-member caucus over whether to sever ties with Fox News, those representing the caucus in its dealings with Fox have thus far held firm. The network itself has apparently urged the caucus to do just that. There was, for example, a meeting for caucus press secretaries attended by representatives of News Corporation and Fox News, where talk turned to how to publicly present the merits of the debate. (Also working in Fox’s favor is that the debate is to be held in Detroit, the home city of Representative Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, the caucus chairwoman.)

Find a Congresswoman who is so desperate to hold event in her city she will "sell out"
Third price quote:

The partnership between Fox News and the caucus began in earnest in 2003, when the news channel responded to the caucus’s request for a broadcast partner for its debates for the 2004 presidential election. (Technically, the caucus was sponsoring the debate through an affiliate group, the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute; the use of the institute gives the caucus itself some distance, even though several prominent caucus members are on the institute board.)

Fox’s proposal included broadcasting the debates in prime time, giving the caucus a say in selecting moderators and covering much of the production cost, said one former caucus staff member close to the negotiations.

Make a reasonable sounding proposal to your intended -victim- partner, and hope they don't notice that you will cut the debate short, and call it the "Democrat Party Debate".
Forth Price quote:

Months after joining forces with the caucus, Fox News created internships for students at Morgan State University, a black college in Baltimore, in the Congressional district of Representative Elijah E. Cummings, who was then chairman of the caucus.

In June 2003, its political action committee, known as News America-Fox, made a $1,000 contribution to Mr. Cummings’s political committee.

The Fox group later made contributions of at least $1,000 each to other caucus members, including Representatives Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas, and Gregory W. Meeks and Edolphus Towns of New York. The political arm of the caucus itself received a $5,000 contribution from the Fox group, in May 2006. And on the Web site of its foundation, the caucus lists News Corporation among several dozen corporate sponsors.

For a total of $4,000 in direct contributions, $5,000 to the CBC PAC, and a few -indoctrination studies- internships that were jobs that needed to be filled anyways. You can buy the CBC.

Well the strong negative reaction to the CBC debate is finally starting to leak through to the some of the members.

James Rucker, executive director of a group that has tried to mobilize opposition to the partnership between Fox News and the caucus, said that the news channel was using its association with the caucus to inoculate itself against criticism that its coverage of Democrats in general and blacks in particular was biased.

“This is Fox’s brilliance,” said Mr. Rucker, whose group is known as the Color of Change. “In ’03, they made a brilliant investment. On the one hand, they got to be aligned with the brand of the Congressional Black Caucus. On the other hand, they got to proceed with business as usual.”

Mr. Meeks acknowledged that Fox, in partnering with the caucus on the debates, seemed to be trying to do a little image-building. But he said at least Fox was willing to sponsor the debate, when no other network would.

Mr. Meeks was further quoted as saying:

Mr. Meeks said that he had yet to decide whether to advocate canceling the debate. Fox’s supporters within the caucus have moved quickly to close ranks, even taking the unusual step of sending a letter to candidates seeking the Democratic nomination, urging them to participate in the debate and noting “the importance to African-Americans and others to hear from you.”

While 26 members of the caucus signed the letter, it is also notable who did not, including Representative Maxine Waters of California, a prominent and powerful member of the group.

Asked about the debate in a brief telephone interview, Ms. Waters said only, “I’m opposed to it.”

Thank you Ms. Waters, and hopefully Mr. Meeks comes around.
In the mean time hopefully the CBC members find a spoke person who is "clean, neat, and articulate enough because":

For now, at least, the caucus and Fox News can count on having at least one participant, Mr. Biden. Luis Navarro, Mr. Biden’s spokesman, said in an interview that Mr. Biden would be there because the caucus represented “an important base” and Fox offered an unparalleled forum for a candidate “to hold the Bush administration’s feet to the fire on their handling of Iraq.”

With thanks to dnA for the diary List Of CBC Members Who Signed The Letter Urging Candidates To Reconsider On Fox Debate (and Britain33 )

Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick
Bennie Thompson
James Clyburn
Sanford Bishop
Gwen Moore (?)
G.K. Butterfield
Mel Watt
Danny Davis
Bobby Rush (?)
John Lewis
Keith Ellison
Charles Rangel
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Sheila Jackson Lee
Donna Christian-Christensen
Diane Watson
Al Wynn
Elijah Cummings
David Scott
Yvette Clarke
John Conyers
Hank Johnson
Al Green
Corrine Brown

A list of at least some of the members who did not sign the letter.

Julia Carson (Indianapolis)
William Lacy Clay, Jr. (St. Louis)
Emmanuel Cleaver (Kansas City)
Artur Davis (Birmingham, Alabama)
Chaka Fattah (W. Philadelphia)
Alcee Hastings (Ft. Lauderdale)
Kendrick Meek (Miami)
Jesse Jackson, Jr. (South Side Chicago)
William L. Jefferson (New Orleans)
Barbara Lee (Oakland)
Gregory Meeks (Queens)
Donald Payne (Newark)
Bobby Scott (Richmond)
Ed Towns (Brooklyn)
Maxine Waters (Compton)

2007-05-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

WEEK IN REVIEW, MAY 25th 2007

There are 26 clueless Black People in America. If they were members of a civics club it would be no big deal. The problem is they are elected officials, they are members of the CBC.
26 members of the CBC have signed letters to Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards urging them to reconsider their decisions to skip a debate cosponsored by the CBC Institute and Fox News. Will they never learn? I am going to look into these 26 and see if they have recieved contributions from FOX executives.

Black Caucus leaders sent the letter to the entire field of Democratic presidential candidates, but the primary targets were Obama, Clinton and Edwards.

The caucus has 43 members from 22 states, who together represent about 40 million Americans, an official with the group said. Seventeen members of the Black Caucus represent districts that are less than 50 percent African-American, said caucus Chairwoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), who argued that the issues at the debate will also be of interest to other minority constituencies, such as Hispanics.

“It’s not just a black thing,” Kilpatrick said.

Thompson said presidential debates often ignore issues that are important to minority voters.

“Nobody is talking about the disproportionate statistics that we have in this country as it relates to minority population,” Thompson said. “You can look at healthcare, you can look at education, you can look at employment, you can look at housing, you can look at lending. All those [statistics] show a very bad picture for many constituents we represent.

“So we think Democratic and Republican candidates alike should have an opportunity to say what they plan to [do to] level the playing field,” he added.

By framing their decision to skip the debate as a missed opportunity to communicate to an important Democratic constituency, caucus leaders are ratcheting up the political pressure on the Democratic front-runners.

Thompson said that the CBC Institute, not Fox, would set the debate format and select the questions to be asked. He said Fox merely will broadcast the event.

So far, liberal opinion leaders have praised the Democrats’ decision to snub Fox.

Left-leaning columnist E.J. Dionne wrote last month that Democrats were well within their rights.

“Tell me again: Why do Democrats have an obligation to participate in debates on Fox?” Dionne wrote. “I am an avid reader of conservative magazines such as National Review and the Weekly Standard. But if these two publications teamed up to sponsor a Democratic debate, would anyone accuse Edwards, Obama and Clinton of ‘blacklisting’ if the candidates said, ‘no thanks’?”
The pressure may be particularly acute for Obama, who is a member of the Black Caucus. Obama has irked fellow CBC members by failing to respond to a request made early last year that he host a fundraiser for the Black Caucus’s political action committee (PAC). Clinton received a similar invitation and quickly followed through by headlining a CBC PAC fundraiser in March of 2006.

Once again this is clear evidence why I am such a HUGE E.J. Dionne fan.
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POLITICS
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Last year, Marcus Mason and a handful of other black lobbyists, many of them former congressional chiefs of staff, began working in earnest to boost the number of black aides on Capitol Hill.

Marcus Mason, a top transportation lobbyist, has always had an itch to get places fast.

At 20, he started his own photography business. At 21, he was tapped to run the congressional campaign of Walter Tucker, a Democrat then serving as mayor of Compton, Calif. After Tucker won, the 22-year-old Mason became the youngest chief of staff on Capitol Hill. By his early 30s, he was the No. 2 lobbyist at Amtrak.

Now 36, Mason is a newly minted contract lobbyist with the Madison Group, where he is busy representing the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. He is also pouring his energy into helping other blacks experience the sort of rapid rise that he has had in Washington.

“There’s a lot of great talent out there that just needs to be given a great opportunity to show what they can do,” Mason explained. “Somebody took a chance on me at 21, a real gamble.”

Last year, Mason and a handful of other black lobbyists, many of them former congressional chiefs of staff, began working in earnest to boost the number of black aides on Capitol Hill.

Seizing on the hot demand for staffers after the Democratic takeover, the group established a vetting committee and began collecting résumés from promising candidates. Mason created a résumé bank to streamline the effort, which is already bearing fruit. So far, the group has placed 36 blacks in congressional offices.

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CULTURE
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Trumpeting Diversity A Rare Majority-Black Orchestra Tries to Build Cultural and Racial Bridges

What strikes you first are the musicians -- most are African American, and on this night, they are decked out in, to use street parlance, "high-low" -- blazers over T-shirts and jeans instead of penguin suits and long black skirts.

There is Denna Purdie of Upper Marlboro, a former cellist with "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band. On violin, Wayman McCoy III, a marketing and sales executive from Germantown. And California resident John Wineglass, an Emmy-winning daytime television music composer, helps on viola.

They number 75 in all -- classically or church trained musicians who come together to play their own brand of music under the banner of the Soulful Symphony, led by native Washingtonian and award-winning musician Darin Atwater, 36. The charismatic Atwater, who lives in Baltimore, oversees music programs at Celebration Church in Columbia. He said he created the symphony in 2000 as a way to present African American cultural expression to a wider audience and to bring more minorities to symphonic music.

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an exhibit at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center that examines the black experience in Vietnam in the context of the era's domestic social fabric.

A pair of combat boots. A wristband woven from boot laces with several bullets dangling. A photo of black servicemen standing outside a makeshift African temple.

The items are part of "Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era," an exhibit at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center that examines the black experience in Vietnam in the context of the era's domestic social fabric.

Samuel Black, curator of the center's African American Collections, conceived the exhibit, in part because his older brother, Jimmy McNeil, served two years in Vietnam.

Black was 4 years old when his brother was sent to Vietnam. He died in 1971, unrelated to the conflict, and Black said he really never knew what his brother's experience was.

Black found that much had been written about the role of blacks in other wars, particularly the Civil War and World War II, but there was little about blacks in Vietnam.

As he researched, he found the black experience in Vietnam was linked to social changes on U.S. soil. The civil rights movement was in full swing. The Black Power movement was growing.

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Being of 100% Jamaican decent I am always biased to these stories.
In the cool environs of 10A West King's House Road, Barbara Makeda Blake Hannah announced to a buzzing gathering on Thursday night that her acclaimed novel Joseph: A Rasta Reggae Fable is to be made into a feature film.

The novel, Joseph, now published in paperback, was also re-displayed alongside Blake-Hannah's newest book: Rastafari: The New Creation (December 2006). Both her books have been published by her own media company, Jamaica Media Productions, but more significantly, Blake Hannah secured a publishing deal with Macmillan Caribbean, one of the premier book publishers in the world, through Novelty Trading. The film Joseph is to be produced by Jamaica Media Productions with Grange as executive producer.

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Here is a profile of a man of many first.Wilder's career dotted with firsts

Lawrence Douglas Wilder made history by becoming governor of Virginia, a state where his grandparents had been slaves.

His victory in that 1989 election made him the first black person to be elected a governor in the United States.

Born in Richmond on Jan. 17, 1931, Wilder was raised during the Great Depression in what he called "gentle poverty." During this time, black people and white people were segregated by race and black people were treated as second-class citizens.

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INTERNATIONAL
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The truth about reconciling. We, as South Africans, are not honest about our attitudes to race - and racism, for that matter

So now we have to talk about race, right. We need, according to some, a "TRC process" to deal with the issue of race in South Africa. The big question that has been asked is: "Does race matter?"

Of course not. Racism does. But, okay, maybe I'm just being pedantic about a simple matter of semantics. So one assumes that when people say we should talk about race, they mean we should talk about racism, and that we need a TRC process to deal with racism.

Forgive me for being cynical, but I don't think that a "truth and reconciliation process" will work when we talk about racism.

For one thing, there will be no truth.

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Toronto Star: Almost two years into the redevelopment of Regent Park, relocated residents insist their community bonds are being bulldozed in the name of gentrification.

Almost two years into the redevelopment of Regent Park, relocated residents insist their community bonds are being bulldozed in the name of gentrification.

The $1 billion project has stressed out most of the 1,160 people displaced so far in the redevelopment of the subsidized housing project.

Residents initially thought they had the right to return to an apartment in the area. But they're now realizing the city-owned landlord, Toronto Community Housing, is counting on many not coming back. "People are worried that it will only be for the rich," says relocated resident Sureya Ibrahim, 29.

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HEALTH
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Public Health Predominately Black Communities in Boston Have Higher Rates of Lupus; Exposure to Petroleum Products Examined as Cause

Residents of two predominately black communities in Boston -- Roxbury and Mattapan -- have higher rates of lupus compared with other neighborhoods, according to a report conducted by the state Department of Public Health, the Boston Globe reports.

Concerns about the rise of lupus diagnoses among black women from three Boston neighborhoods prompted the department to conduct a comparative study based on neighborhoods. For the study, researchers examined local care providers' medical records from 1999 to 2004 from all of the city's 17 neighborhoods.

Researchers found 178 cases of definite or probable lupus diagnoses between 1999 and 2004, and 37 of those cases were among people from Roxbury. According to the public health department, five out of every 100,000 Boston residents are diagnosed with lupus annually; the rate in Roxbury is 10.4 lupus diagnoses per 100,000 residents and the rate in Mattapan is 7.9 diagnoses per 100,000 people.

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LAW
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Justice Dept. Sues New York City, Citing Bias in Hiring Firefighters

The United States Department of Justice filed a civil rights suit against New York City yesterday over the Fire Department’s written entrance exam, which black and Hispanic candidates fail at much higher rates than whites. The suit claims that the city has never proved a link between test scores and performance as a firefighter.

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
A group of black firefighters gathered at City Hall for the announcement of a suit against the city.
The suit is the latest in a series of legal attempts going back decades to diversify the Fire Department, which is more than 90 percent white. Three percent of the department’s 11,000 firefighters are black and 4.5 percent are Hispanic, a tiny proportion in a city where more than half the population is black or Hispanic.

The city’s testing practices “do not select the firefighter applicants who will best perform their important public safety mission, while disproportionately screening out large numbers of qualified black and Hispanic applicants,” Wan J. Kim, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

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Maybe some one should have informed a manager that Black Woman have been wearing braids for thousand of years.
Hairstyle Leads to Unemployment and Allegations of Racism

What is trendy? What is inappropriate? Those are the questions at the center of a personal dispute at one Virginia correctional facility, which has now left one woman without a job and another woman in fear of getting fired.

The NAACP of Virginia says the way one warden is interpreting a department of corrections grooming guideline is nothing short of racist and they are now taking their fight to the state Capitol.

"They fired me on May 16th...and said that I had an extreme hairdo...I am now not allowed back on the compound," said Donna Alison.

Alison is now jobless after her superiors fired her for having braids in her hair. The issue is a February 2007 grooming guideline that leaves some interpretation up to a supervisor.

"'Supervisors will judge the appropriateness of a particular hairstyle by the appearance of headgear when worn'...and here's the kicker...'Extreme or eccentric or trendy haircuts or hairstyles are not authorized,'" stated King Salim Khalfani with the NAACP of Virginia, quoting the guidelines.

For Alison, and her former colleague Juanita Hudson, they say their braided hairstyles are not eccentric or trendy.

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Milloy: Seeking to Close the Book on a Bad Law. No other drug law makes such a peculiar distinction between different forms of the same drug. Blacks comprisie 80 % of those charged and convicted of crack-related offenses.

For Arthur Burnett, a senior D.C. Superior Court judge, few drug cases have tested his judicial temperament like those involving crack cocaine. What infuriates Burnett most is not the users but the law itself: a five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for possessing five grams of crack cocaine -- about as much as two packets of sugar.

No other drug law metes out so much punishment for such a small offense, Burnett points out.

No other drug law makes such a peculiar distinction between different forms of the same drug: If a person has powdered cocaine, it takes 100 grams to get five years -- even though crack is nothing more than a heated mixture of powdered cocaine and baking soda.

Worse yet, with blacks comprising 80 percent of those charged and convicted of crack-related offenses, the law is widely perceived as being unjustly applied.

And "mandatory" means there's no case-by-case consideration.

2007-05-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

WEEK IN REVIEW, MAY 18th 2007

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post once again proves why he is one of best progressive editorialist A Question Of Race Vs. Class. Affirmative Action For the Obama Girls?

Barack Obama doesn't think anyone should cut his two daughters any slack when they apply to college -- not because of their race, at least. In the unlikely event that the Obama family goes broke, then maybe.

In an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Obama waded into the central issue of the affirmative action debate: race vs. class. Perhaps typically, Obama's remarks were more Socratic than declarative. He didn't really answer the question, he rephrased it. Maybe the way he posed it, though, will lead to a discussion that's long overdue.

He seemed to side with those who think class predominates when he said, "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."

It's hard to disagree with that proposition, especially as economic inequality worsens in this country. Harvard University (where Obama went to law school) has taken the lead in guaranteeing that money will not be an obstacle for qualified low-income students.

But Obama seemed to agree with those who point to the lingering effects of racism when he noted that "there are a lot of African American kids who are still struggling, that even those who are in the middle class may be first-generation as opposed to fifth- or sixth-generation college attendees, and that we all have an interest in bringing as many people together to help build this country."

That observation points to circumstances that have to be taken into account. Diversity, in my view, is very much in the national interest. But diversity is a process, not a destination. We have to keep working at it. And since a college degree has become the great divider between those who make it in this society and those who don't, affirmative action in college admissions is one of the most powerful tools we have to increase diversity.

This is my personal oppinion. I am very much a believer in the fact that Class matter more then race. But hat doesn't mean race isn't important. I think part of learning is having to live and learn next to people who are different then you.

As for Obama's assessment of his daughters' privileged status, that's just a statement of the obvious. With such Type A, high-wattage parents, those girls probably will have the grades and test scores to get into any college. And if they don't, they will benefit from a different affirmative action program -- one that for many generations has ushered the academically undistinguished scions of prominent families into the nation's most selective colleges and universities.

Let's not pretend that college admissions has ever been a level playing field. Obama graduated from Columbia; his wife, Michelle, from Princeton. This means that at those two Ivy League schools, their daughters will be "legacy" applicants, just like George W. Bush was at Yale and legions of Kennedys have been at Harvard. Given the Obamas' power and fame, admissions officers at the schools they attended -- and probably at other elite schools, too -- are going to find a way to let the Obama girls in.

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POLITICS
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When to play ethnic politics? Tread carefully when competing for the late Juanita Millender-McDonald's seat.

AS CANDIDATES LINE UP to run for the congressional seat of the late Juanita Millender-McDonald, it is tempting — inevitable, perhaps — to identify them by ethnic group. The Long Beach/South Los Angeles district is the stand-in for much of a region that once was characterized by an African American voting majority and political establishment but has become increasingly Latino. Every vacant seat raises the question: Is Latino power beginning to eclipse the black political structure?

So there is Latina state Sen. Jenny Oropeza, African American Assemblywoman Laura Richardson and other candidates who, like it or not, will be depicted as champions of their respective ethnic communities. The election may presage other district transitions. Will county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke be succeeded by another African American or by a Latino? What about Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry? If growth or shrinkage in the roster of black elected officials is the only indicator of political power, it is easy to understand the fervor with which African Americans try to retain a seat.

Ignoring the ethnic factor verges on dishonesty. Racial and ethnic identity among historically marginalized minorities has a long and obvious history in the democratic process. Elected officials naturally group together to promote common interests. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) was being naive or disingenuous when he wrote Millender-McDonald earlier this year asking to abolish her Congressional Black Caucus and similar groups, such as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, on grounds that race has no place in politics. We don't live in that ideal world just yet.

But that doesn't mean those caucuses are doing right by focusing on power consolidation at the expense of constituent service. Millender-McDonald's multiracial district remains plagued by large pockets of poverty and gang violence that affects all of its people. Any good candidate should be embraced by any ethnic caucus.

Also see Gay Leaders Continue to Label Black Politicians Homophobic Until Proven Friendly
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Sunday Shutout: The Lack of Gender & Ethnic Diversity on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows. Guest lists that are overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male.

Not only are the Sunday morning talk shows on the broadcast networks dominated by conservative opinion and commentary, the four programs -- NBC's Meet the Press, ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation, and Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday -- feature guest lists that are overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male.

And the top-rated Sunday show -- Meet the Press -- shows the least diversity of all. The NBC program is the most male and nearly the most white (Face the Nation beats it out by 1 percentage point), and it has the highest proportion of white males to all other guests.

A breakdown of the guests who appeared on the Sunday shows in 2005 and 2006 shows that men dominate these shows. In fact, men outnumber women by a 4-to-1 ratio on average.

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In Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, a reformist candidate given no shot has captured the Democratic mayoral nomination.

"Philadelphia's next mayor must run this city differently than John Street has," Nutter's first campaign commercial intoned. "Michael Nutter will."

There is, of course, much more to the man than his history with Street.

He is a former financial adviser and disco deejay, a husband and father. He is a Baptist who was born a Catholic, an African American politician without much of an African American political base. He is a political reformer who has been a ward leader since 1990, a charisma-challenged policy wonk whose dry wit has been the prime source of humor in this year's mayoral forums.

"No candidate is more informed," said supporter Leslie Anne Miller, the former general counsel to Gov. Rendell. "No one has better articulated positions on a variety of issues, because he's actually taken the time to think about the issues."

Before resigning his Council seat last summer to run for mayor, Nutter had solidified his reputation as the body's most independent and arguably its most accomplished member.

He played a key role on such issues as banning smoking in public places, writing new ethics rules to address the pay-to-play system, enacting campaign finance reform, keeping the wage- and business-tax cuts in place, and hiring 100 more police.

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CULTURE
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The growing divide between poor and middle-class blacks

The May Essence magazine examines the growing divisiveness between poor blacks and the black middle class today. Of course there is a divide: Those of us who've "made it" have been taught to despise those who didn't. However, we've also been taught that if we turn our backs on poor blacks, we're no better than racist whites.

The article begs for discussion and debate. As an educated black woman, am I my brother's keeper? Do I have a responsibility to my community?

It always amazed me how whites were fearless about drawing distinctions between their middle and poorer classes. White college friends and later co-workers didn't flinch in mixed company when describing someone as "trailer trash or poor white trash."

But for us, referring to someone as "ghetto" to describe another black person to a white person was the ultimate betrayal.

Not anymore. Over the past 10 or 15 years, the mythic unity among blacks has crumbled.

In a scorching and highly acclaimed standup routine in the late '90s, Chris Rock wielded the "n" word like a burning cross. To paraphrase, he said he loves black people. "But I hate n------!"

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: A survey exploring life, love, work, motherhood, money, sex, religion and relationships has found life differs for black and white U.S. wome

More than 90 percent of African-American and white women reported that racism remains a prevalent force in U.S. society, according to the survey for Women in Black & White.

Fifty-six percent of African-American women reported feeling marginalized due to their race, compared to 5 percent of white women; however, white women feel that gender is the more defining factor.

Fourteen percent of black mothers worry -- compared with 1.5 percent of white women -- that their daughters will be viewed as sexually available due to their race.

Although white women live in households with higher annual incomes, black women are more financially independent, with a higher percentage having checking accounts solely in their own name -- 95 percent compared to 83 percent of white women. Ninety percent of African-American women had a savings account, compared with 80 percent of white women.

Ninety percent of black women worked outside the home, compared with 78 percent of white women.

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It's open season on hip hop's thug

Geoffrey Canada smacked the problem right in the face.

As a Harlem community worker with 20 years of experience dealing with and nurturing young people, Canada said that the message coming out of hip hop was deadly and irresponsible. The lyrics imply that cooperating with the police is being an Uncle Tom. Canada found this reprehensible and said that it amounted to saying to criminals that the community was theirs to have.

Prof. Douglas Thompkins began the discussion by pointing out that, no matter what the history of police community relations had been, he saw that the black community needed to change its attitudes because losing the rule of law means that black people live in subhuman conditions in their own communities and those inhuman conditions were created by violent criminals.

There were many of the usual explanations for crime, such as slavery, poverty and police harassment that came from the audience of students and from some John Jay professors, but the panelists - with one exception - did not give in to the regular line of excuses. Almost everyone rejected the idea that black or Latino criminals were helpless victims buffeted around by external influences. They made choices; they had to be accountable.

Thompkins has credibility. He served 18 years in prison and was the leader of a Chicago street gang. He understands that police overreaction or excessive force is something that must be factored in and protested against. Thompkins said that when refusing to cooperate with police became synonymous with minority identity, that attitude brought a kind of hell to the black and Latino lower-class communities. In summarizing, John Jay Prof. David Kennedy felt that we are on the verge of a new kind of civil rights movement in which the people oppressed by crime move to liberate themselves by reprimanding the police whenever they resort to excessive force.

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bringing baseball back to African-Americans. Seaford grad, former major leaguer on tour to renew interest in sport

DeShields, 38, describes his role in the venture as that of a "businessman." Unlike Boyd, a 47-year-old right-hander who fancies himself a reincarnation of ageless pitcher Satchel Paige, DeShields harbors no illusions of making a comeback as a player. He's perfectly content to watch his 14-year-old son play on a traveling team. He just wishes more young African-Americans were as interested.

Like so many current and former black players, DeShields is passionate about the subject. He alleges that Major League Baseball, while spending time and resources promoting the game in Latin America, has neglected inner-city communities and alienated young blacks.

Most major league teams, including the Phillies, have created academies in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Foreign-born players aren't subject to the amateur draft, so teams have concentrated their scouting efforts outside the U.S. According to the Central Florida report, a record 29.4 percent of major leaguers last season were of Latino descent.

Sixty years after Robinson's debut, DeShields believes blacks are being left behind.

"It's sort of a mirror image of American business," he said. "Take jobs out of the country, outsource them, and Americans don't have jobs. That's what it comes down to. Major League Baseball has set up facilities in other countries. They're getting these kids for cheap because there's no world draft. It's really unfair to our kids.

"Major League Baseball isn't really interested in developing our kids, so we have to do it ourselves. That's basically what we're trying to do. Every day, all day, we have to put that same type of effort with our kids."

Boyd, the tour's ringleader, has roots in New England from his time with the Boston Red Sox and in the independent Can-Am League when he pitched for the Brockton Rox. DeShields said many of the initial stops will be in that region, with the barnstormers facing Can-Am League teams this week in Brockton, Nashua, N.H., New Haven, Conn., and Quebec City.

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LAW
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Patricia J. Williams writes that fifty-three years after Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court is poised to rule on two cases, in Seattle and St. Louis, which put the future of school integration at risk.

May 17 is the fifty-third anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the iconic case we celebrate for having ended the notion that racially separate education could be considered "equal." Yet the meaning of that case has always been the subject of dispute. I grew up in a household where we learned that segregation was bad because it was premised on the stigma of inferiority. Segregation licensed the isolation of African-Americans from the benefits of citizenship; it limited access to a full range of public spaces, not just schools. I took it for granted that such provincialism ultimately hobbled both whites and blacks as well as the anxious "in between" groups, such as recent immigrants and Asian-Americans. We cannot be full participants in a democracy if we have built impermeable walls around our various identity groups.

From the beginning, of course, there was an alternative narrative, voiced mostly by apologists for Jim Crow: that freedom of association should allow us to live in ghettos if we choose. The most interesting exposition of this view--interesting because it's from a refugee from Hitler's Germany--is probably Hannah Arendt's controversial 1959 essay "Reflections on Little Rock." "It has been said," she asserts, "that enforced integration is no better than enforced segregation, and this is perfectly true."

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Today, Reggie Henderson will vote. It's a right most Americans take for granted. Not him. Not if you're an ex-felon like Henderson. Not if you've been locked up.

Today, Reggie Henderson will vote. It's a right most Americans take for granted. Not him.
Not if you're an ex-felon like Henderson. Not if you've been locked up.

You see, in the United States, if you've committed a felony, voting is an iffy proposition. Henderson, 34, is lucky he lives in Pennsylvania, where ex-felons and those on parole and probation are eligible to vote. In New Jersey, ex-felons can vote, too. Not so simple in Delaware. There, ex-felons have to wait five years before they can have their voting rights reinstated.

And it's a good thing that Henderson, who rebuilt his life and now operates three barbershops, doesn't live in Florida. The Sunshine State, land of hanging chads, bans ex-felons from voting - for life.

Can you say disenfranchisement? Prohibitive voting laws in 35 states mean that at any given time, 5.3 million American citizens - a disproportionate number of them African American men like Henderson - get no political say in their lives. Not only have they been locked up, they are locked out of the democratic process.

Forty years after passage of the National Voting Rights

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HEALTH
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Hartford Courant: Autism And Race. Parents, Advocates Seek More Prompt Diagnoses Of Minority Children

When Ronnie Bonner Jr. was 21/2, his mother, Corendis Dawson-Bonner, was convinced that he had autism. While her pediatrician said not to worry, Dawson-Bonner was sure that his lack of language development, eye contact and social interests were symptoms of the disease.

"We would have a roomful of kids, and he would be off in his own little corner of the world," Dawson-Bonner remembers. "He didn't engage."

In the next few years, doctors and other professionals would pin a wide array of labels on Ronnie - including developmental delay, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity and a social and emotional disorder. Even obsessive-compulsive disorder and oppositional defiant disorder were mentioned.

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INTERNATIONAL
Income inequality between races in Brazil has narrowed over the past decade but a black woman still earns only half what a white man makes, a United Nations report showed.

Income inequality between races in Brazil has narrowed over the past decade but a black woman still earns only half what a white man makes, a United Nations report showed on Thursday.

The difference in income between blacks and whites in Brazil narrowed by 31 percent between 1995 and 2005, according to an International Labor Organization study of global workplace discrimination.

The income gap narrowed because of successive minimum wage hikes, lower inflation and declining real wages for white men, the report said.

Brazil also made progress in advancing policies to reduce race inequality, said Lais Abramo, ILO director for Brazil.

"There are many countries that don't even want to recognize race discrimination," she said.

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A young girl fast for peace in Jamaica,

"We have the power to be successful in anything as long as it's positive!"

Today and tomorrow, she will continue to spread this message during her 12-hour-a-day fasting and reading for peace and purity at the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Library.

It all began at 6:00 a.m. yesterday and already, there has been an overwhelming response to what Choc'late calls her 100 per cent crime-free initiative.

"A lot of times as youths, what we may hear especially from adults are negative things - we don't have self respect, we don't have discipline we don't have a sense of direction - however my motive is to tell the youths what we have. We have the power of making the right choices! We have the power of accepting responsibility for our action! We have the power of doing anything!" she said.

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MONEY
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Black Expo heads to S. Africa

An Indiana Black Expo delegation is leaving Thursday for South Africa, the first of two trips to Africa aimed at humanitarian exchanges, economic development and forging an international presence for the organization.

Joyce Rogers, Expo's president and chief executive officer, and Alpha Garrett, communications director of the organization, will travel with state Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, for the 11-day trip.
And next month, Rogers, Garrett and representatives of a local consulting firm will travel to the West African nation of Senegal.

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Black Men Can't Coach? While The Ncaa Considers Changing Its Game Plan, Many Black Football Head-Coaching Candidates Remain On The Bench

In early may, the University of Alabama had an opportunity to make history by hiring the first African American head football coach ever in the Southeastern Conference -- and fumbled the ball. After firing football head coach Mike Price over an incident involving a stripper, the university -- upon the urging of the Rev. Jesse Jackson -- began interviewing Sylvester Croom, an African American running backs coach for the NFL's Green Bay Packers. But in the end, Miami Dolphins assistant coach Mike Shula, a white man, got the job even though Croom was equally (and some say more) qualified.

This is but the latest incident in which qualified African Americans have been turned down for head-coaching jobs within Division 1-A football, collegiate sports' elite.

In fact, attend one of the 50 or so Division 1-A college football games played on any given Saturday this autumn and you'll see that nearly half the players battling it out on the field are African American. Also, a good portion of the officiating team is black. Many of the fans cheering and jeering are African American as well. But take a look at the sidelines to the fellows wearing the headsets and you'd be hard-pressed to find a coach who isn't white.

The stats paint a grim picture: of the 117 Division 1-A football teams, only 3.4% of them have black head coaches. They can literally be counted on one hand: Tyrone Willingham at Notre Dame, San Jose State's Fitzgerald Hill, Tony Samuel at New Mexico State, and Karl Dorrell at UCLA, who was hired following last season.

By comparison, more than 20% of the coaches in Division 1-A college basketball, the second most popular -- and profitable -- sport on many campuses, are black. It's difficult to find worse stats for black coaches even among the ranks of major professional sports. During the 2001—2002 season, the NBA boasted the highest percentage (48%) of African American head coaches, with 14 counted among its 29 franchises. Though the NFL's statistics are abysmal, NCAA football still lags behind its pro counterpart, which had two African American head coaches (6%) among its 32 franchises during the 2002 season (Marvin Lewis has since been hired by the Cincinnati Bengals, bringing that rate up to 9%). Even Hispanic-dominated Major League Baseball had eight African Americans (26%) calling the shots.

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Tavis Smiley will headline a two-day conference aimed at maximizing the economic power of the black community.

Renee Reed had a problem.

The Miami resident wanted to refinance her home, but felt that the bank wasn't giving her a good deal.

Her financial advisor suggested she work through her church, New Birth Cathedral of Faith, 2300 NW 135th St. in Opa-locka.

New Birth is part of the Collective Banking Group, a coalition of 60 African-American churches in South Broward and Miami-Dade whose mission is to maximize the combined financial power of church members and use it for their benefit.

It worked for Reed, who said she saved about $5,000 in interest and fees once she had the weight of CBG behind her. She was treated better, she said, and got a lower interest rate.

''I've never had such a good relationship with a bank before, and the difference is because of CBG,'' Reed said.

Starting Friday, CBG is sponsoring a two-day Empowerment Conference in Hallandale Beach, at which church members and others can learn about managing credit, home ownership and financial practices for faith-based organizations. One featured speaker will be Tavis Smiley, the African-American author, radio personality and motivational speaker.

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RIP
Yolanda King, Daughter of Civil Rights Leader, Dies at 51

2007-05-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

WEEK IN REVIEW, May 11th 2007
New Bush nominee found to have race-baiting past

President George W. Bush's pick for a top position at the State Department may have failed to follow through on a commitment she made to African-American and Latino lawmakers to address diversity issues in America's diplomatic corps.

Henrietta Holsman Fore, the current Undersecretary of State for Management, was nominated Monday to serve as Deputy Secretary of State and Administrator of the US Agency for International Development. But one Congressman was concerned that racially insensitive remarks she reportedly made 20 years ago could call her fitness to serve into question.

"I still think that a person that has a background of this nature puts her at a disadvantage, and when you get into something as sensitive as USAID, where you're dealing with developing countries, and people of color, I 'm not so sure how she will be perceived by the leadership of countries she has to work with," Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, told RAW STORY in a Wednesday interview.

CULTURE
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'Radio Golf': A clear signal of black class struggle

An elegant, accomplished black man runs for political office espousing a populist message but finds that his smooth assimilation into the upper echelon of society is held suspect by some black Americans.
If that sounds vaguely familiar, it might be noted that Radio Golf (* * * out of four), the final installment in August Wilson's 10-play cycle tracing the experiences of black Americans through the 20th century, premiered in 2005, when a newly elected senator named Barack Obama was a rising superstar. That's not to suggest that Wilson, who died of cancer later that year, foresaw Obama's presidential aspirations, but it's a safe bet that the playwright could have predicted some of the tensions and contradictions cropping up in coverage of the candidate's current campaign.

Radio Golf, which opened Tuesday at Broadway's Cort Theatre, deals with similar conundrums in tracing the mayoral bid of Harmond Wilks (Harry Lennix). Unlike Obama, Wilks owes much of his success to privilege, having been provided a plush real estate job by his father. But unlike his pal Roosevelt Hicks, a Tiger Woods-worshiping corporate climber with whom Wilks plans to redevelop Pittsburgh's embattled Hill District, Wilks is prone to sympathize with the disenfranchised

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It seems that is a on going "rethinking" of Mormonism and it's relationship with Black People. A number of stories of late have been poping up on the internet (or internets to quote the comander guy). Salt Lake City mayoral candidate Jenny Wilson has the backing of the Utah Democratic Black Caucus and a plan to promote diversity in Utah's capital city. . Wilson, a Democrat, announced the endorsement and unveiled her diversity agenda Saturday to coincide with Cinco de Mayo.

"Salt Lake City is rich in cultural and ethnic diversity," she said in a press release. "As mayor of Salt Lake City, I will celebrate and advocate for Salt Lake's diverse communities. Promoting diversity and economic opportunity will be a cornerstone of my administration."

Along with this there is now a Black LDS Organization. Why this is important is clear from PAST LDS teaching Mormon racism in perspective. Also see PBS ("Religion and Ethics," March 31, 2006):African-American Mormons
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.Art collection a story of race

Walking through, she points out 17th and 18th century documents that outline, from business and political perspectives, the economics of slavery. Those are the jumping off point of the exhibit, which is a chronological mix of art and artifacts.

Works by artists of the Harlem Renaissance are among her favorites. "They capture the dignity and beauty in ordinary African-American life," she says, adding "they humanize." She points to "Portrait of a Girl," a 1940 oil painting by Charles Alston. He was a leading figure in the New York artistic community who taught artists such as Jacob Lawrence, represented in the exhibit by "John Brown Series, #8," a 1977 serigraph.

Pieces deeper in the exhibit, such as Ed Dwight's 1986 bronze sculpture "Old Masai Woman" are a reflection of Shirley's taste for late modern and contemporary art. "I buy the dead artists, and she buys the living ones," he says with a laugh.

The exhibit will be on tour for two years and Kinsey says they're already "missing" certain pieces. But, that's not a bad thing, he says. "We now have pieces that jump off the walls, that were never appreciated like they should have been because they were too crowded."

Besides, he says, they're still shopping.

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Looking for a good role model for your kids? Brainy, black & pint-sizedAn animated, globetrotting role model is born. Teddy P. Brains is his name, a bookish, curious, eyeglass-wearing kid who lives in Metroville, U.S.A. But Philadelphia is really his home

HE'S THE valedictorian of his kindergarten class.
He travels to South America to learn about the rain forest and its importance to the cycle of life.

And he follows his parents' advice to "ask questions, seek answers."

Teddy P. Brains is his name, a bookish, curious, eyeglass-wearing kid who lives in Metroville, U.S.A.

But Philadelphia is really his home.

See, Teddy is a 3-D animated character who came to life right here in a Port Richmond studio from the brain trust of two Mount Airy producers.

The bespectacled kid with a love for entomology also happens to be African-American.

He and a cast of characters star in the newly released DVD "The Adventures of Teddy P. Brains: Journey into the Rain Forest," aimed at children ages 5 to 8. The DVD can be found in Barnes & Noble, at Amazon.com and at www.teddypbrainstv.com, among other outlets.

Public television has featured multicultural casts since the debut of "Sesame Street" and "The Electric Company" in the '60s and '70s. Diversity still reigns on PBS educational shows such as "Cyberchase" and "The Magic School Bus," which ran from 1994 to 1998. These days, a young Latina is "Dora the Explorer."

But the Philadelphia creative team behind Teddy P. Brains may have come up with the first children's cartoon to focus on an African-American child in an intellectual setting.

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INTERNATIONAL
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High rates of crime and violence in the Caribbean are undermining growth, threatening human welfare, and impeding social development, according to a new report published by the World Bank and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Crime impacts business and is a major obstacle to investment. In many countries, as crime increases, access to financing declines; spending on formal and informal security measures increases; and worker productivity declines. Estimates suggest that reducing the homicide rate in the Caribbean by one third from its current level could more than double the region’s rate of per capita economic growth.

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Nicolas Sarkozy’s election as French president stirred fears yesterday in Francophone Africa that his tough immigration policies could poison France’s traditionally strong ties with the world’s poorest continent.

“Immigration policy is going to harden and (repatriation) charters are going to resume. He is going to kick out a lot of Africans,” said Habibou Thiam, a 32-year-old carpenter in the Senegalese capital Dakar.
Sentiment in French-speaking Africa had broadly favoured Sarkozy’s Socialist rival Segolene Royal, who was born in Dakar and was perceived to have a more sympathetic view of the needs and aspirations of developing African countries.
Sarkozy’s insistence during his campaign that he would seek to curb and control illegal migration of Africans, many of whom dream of seeking a new life in Europe, had drawn sharp criticism from governments and ordinary people on the continent.
“With ‘Sarko’ as president, our compatriots, even those whose (migration) situation is in order, will be trembling. Is he going to renew expulsions all over the place and charters.

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News24: Foreign ministers from 53 African nations started gathering in Durban on Monday for a two-day meeting on political and economic integration on the continent.
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HEALTH
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Vibe: Dave Tolliver and Edgar "Gemini" Porter, aka Men at Large, are challenging African American men to lose a collective 2 million pounds by the end of the year as a way to improve their health.

Dave Tolliver and Edgar "Gemini" Porter, aka Men at Large, are challenging African American men to lose a collective 2 million pounds by the end of the year as a way to improve their health. The duo - who themselves weigh a collective 750 lbs. - decided to take the initiative after the passing of Gerald Levert, who helped nurture the group. "Gerald's death was a big loss to us," said Porter in a statement, "and when we began to look around at a lot of friends and family members who were also dying young it hit us that many of them were dying from either, being overweight, being diabetic, or having high blood pressure."

"We realized we aren't as young as we used to be but obviously being overweight was having a serious impact on us," Porter continued.

The singers' goal is to lose 100 lbs each, which Tolliver said they aim to do by "pushing back from the table and eating less," "walking a lot" and "rehearsing more vigorously to get in shape... Searching ways to lose weight on the internet let us know just how big the problem is among black men."

Over 69% of African American men are thought to be overweight, and 40% of all black men have high blood pressure. Additionally, eight percent of black men suffer from diabetes - twice that of white men - according to statistics from the Center for Disease Control.

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News-Medical: Researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine explored why blacks are less likely than other races to become living kidney donors, and the reasons are obesity and failure to complete the donor evaluation

Donor questionnaires and charts for 541 disqualified potential donors were reviewed. The disqualified donors were all identified by documented information, race, gender and cause of donor exclusion. In some cases, disqualified donors had more than one reason for exclusion.

About 30 percent of blacks were excluded because of obesity, compared to 16.6 percent of whites. Obesity was defined by body mass index (BMI) greater than or equal to 32 kg/m. Twelve percent of blacks were excluded because they didn't complete the evaluation process, compared to 1.8 percent of whites. For whites, the biggest reason for exclusion was kidney stones, at 7.3 percent, compared to 1.5 percent in blacks.

"Further study of these differences may improve our understanding of the causes of low rates of living kidney donation among African-Americans, particularly regarding the social reasons," said Reeves-Daniel. "Is it lack of trust in the medical community, financial inability to get to doctor's appointments for tests, concerns with work and child care, or perhaps some other issue?"

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POLITICS
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For African-Americans, folly of this war hits home

This war, launched under false pretenses, now has so little merit that the enrollment of African-Americans in the military may be at its lowest point since the creation of the all-volunteer military in 1973. In 2000, 23.5 percent of Army recruits were African-American. By 2005, the percentage dropped to 13.9 percent. National Public Radio this week quoted a Pentagon statistic that said that African-American propensity to join the military had dropped to 9 percent.

Technically, 13.9 percent is about the proportion of African-Americans in the general population. But the military's meritocracy has long been a disproportionate option for young African-Americans because of a disproportionate lack of career opportunities and decent public schools to prepare them for college.

The drop in African-American enrollment in the military may be as powerful a collective political statement about Iraq as when Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted during the Vietnam War. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, major polls showed that African-American support for the invasion was as low as 19 percent, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, while white support ran between 58 percent and 73 percent in major polls.

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Rep. Hank Johnson’s mild-mannered style will never be mistaken for that of his outspoken predecessor, Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D). But that doesn’t mean fellow Democrats are going to let him cruise to a second term. Freshman Rep. Hank Johnson conscious of potential primary.

Democrats in the Atlanta area say Johnson is keenly aware that McKinney’s departure has opened a door to any number of ambitious would-be members of Congress. Johnson, wary of pronouncing himself reelected, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that he’s hearing several names.

Anti-McKinney Democrats largely coalesced behind Johnson last year to knock off McKinney for the second time in the last three cycles. Now some of them — and possibly McKinney — apparently have turned their eyes on the quiet freshman as well.

“He’s certainly hearing rumors,” Johnson spokeswoman Deb McGhee Speights said. “But he wouldn’t be surprised, certainly, at this point if there is a challenger.”

Pervasive speculation has it that DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones will drop his U.S. Senate bid to enter the race, and Democrats are not counting out repeat bids by McKinney or former Rep. Denise Majette (D-Ga.). Majette beat McKinney in 2002 but vacated the seat for a failed bid for Senate in 2004, at which point McKinney retook her old seat.
Jones’s campaign dismissed the rumors and spoke highly of Johnson. But many Democrats are dumbfounded by Jones’s flirtation with running for Senate.

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MONEY
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Auto loan rates higher for African Americans

Black auto buyers have been charged higher auto loan rates than others, federal research says. But the gap in loan rates could narrow - and possibly disappear - as the result of recently concluded lawsuits.

Blacks paid a typical auto loan rate of 7 percent for new cars, compared with a rate of 5 percent for whites in 2004, according to a consumer organization's analysis of the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances. That was the most recent survey available.

And blacks were more likely than auto buyers in general to have auto loan rates higher than 15 percent. For used car loans, 27 percent of blacks who buy cars were charged interest rates of 15 percent or more. Blacks were three times as likely as whites - 27 percent to 9 percent - to have auto loan rates at least that high, according to the report released Monday.

Hispanics were paying a typical rate of 5.5 percent for new car loans, while 19 percent of Hispanics had loans for used cars over 15 percent, the analysis found.

Lenders' suggested quote rates are based largely on the buyer's credit history, but auto dealers often raise the rate higher than that risk-related rate without discussing the rate with the customer, consumer advocates said. And they question the causes of those rate differences.

"It's hard to believe that any differences in creditworthiness explain all of these rate gaps," said Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America. "They size you up, the car salesmen and finance and interest guys. They must think African Americans are more vulnerable to a markup."

But a series of legal actions against auto finance firms seeking fair treatment for minorities could help solve that problem.

"We had 11 lawsuits, the last of the cases settled last month," said Stuart Rossman of the National Consumer Law Center. "We reached a settlement with each of the finance firms. Our cases involved discrimination. We believe the terms of the settlements will eliminate discrimination."

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.Pepsi Ad Man Who Fought Stereotypes Dies In L.A.

(AP) LOS ANGELES A former Pepsi ad man who broke color barriers with one of the first corporate marketing campaigns to portray African Americans in a positive light has died. Edward Boyd was 92.

Boyd was hired as an assistant sales manager at Pepsi in 1947and led a group of educated African American salesmen.

He created a marketing campaign that showed African Americans as respectable, middle-class consumers.

One store display pictured a smiling mother holding a six-pack of Pepsi-Cola as her handsome, young son reached for a bottle.

The promotions differed sharply from the insulting images of many ads at the time.

Boyd died April 30 at Century City Doctors Hospital in Los Angeles. The cause was complications of a stroke he suffered in March.

2007-05-06T06:24:00.000-07:00

BUSINESSWEEK ASKS, DO YOU WANT TO BUY THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE?

I don't think this article got much notice progressive blogosphere, but Business week did a story on the -selling off- privitization of public infrastructure currently the rage in financial markets. From the Chicago Skyway now in private hands to the

$3.8 billion deal for the Indiana Toll Road, struck in 2006, could break even in year 15 of the 75-year lease, on the way to reaping as much as $21 billion in profits, estimates Merrill Lynch & Co.

See Roads To Riches, Why investors are clamoring to take over America's highways, bridges, and airports—and why the public should be nervous for the full story.

In the past year, banks and private investment firms have fallen in love with public infrastructure. They're smitten by the rich cash flows that roads, bridges, airports, parking garages, and shipping ports generate—and the monopolistic advantages that keep those cash flows as steady as a beating heart. Firms are so enamored, in fact, that they're beginning to consider infrastructure a brand new asset class in itself.

With state and local leaders scrambling for cash to solve short-term fiscal problems, the conditions are ripe for an unprecedented burst of buying and selling. All told, some $100 billion worth of public property could change hands in the next two years, up from less than $7 billion over the past two years; a lease for the Pennsylvania Turnpike could go for more than $30 billion all by itself. "There's a lot of value trapped in these assets," says Mark Florian, head of North American infrastructure banking at Goldman, Sachs & Co (GS ).

There are some advantages to private control of roads, utilities, lotteries, parking garages, water systems, airports, and other properties. To pay for upkeep, private firms can raise rates at the tollbooth without fear of being penalized in the voting booth. Privateers are also freer to experiment with ideas like peak pricing, a market-based approach to relieving traffic jams. And governments are making use of the cash they're pulling in—balancing budgets, retiring debt, investing in social programs, and on and on.

But are investors getting an even better deal? It's a question with major policy implications as governments relinquish control of major public assets for years to come. The aggressive toll hikes embedded in deals all but guarantee pain for lower-income citizens—and enormous profits for the buyers.

We have seen what the privitization ethos has done to the Iraq war. Where war profiteering mercenaries such as Black Water group, and Halliburton have performed functions that used to be done quite well by the US military. I think we as a group (progressives) need to come to grips with this movement. Other wise a few years from now we could be facing a movement as powerfull as "Free Trade" (something in my opinion that progressives were late in coming to grips with).

On the other side of the bargaining table from the investment firms sit struggling governments suddenly amenable to the idea of selling control of assets to solve short-term problems. The burden of maintaining roads, bridges, and other facilities, many built during the 1950s, is becoming difficult to bear.

Federal, state, and local governments need to spend an estimated $155.5 billion improving highways and bridges in 2007, according to transportation officials, up 50% over the past 10 years. And that's hardly the only obstacle they face. In 2006 alone, states increased their Medicaid spending by an estimated 7.7%, to $132 billion. And state and local governments could be on the hook for up to $1.5 trillion in retiree liabilities, estimates Credit Suisse. At the same time, politicians find it difficult to raise taxes. Chicago's former chief financial officer, Dana R. Levenson, sums up the situation: "There is money to be had, and cities need money." U.S. Representative Chaka Fattah, a Pennsylvania Democrat who is running for mayor of Philadelphia, proposes to privatize the Philadelphia International Airport and use the proceeds to fund poverty programs—a much easier sell than a tax increase.

But there's a downside to the quick cash: planned toll hikes that are usually quite aggressive.

Chicago's Skyway could see car tolls rise from $2 in 2005 to $5 by 2017. For some perspective, if a similar scheme were applied to the Pennsylvania Turnpike during its 67 years of existence, the toll for traveling from the Delaware River to the Ohio border would be as much as $553 now instead of $22.75. Macquarie, which teamed up with Spain's Cintra to purchase the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road, underscored the governmental trade-off during a presentation at the recent White House Surface Transportation Legislative Leadership Summit: "More Money or Lower Tolls." In an extreme scenario, governments could begin to sell properties that aren't tolled to private owners who will impose fees.

I'm not reflexively anti-privization. But I do think we need to talk about this early. When if ever is it a good idea? Is some infrastructure to critical to sell? Should limits be placed on deals? Can tax payers fund infrastructure, then have it sold off at a profit? These are all questions we need to ask ourselves.

Some facts:

1) All told, some $100 billion worth of public property could change hands in the next two years, up from less than $7 billion over the past two years; a lease for the Pennsylvania Turnpike could go for more than $30 billion all by itself.

2) Investors in the $3.8 billion deal for the Indiana Toll Road, struck in 2006, could break even in year 15 of the 75-year lease, on the way to reaping as much as $21 billion in profits

3) Rob Collins, head of infrastructure mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley, estimates that 30 funds are being raised around the world that could wield as much as $500 billion in buying power for U.S. assets

4) Investors can't get in fast enough. They recently deluged Goldman Sachs with $6.5 billion for its new infrastructure fund, more than twice the $3 billion it was seeking.

5) Federal, state, and local governments need to spend an estimated $155.5 billion improving highways and bridges in 2007, according to transportation officials, up 50% over the past 10 years.

6) The 99-year lease of the Chicago Skyway that went for $1.8 billion in 2005 was the first major transaction.

7) Based on the going rate of about 40 times toll revenues, the iconic Golden Gate Bridge could probably fetch $3.4 billion were California interested in selling. The Brooklyn Bridge? If permission were granted by New York City to charge the same tolls as the George Washington Bridge, a private owner might shell out as much as $3.5 billion for it.

8) Chicago's Skyway could see car tolls rise from $2 in 2005 to $5 by 2017.

9) Bankers say New York could reap a combined $70 billion for long-term leases on a bunch of assets, including the state's lottery, the Tappan Zee Bridge, and the New York State Thruway. New York state officials have looked into the option of leasing the lottery, which itself might command $35 billion—a sum that could substantially upgrade, say, New York's higher education system. The downside? The state would probably have to remove constraints on the lottery's marketing designed to discourage people from gambling more than they can afford. If the state insists on keeping the constraints in place, it could reduce the value of selling it.

2007-05-06T06:16:00.000-07:00

Why I support the Byrd, Clinton war deauthorization

Let me as a disclaimer first inform you that I am an leaning towards Obama with John Edwards as my close second in 2008. I felt that it's important for me to first get that out of the way because I am supporting the Byrd/Clinton war deauthorization bill bill on principle not because I support HRC's run for the POTUS.

I wrote a diary last week (on Daily Kos) called Other ways to end the Iraq occupation where I proposed (amongst other things) just such a move.

I was doing a lot of thinking on how to win a legislative battle with the Bush administration on the Iraq war. The current way the Democrats are trying to fight Bush, with the Iraq spending bill, seems to me to be in many ways wrong. It strikes me as Democrats trying to rehash how Viet Nam was ended. Well just because Viet Nam was ended by pressuring on spending, doesn't mean Iraq needs to be ended this way. Secondly although I like the Murtha Plan, it may be attacked as a little too cute. The MSM will call it "Ending the war by red taping the Bush administration". Don't get me wrong I do think Bush should be red taped, but I question if it will work. Bush simply doesn't care if he has to pay a heavy price in public opinion, he is a fanatic.

If Bush would let CHILDREN DROWN in New Orleans do you really think he won't leave soldiers in Iraq with funding drying up, just to get his way? He can as -commander in chief- , -the decider- commander guy ORDER the troops to stay there. Bush will then claim that Democrats are starving troops who are still in harms way. I am sure he will do this. But deathorizing the war that's a different animal.

I would change the Byrd Clinton bill slightly. Vote on ending the war authorization (authorization of the use of force) effective one year from the date of the vote.

By this vote of congress, the presidential authorization of the use of force will expire on May 1st 2008. Congress reserves the right to re-authorize the use of force for a period of one year, prior to the expiration date.

This vote will do the following:

1) It will allow for a clean funding bill (remember Bush wanted that, now he gets it). But tell him, a clean funding bill will only be allowed AFTER this vote is allowed (sorry Mitch McConnel that means you can't fillabuster it)

2) After this law is enacted George Bush needs to be informed that congress will only reauthorize force, after he certifies the troops are trained, ala the Murtha Bill. Since he will fail, or lie that they are trained, congress can win the media wars by pointing out he is lying.

3) It makes a HARD deadline for end of the Iraq war. Unlike cutting off funding which gives an implied deadline (troops should come home when funding runs out). It would also be a clear violation of law (war powers act more on this later)for George Bush to keep troops in the feild after Congress no longer has given him war authorization. The constitution gives congress the power to declare war and armistice.

Many people have heard the phrase "the President is comander in chief". But do they inderstand what powers the constitution give congress over the military?

ARTICLE 1
Section 8
Congress has the power to:

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Now I understand that some people think that this isn't the best approach. They challenge this approach on a few common grounds that I will address.

1) The Senate will filibuster it.
This is a good thing. Sen. Reid should force endangered Republican Senators from NH,ME,MN,VA to have to stand up and vote against cloture. This will put enourmous pressure on them. It's far easier for them to make the argument, that "while troops are in harms way we need to give them financial support", then to make the argument that "we need to continue to authorize them to stay in harms way."

2) This will end up in the courts. Implied in this is that this is a bad outcome.

This is actually a much better situation then most people think. In Clinton v. City of New York the SCOTUS ruled 6-3 that the LINE ITEM VETO violated the constitution separation of powers. Remember the line item veto was a darling of the conservative movement, yet even Thomas and Scalia voted against it (although Scalia was only partial concurrence ). This is an example of how strict constructionism can be used against it's very supporters. If congress can grant a power (declaring war) it's implicit that they can take it away.

On the other hand if the court rule in Bush's favor, running against "unelected judges" who "order troops into harms way against the expressed wishes of the people elected representatives" would be a great campaign issue. In the same way that Roe jump started the conservative movement, the Florida recount helped jump start the netroots. A bad court decision helps elect more Senators and a President in 2008 who WILL END THE WAR.

1) Bring the Political fight to new ground

One problem with much of the Democratic leadership is that they try to fight political battles in the "old ways". Running political ads on Network TV instead of Cable, 16 Blue States + 1 instead of the 50 States strategy, ect. Yes cutting spending work in Viet Nam. Yes it may still work. But as we saw in the 2006 election opening multiple fronts is a good way to achieve political victories.

2) It would put the War Power Act to a supreme court test

The War Powers Act of 1973 (Public Law 93-148) limits the power of the President of the United States to wage war without the approval of Congress. The War Powers Act of 1973 is also referred to as the War Powers Resolution (Sec. 1).

The purpose of the War Powers Resolution is to ensure that Congress and the President share in making decisions that may get the U.S. involved in hostilities. Portions of the War Powers Resolution require the President to consult with Congress prior to the start of any hostilities as well as regularly until U.S. armed forces are no longer engaged in hostilities (Sec. 3); and to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities if Congress has not declared war or passed a resolution authorizing the use of force within 60 days (Sec. 5(b)). Following an official request by the President to Congress, the time limit can be extended by an additional 30 days (presumably when "unavoidable military necessity" requires additional action for a safe withdrawal).

I think it's about time to see if this law has any teeth! As I said above I think a court show down with Bush would be good.

On November 9, 1993, the House used a section of the War Powers Resolution to state that U.S. forces should be withdrawn from Somalia by March 31, 1994; Congress had already taken this action in appropriations legislation. More recently, war powers have been at issue in former Yugoslavia/Bosnia/Kosovo, Iraq, Haiti, and in responding to terrorist attacks against the U.S. after September 11, 2001.

Every Republican who voted for these resolution, who complains about its use in this instance, should be attacked as a hypocrite.

2007-05-06T06:11:00.000-07:00

WEEK IN REVIEW, MAY 7th 2007

In a shocking study (snark, snark) racial -profiling- prejudice is shown in traffic stops.

The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report Sunday showing that white, African American and Hispanic drivers are equally likely to be pulled over by police for alleged traffic offenses. In 2005, the year covered by the study, black drivers were actually less likely -- by a tiny margin -- to be stopped by police than were drivers in other groups. You might be tempted to conclude that the constitutional imperative of equal protection had finally been extended to America's streets and highways.

But you would be wrong. The study reports that African American and Hispanic drivers who are stopped by police are more than twice as likely as whites to be searched. Specifically, police searched only 3.6 percent of white drivers pulled over in traffic stops, while they searched 9.5 percent of African Americans who obeyed the flashing lights and 8.8 percent of Hispanics.

POLITICS

It has been refreshing to see that racially polarized voting is starting to die in much of America. In MA Whites voted for a Black Gov, in Maryland Blacks voted for a White Senator, because in both cases voters voted on the cadidated merrits. Which brings us to Philly.
So close to the mayoral primary, voters have yet to align by race. That's rare in Philadelphia.

In most Philadelphia mayoral elections, the returns can be read in black and white. This year, more voters are coloring outside the lines.

The race for the Democratic nomination remains a toss-up with just 16 days left - in part, polls say, because white millionaire Tom Knox is drawing a healthy share of black support and former City Councilman Michael Nutter, who is African American, is drawing a healthy share of whites.

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Black professionals investing in Obama. For black professionals, Mr. Obama's campaign is especially appealing because in him they see one of their own.

Sen. Barack Obama will encounter plenty of people who call him "brotha" when he meets local supporters and campaign donors today in Dallas.

The Illinois Democrat has a broad base of support for his presidential bid, with campaign cash coming in from Wall Street to Hollywood. But nowhere has his candidacy been more anticipated than with black voters who have longed for a national presidential contender since the historic presidential campaigns of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988.

And for black professionals, Mr. Obama's campaign is especially appealing because in him they see one of their own. Their great hope is that his celebrity image and crossover appeal will propel him to the White House, a hope they say Mr. Obama embodies like no black politician before him.

He's got a story that a lot of African-American professionals have," said Michael Davis, 41, of Dallas, the managing director of a large financial institution. "He played by the rules. He worked hard. He's done well, and we can identify with that.

"He personifies our collective possibility. In that regard, he's somebody we feel is a lot more accessible than most candidates we've seen in the past."

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The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) plan to create a task force to study immigration issues and provide information about the impact of immigration reform on the black and Hispanic communities.

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) plan to create a task force to study immigration issues and provide information about the impact of immigration reform on the black and Hispanic communities.

The CBC last week invited Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), chairman of the CHC’s immigration task force, to speak about immigration reform at the group’s weekly meeting; the small task force will include three yet-to-be-named members from each caucus.

“Having a more in-depth conversation is a good idea,” Gutierrez said.

The task force is designed to help the two groups coordinate efforts to pass an immigration reform bill while opponents of immigration reform attempt to stir up anti-immigration sentiment among black Americans.

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If there is still doubt on many people why Clinton can compete with Obama for Black votes stories like this help answer it Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has failed to raise money for the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) even though it has been a year since he was asked to, and his main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination has done so, CBC members say.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has failed to raise money for the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) even though it has been a year since he was asked to, and his main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination has done so, CBC members say.

CBC leaders asked Obama to hold a fundraiser for the caucus’s political action committee (PAC) a year ago but they have slim hopes that he will come through for them.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Obama’s chief rival for the nomination, held a fundraiser for the PAC in March last year at the home of Dan Leeds, a Washington venture capitalist.

Clinton’s husband has also agreed to use his fundraising clout to help the CBC. At the end of June, former President Bill Clinton will chair a charity golf and tennis tournament organized by the spouses of Black Caucus members. The event will raise money for college scholarships.
Another one-time Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.), also responded to the caucus’s request to raise money for its PAC; he hosted a Capitol Hill event in February 2006.

Stay posted
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CULTURE
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The N-word civil war continues as. Movement spreads against ‘n-word’. Slur ignites passions in churches, campuses and beyond. But at the same time Vibe: What's the Real Reason for the Sudden Attack on Hip Hop?

In the context of these questions, we can also ask why the attacks on hip hop - and why now? That some people hoped to enact political retribution for the so-called victory of Don Imus's firing, goes without saying. But I'd like to suggest that, more significantly, the current critique of hip hop is aimed at undermining the culture's potential to politicize the generations of constituents that might claim hip hop as their social movement. After high profile voter registration campaigns in 2004 that were fronted by Russell Simmons, Sean Combs and others, much was made of the lack of impact that hip hop generation voters had on the outcome of the 2004 Presidential election. The hip hop generation, in fact, embraced the franchise in unprecedented numbers, but those numbers were obscured by the unprecedented turnout of religious fundamentalists who were galvanized by issues like same-sex marriage and threats of anti-American terrorism. With no candidate on the Right likely to galvanize religious fundamentalists, the hip hop nation - which has continued to organize since 2004 - represents a legitimate political bloc. With this political bloc comes demands for social justice, particularly within the realms of the prison industrial complex, the labor force, US foreign policy, law enforcement, the electoral process, mainstream corporate media, the economy, public education and a range of other concerns.

While there has long been criticism of hip hop culture from the standpoint of social conservatives, pro-hip hop feminists, religious groups, anti-homophobia activists and hip hop heads themselves, what marks this moment as different are the attempts to force mainstream black political leadership and Democratic Presidential candidates to repudiate hip hop culture (reminiscent of the pressures placed on Reverend Jesse Jackson to distance himself from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in 1984). Emblematic of these pressures is a recent Chicago Tribune editorial, which asked, "Will Obama scold David Geffen, the entertainment mogul who is one of his most prominent contributors and who owns Snoop Dogg's record label? Will Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton admonish rap impresario Timbaland, who recently threw a benefit for her at his Miami home that raised $800,000?" Asking figures like Reverend Al Sharpton, Senators Clinton and Obama, and Russell Simmons to publicly distance themselves from hip hop is a transparent attempt drive a wedge between them and a constituency that has both the energy and the creativity to galvanize a youth-based electorate in the 2008 election season.

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Has America lost another generation of black boys?

In response to this growing crisis Mr. Jackson founded the Black Star Project, a dynamic educational reform organization, whose primary objective is eliminating the racial academic achievement gap by involving parents and communities in the education of children. Founded in Chicago's Southside in 1996, the Black Star model is taking root and even being duplicated in other cities.

...

Jackson has convinced some well known corporations, foundations and community organizations to become participating partners in the Black Star project. Some of the prominent names are: Toyota Motor Sales USA, ComEd, Schott Foundation for Public Education, OfficeMax, Ariel Capital Management, Quaker/PepsiCo Beverages & Food, and many others listed on the Black Star website.

Toyota contributed $240,000 to help finance and launch the Toyota Black Star Parent University, a new three-year program that will help Chicago parents obtain skills and resources needed to build stronger families.

Classes financed by the Toyota Black Star Program will be held in neighborhoods throughout the city. Local parenting experts serve as "professors" and teach courses that range from educating children about resolving conflict to developing financial literacy. This initiative, if successful in Chicago, will be offered to other cities.

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African-Americans, Koreans try to heal deep wounds

The 350 marchers who made the recent 1.4-mile trek down Wilshire Boulevard from Koreatown to MacArthur Park made up in symbolism what they lacked in numbers.

Actor Danny Glover and civil-rights attorney Connie Rice marched alongside Korean merchants and churchgoers, Los Angeles Police Department officers and activists from Homies Unidos.

African-Americans, Koreans, whites and Latinos sought to underscore an ethnic unity they hope marks a dramatic change since the 1992 riots that destroyed 2,000 Korean businesses and exposed wide rifts between Koreans and other minority groups.

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RIP Mary Carter Smith, 88

Mary Carter Smith, a storyteller, folklorist and entertainer who became nationally known as she helped popularize traditional African stories, dress and songs to American audiences and school pupils, has died. She was 88.

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Obama Reaches Out With Tough Love, Candidate Says Criticism of Black America Reflects Its Private Concerns

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is delivering pointed critiques of the African American community as he campaigns for its votes, lamenting that many of his generation are "disenfranchising" themselves because they don't vote, taking rappers to task for their language, and decrying "anti-intellectualism" in the black community, including black children telling peers who get good grades that they are "acting white."

As he travels around the country in his effort to become the nation's first black president, Obama has engaged in an intense competition for black voters -- a crucial Democratic Party constituency that accounts for as much as half the electorate in some key primary states such as South Carolina. But the first-term senator, who has sought to present himself as an agent of change eager to challenge political convention, has taken the unusual route of publicly criticizing his own community.

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MONEY
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Widowhood's Economic Consequences Harshest on Minority Women. Black women who became widowed suffered a loss that was five times greater and Hispanic women a loss that was four times greater than non-Hispanic white women.

Minority widows are at a particularly high risk of poverty in late life, according to a report published in the latest issue of The Gerontologist (Vol. 47, No. 2). While the data reveal a substantial financial widowhood penalty among all ethnic groups, minority women often have lower incomes and fewer assets to begin with.

Authors Jacqueline Angel, Maren Jiménez, and Ronald Angel of the University of Texas at Austin sought to discover the economic consequences of losing a spouse as women approach retirement. They drew from a sample of over 4,500 hundred women between ages 51 and older. The study looked specifically at Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White women.

The findings show that although non-Hispanic white women had more initial wealth than their Black or Hispanic counterparts, widowhood resulted in a greater relative loss in total assets for the minorities. Black women who became widowed suffered a loss that was five times greater and Hispanic women a loss that was four times greater than non-Hispanic white women.

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HEALTH
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Beware the bearers of false gift. This story is behind the subscription only part of the WSJ, but lobyist are targeting minority lawmakers to prevent chnages to Medicare part D.
Insurers Fight to Defend Lucrative Medicare Business.The minority advisory committee that AHIP is unveiling today includes about three dozen prominent black, Latino and Asian-American leaders in 16 states.
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Christianity, not vanity, at root of black women's diet program

The idea of strolling the beach in a bikini isn't what motivates Sandra Mosby to bake her chicken rather than frying it, or to lightly season her collard greens rather than dropping in a fatty ham hock.

For Mosby and a growing number of black women, developing healthy habits and losing weight is less about satisfying her vanity and more about strengthening her Christianity.

Several recent studies throughout the U.S. have concluded that the all-about-you mentality of many mainstream diet programs doesn't resonate with black women whose focus lies in strengthening their families, communities and churches.

Now, there's a new approach: Rather than pushing black women to adapt to those programs, researchers are developing new programs that emphasize improving health as a pathway to better serving God.

"A lot of the existing weight-loss programs are designed and developed for typical middle-class white women," said Judith Fifield, a professor in the University of Connecticut's medical school at the UConn Health Center.

"A lot of the traditional weight-loss messages are, 'It's all about you,' whereas a lot of African-American women are so committed to caring for their families and serving the church that they aren't used to putting themselves first," she said.

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INTERNATIONAL
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Sunday Times (London): The Queen is being urged to apologise for the slaughter of American Indians and the introduction of slavery when she visits Virginia to mark the 400th anniversary of the first English settlement in the New World.

THE Queen is being urged to apologise for the slaughter of American Indians and the introduction of slavery when she visits Virginia this week as guest of honour to mark the 400th anniversary of the first English settlement in the New World at Jamestown.

She will be landing in the middle of a row over political correctness after officials in Virginia banned the use of the word “celebration” for the anniversary. It is being called a “commemoration” out of respect for the suffering of native Americans, who were attacked after the colonists arrived in 1607.

Africans begin to appear in the English settlement’s records as indentured servants in 1619 and were later codified in Virginia’s statutes as slaves. Virginia passed a resolution earlier this year expressing “profound regret” for the enslavement of millions of Africans.

“Leaders and heads of state have a responsibility to set the tone and it would be a welcome move for the Queen to express regret,” said Virginia state representative Donald McEachin, a descendant of slaves, who sponsored the resolution.

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Book review on Blacks in France

Can one be Black and French? Such a question doesn’t even deserve to be asked, if one looks at the composition of
the French national soccer team, that is made up largely of Afro-Caribbeans or Afro-Africans. The truth is that, the French national soccer squad is not the appropriate benchmark to evaluate the acceptance of Blacks and other minorities in a country, which has arrogated to herself, the title of custodian of world freedom and the respect of human rights. It is because such above mentioned question and many more do come up regularly that, two iconoclastic authors, who are amongst the undisputable best French specialists on French-speaking Africa, have decides to team up to produce a book not in their area of predilection, but about a section of France’s citizens.

The title of the book which is the fruit of their collective effort is: Noir et Francais or Black and French in English. The names of the co-authors of the book are: Geraldine Faes and Stephen Smith. And the 445 page book is the outgrowth of a meticulous research within the Black French community, encouraged by an apparent malaise within. The authors while aiming to make their book appear as an instructive manual, they also seem to have the humbled, but not so easy ambition to make other components of the racially divided France to understand the Black community and its problems. Toward that end, they have also taken the precautions to present the Black community in its diversity. They tell us that, while Blacks are as diverse as any other human race, in France, there two main groups of Blacks: black-afro-Caribbeans and black-afro-Africans.

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Zimbabwean authorities have arrested, abducted and tortured hundreds of political activists in a campaign that has grown worse since the vicious beating of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in March, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday

In a report based on dozens of interviews in Zimbabwe, the New York-based rights group said the international outcry over the assault on Tsvangirai did nothing to curb President Robert Mugabe's brutality. The crackdown has reached deep into opposition ranks and affected many people who have no apparent role in politics, the report said. Journalists and human rights lawyers have also been targeted.

May good reserve a special place in Hell for this man.
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Odds and Ends

Ok, I work in R&D so I understand how research papers work. I also have read (much of) the study so I know most of their methodology is sound. I also understand that the researchers were showing that even in a "minority dominated environment" prejudice still exist. All that being said, I still think it was a tad silly for the NYT to post this on their front page.
Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls

An academic study of the National Basketball Association, whose playoffs continue tonight, suggests that a racial bias found in other parts of American society has existed on the basketball court as well.

A coming paper by a University of Pennsylvania professor and a Cornell University graduate student says that, during the 13 seasons from 1991 through 2004, white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players.

2007-05-06T06:09:00.000-07:00

The Pete Wilson-ing of the National GOP

I have been struck by how the national GOP has been following the Gov. Pete Wilson California Republican model. But just like the California GOP this -will lead- is leading them to an electoral disaster.

Pete Wilson as the Republican Governor of California 1991-1999 won elections by doing the following:

1) a divide and conquer strategy against Democrats
2) Picking 1-2 high profile issue to make moderates think he was a "moderate: social conservative
3) Pick "red meat" wedge issue to rally social conservatives to his cause (there by ignoring his "moderate" outreach)
4) Run as a strong fiscal conservative

Pete Wilson 1st used anti-Immigration and anti-Affirmative Action with support for things like Proposition 187 as his wedge issue. While using education reform and being pro-choice as his "moderate issue."

This strategy worked at first. But as Gov. Wilson continued to inact more and more unpopular Republican ideas (merging the California State Police into the California Highway Patrol to save money, deregulation ect) he had to use more and more wedge issues to try and win. The result was that ever time he "won" with a wedge issue he lost a group of voters who felt "victimized by the GOP." For example Pete Wilson's socialy conservative "red meat" policies led to not only California Latino's voting more strongly for Democrats, but also voting at HIGHER rates over all. Pete Wilson in the end only strengthened his opponents.

Yes, Pete Wilson won, but he in the end, devestated the California GOP to the point that California is now a Democratic state (remember is was the land of Reagan). In fact it is my opinion the Republican's won the recall Governship over the unpopular Grey Davis, only because they had the celebrity of Arnold.

As a side note notice how the Bush White House let California suffer the huge Blackouts of the 2001 California Energy Crisis blaming bad Democratic policies. All the while ignoring Davis complaints fraud was being committed. They let Enron off the hook (no investigation), as businesses went bankrupt and old folk without AC died, this was the first warning about how Bush would act in Hurricane Katrina. The Energy Crisis directly lead to Gov. Grey Davis recall as he had to borrow money and raise taxes to fix Pete Wilson mess killing his popularity

Now fast forward to todays national Republican Party. Bush much like Pete Wilson ( Prop 13 was based on a law he passed as mayor of San Diego to limit property tax increases ), ran as a fiscal conservative. In Bush's case it was tax cuts and deregulation. Bush used Education (NCLB) and Immigration as his "Moderate Issues" to reach suburban voters (especially married White Suburban Woman). He then used wedge issues to divide Democrats. -anti- Gay Marriage -dicrimination- to get 6% more Black votes in Ohio 2004, support for federal labor unions = support for Osama Bin Laden aka Georgia Senate 2002, targeting the very Dem Senators who helped pass your agenda in the name of bi-partisanship Senate Races 2002, Texas midterm redistricting 2004, on an on.

Yes, each one of these actions on it's own won the GOP an election here and there. But the cumulative effect is that it PISSED off some group of voters puting them beyond reach of other GOP candidates, for several election cycles if not a generation. It turned me some one with a political compass usually between - 2 to - 1/ - 2 to - 1, into a person willing to work/donate/organize for Liberal causes. I have a Purto Rican friend who twice voted for Bush and was a big supporter of GOP Latino outreach efforts, a few days ago he was telling me he thinks the GOP is "EVIL" and he "will never vote for them ever again" (his words not mine), " they are never going to outlaw abortion so he was used, and I think they screwed (sic) the poor." This was from a 2004 GOP operative. Yes we are just two people, but I find these types of stories very common these days.

This is just a cursory analysis, someone who actually lives in CA may have more to add. But I think that Karl Rove instead of being regarded as the architect of a Permenant Republican Majority will be regarded as the man who PETE WILSONed the National GOP! I find their overall strategies very similar.

note: I wonder if anyone else picked up the parallels between Bush letting California figuratively "drop dead" in 2001 California Energy crisis, and Bush letting New Orleans literally drop dead by the thousands in Hurricane Katrina?

2007-05-06T06:05:00.000-07:00

WEEK IN REVIEW, APRIL 27th 2007

A story on hip hop in a major magazine, no big deal, right? Except when the magazine is National Geographic. The article is Hip Hop Planet.

Not since the advent of swing jazz in the 1930s has an American music exploded across the world with such overwhelming force. Not since the Beatles invaded America and Elvis packed up his blue suede shoes has a music crashed against the world with such outrage. This defiant culture of song, graffiti, and dance, collectively known as hip-hop, has ripped popular music from its moorings in every society it has permeated. In Brazil, rap rivals samba in popularity. In China, teens spray-paint graffiti on the Great Wall. In France it has been blamed, unfairly, for the worst civil unrest that country has seen in decades.

Its structure is unique, complex, and at times bewildering. Whatever music it eats becomes part of its vocabulary, and as the commercial world falls into place behind it to gobble up the powerful slop in its wake, it metamorphoses into the Next Big Thing. It is a music that defies definition, yet defines our collective societies in immeasurable ways. To many of my generation, despite all attempts to exploit it, belittle it, numb it, classify it, and analyze it, hip-hop remains an enigma, a clarion call, a cry of "I am" from the youth of the world. We'd be wise, I suppose, to start paying attention.

(thanks scoutbanana for reminding me about this in your diary)

POLITICS

The Democratic Party debate on Thursday had a Historic component South Carolina State University is the nations first Historically Black College to hold a presidential debate. Kudos to SCSU.

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The CBC is still living on a different -planet- universe, I can't believe they are still on this thing. CBC is split over quitting debate on Fox

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are pushing their leadership to withdraw from an agreement with Fox News to sponsor a Democratic presidential primary debate on Sept. 23 in Detroit.
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The CBC is sponsoring the debate with Fox through the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute, of which Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) is chairman. Though the CBC Institute is not affiliated formally with the black caucus, any decisions made by a majority of caucus members would have a significant influence on the institute’s board of directors, lawmakers said.

Four African-American lawmakers sit on the institute’s 14-member board, according to its website. They are Reps. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), Mel Watt (D-N.C.), House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Thompson.

One lawmaker who declined to speak on the record about the caucus’s internal decision-making said members could vote to overrule Thompson’s preference for going forward with the debate.

Just as a side note I am going over Bennie Thompson voting record, if I start to notice a lot more "out of touch issues" I think we should consider running someone against him in the Democratic Primary.
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Corporations targeted for doing business with the Sudanese government, which faces sanctions for its complicity in the Darfur genocide, gave more than $580,000 to congressional candidates during the 2006 cycle through PACS. The hill magazine is trying to make more of this then it really is, but it underscores the need for Democrats to raise more moeny from the roots ansd not corporations.

Sudan-linked PACs sent contributions to 13 House members who backed a plan by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) requiring public companies to reveal the nature of their ties to Sudan and barring them from federal contracts until the ties were severed. Eight of those House members, all Democrats, received contributions from Sudan-linked PACs within two weeks of signing on to Lee’s bill last year.

The timing and beneficiaries of the PAC contributions reveal the discordant reality of congressional fundraising, in which most lawmakers rely on professional fundraisers or campaign aides to field donations, often knowing little about the money’s origins. Several congressional offices were surprised when informed that five PACs of Sudan-linked multinational corporations were active in last year’s midterms, although at least two of the companies have since divested themselves from the regime of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

“This is something we should all be aware of,” said a senior aide to one of the lawmakers who unknowingly received contributions. “Any information we can get about companies and PACs that have an interest in Sudan would be good.”

Another aide to a lawmaker receiving one of the contributions said his boss had no idea that the PAC donation was linked to a corporation operating in Sudan but is relieved that the business has since divested. The office plans to secure a list of corporations still linked to the Bashir government to check future contributions.

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Calif. Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, 68, dies April 22 2007

Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, a California Democrat whose House district encompassed Compton, Carson, much of Long Beach and parts of south Los Angeles, died of cancer Sunday. She was 68 and had served in Congress since 1996.

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Senator Barack Obama was in NYC to make a big play for the Rev. Al Sharpton's endorsement - and the Black vote in general - saying he's the only Democrat in the race who fought for African-American issues before running for President.

"These aren't issues that are new to me. These aren't issues that I just decided to start talking about as a presidential candidate," Obama told a gathering of Sharpton's National Action Network in a midtown hotel. "They are the causes of my life."

Obama said he agreed with Sharpton that "I shouldn't get the support of the African-American community simply because I am African-American."

Instead, he said he deserves it because he has the best track record.

Obama talked of his work as a community organizer and touted his successes in the Illinois legislature, from fighting "price-gouging" insurance companies and racial profiling to getting health insurance for kids and passing the nation's first law requiring videotaped interrogations in capital cases.

"If there is somebody who has been more on the forefront on behalf of the issues that you care about, and has had more concrete accomplishments on behalf of the things you are concerned about, then I'm happy to see you endorse them," Obama told Sharpton, laying down a gauntlet.

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CULTURE
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This a facinating if hard to describe story by John Ridley -of- for the Boston Globe titled The Lessons of Fat Albert It states Hey, hey, hey! A TV cartoon is going to save black America. That was the message of Bill Cosby's doctoral thesis 30 years ago at UMass, a paper that lies at the root of Cosby's rants today.

In May 1977, an unlikely doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst – the man who would a few years later become America’s Black Dad – walked across a stage with his familiar smile, shook the hand of chancellor Randolph Bromery, and collected his diploma. And with that, Bill Cosby walked out into the world with a 267-page dissertation that posited an interesting, bold, and ultimately (slightly) controversial way forward for urban education.

Of late, the Cos has been a lightning rod for controversy as much as a source of levity. His views on the failures of some blacks are deemed so extreme that a few in our community have all but excommunicated him from the race. What happened, some wonder, to that rubbery-faced comedian who frequented The Tonight Show? What became of the characters that he transmogrified into the “angry black man” who rarely viewed the world except from behind smoked glasses? What transpired between Cosby then and Cosby now?

Or did anything? If human nature is a constant, did Bill Cosby simply become more of what he always was?

If there is a source code to the man, it’s likely to be found in words, ideas, and ideals he himself had written 30 years ago in that dissertation. And beyond the illumination it offers to those who believe they know Cosby, the operative question going in is: Does the plan he expressed for black America then hold up to scrutiny now?

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D.C. Picked As Top City For Blacks

The magazine asked visitors to its Web site to rank their satisfaction with a long list of cities, and then applied economic, census and labor data to come up with its annual analysis of the 10 best metropolitan areas for African Americans. Although Washington is regularly near the top of the list, this is the first year it has come in first. Atlanta and Houston led the list in the previous two years.

Among the statistics cited: Twenty percent of the area's black households earn annual incomes above $100,000 -- the highest on the list. Washington has the lowest level of black unemployment at 6.2 percent. And among the metropolitan areas analyzed, it had the highest concentration of black-owned businesses -- 48.4 per 1,000 residents.

The magazine pointed to some paradoxes, particularly in the District: The city's crime rates have fallen, but its improved image has led to gentrification that prices out some middle-class African Americans. The area's black population also has a higher level of education than the other cities, but the thing that most survey respondents criticized about the city was its schools.

The Washington area includes suburban counties as well, and the magazine featured Hank Williams of Beltsville, a senior regional sales manager, and his wife, Vicki, a chief staff officer for multicultural affairs. The couple bring home more than $400,000 a year.

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Recommendation to the Recording and Broadcast Industries:
A Statement by Russell Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis on behalf of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network. Russell Simmons announces changes in what hip hop radio will broadcast but not in what it will made and sold. Some people think Mr. Simmons is being responsiable, some thinks it's all a marketing ploy? You decide.
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INTERNATIONAL
Nigeria's troubled presidential election has lead to many headlines like this. Africa’s Crisis of Democracy

Nigeria’s troubled presidential election, which came under fire on Sunday from local and international observers and was rejected by two leading opposition candidates, represents a significant setback for democracy in sub-Saharan Africa at a time when voters in countries across the continent are becoming more disillusioned with the way democracy is practiced.

Analysts said the Nigerian vote was the starkest example of a worrying trend — even as African countries hold more elections, many of their citizens are steadily losing confidence in their democracies.

“The picture in Africa is really mixed,” said Peter Lewis, director of the African Studies program at Johns Hopkins University, who was among the researchers who conducted the Afrobarometer survey of African public opinion. “Some countries have vibrant political scenes, while other countries go through the routine of elections but governance doesn’t seem to improve.”

African voters are losing patience with faulty elections that often exclude popular candidates and are marred by serious irregularities, according to the Afrobarometer survey, published last year, which sampled voters in 18 countries, based on interviews with 1,200 to 2,400 people per country. While 6 in 10 Africans said democracy was preferable to any other form of government, according to the survey, satisfaction with democracy dipped to 45 percent from 58 percent in 2001.

The threat to Nigeria’s fragile democracy was underscored on Sunday by government officials, who dropped dark hints warning of a possible coup attempt, and said election critics were welcoming a military putsch by inciting violence.

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In France's troubled suburbs, voters motivated by chance to stop unpopular Sarkozy

France's housing projects have suffered riots, joblessness and a presidential campaigner who called troublemakers from their neighborhoods "scum." Sunday was their turn to fight back — through the ballot box.

Many blacks and Muslims from troubled neighborhoods voted for the first time Sunday, saying they were motivated by one desire: to stop law-and-order, tough-on-immigrants Nicolas Sarkozy from getting into power.

Conservative Sarkozy is the front-runner after Sunday's first-round vote, is deeply unpopular in housing projects populated largely by second- and third-generation immigrants, many of them Muslims from former colonies in North Africa, who live mired in poverty and joblessness.

Voters punished him in several poor districts, favoring Socialist Segolene Royal. His campaign has been haunted by the word "scum," the term he used to describe young delinquents days before the riots. Some youths took Sarkozy's comment as a declaration of war.

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HEALTH
Ads urge minorities to donate organs. About two-thirds of the nearly 20,000 Californians on transplant waiting lists belong to one of three minority groups.

Nearly a year after Kaiser Permanente's troubled kidney-transplant program in Northern California was shut down by state regulators, the HMO is funding a media campaign encouraging minorities to register for organ donation in the event of their deaths.

Since the program closed in May, all of Kaiser's Northern California transplant patients have been formally transferred to other transplant centers and have taken their rightful place on official waiting lists for the organs they need, state health officials said Monday.

Only 174 of the roughly 2,300 patients who were transferred have received new kidneys since the program ended, said the California Department of Managed Health Care, which regulates health-maintenance organizations. That's because of an overall lack of donated organs, said Cindy Ehnes, director of the HMO watchdog agency.

At a news conference Monday, Ehnes and other officials highlighted the new $3 million media campaign encouraging African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Latinos to register for organ donation in the event of their deaths.

The campaign, which began April 1, is being financed by Kaiser Permanente, which paid a state fine of $2 million and donated $3 million to sponsor Donate Life California to make amends for its handling of the program.

The kidney transplant program was shut down after reports of bureaucratic bungling and delays in care that endangered patients' lives. Patients were transferred

2007-05-06T06:01:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-05-06T05:57:00.000-07:00

Week in Review April 13th 2007

Many people realize that racialy polarized voting happens in America. In many places Whites votes for White candidates, and Blacks vote for Black candidates. Since Whites outnumber Blacks this means that in most areas Blacks come out the losers. But what happens when an area formally controlled by -conservative wingnuts- Whites changes demographicaly and racially polarized voting works against them -letting everyone have a say-. Well if it's Mississippi it's time for our politicized -justice- system to prosecute Black officials.

Attorneys in the two-year-old legal battle filed documents Monday summarizing what they want U.S. District Judge Tom Lee to consider in deciding who's right.

Brown and other black Noxubee County Democratic leaders deny the Republican-controlled Justice Department's claims that they've violated the Voting Rights Act.

The Democrats acknowledge that predominantly black Noxubee County is racially divided, with whites losing elections since most voters prefer black candidates.

“There is a long history of racial polarization that results in block voting by whites and blacks. The government appears to suggest that Ike Brown and people with whom he associates are the cause of this unfortunate situation,” states documents submitted by Edward Pleasants, one of the attorneys representing Brown and the Noxubee County Democratic Executive Committee.

The political schism, he wrote, can be blamed on whites who are mostly Republicans and frustrated they can't win elections in a black Democratic stronghold. They won't accept the fact blacks now control the county's political structure after decades of white domination.

“The (federal) government's position is a classic example of the victim being blamed for fighting back against those who are committing a crime against them,” states the legal brief.

The Justice Department claims Brown and his Democratic operatives have violated white voters' rights as retribution for years of blacks being politically oppressed.

Good thing this -justice- department is really into prosecuting election fraud, any day now I expect action on Florida and Ohio
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Culture
Mr. Imus was fired. As many people know, Don Imus opened his mouth. We all know that can only happen so many times before he says somthing like this:

On the April 4 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning, host Don Imus referred to the Rutgers University women's basketball team, which is comprised of eight African-American and two white players, as "nappy-headed hos" immediately after the show's executive producer, Bernard McGuirk, called the team "hard-core hos." Later, former Imus sports announcer Sid Rosenberg, who was filling in for sportscaster Chris Carlin, said: "The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the [National Basketball Association's] Toronto Raptors."

McGuirk referred to the NCAA women's basketball championship game between Rutgers and Tennessee as a "Spike Lee thing," adding, "The Jigaboos vs. The Wannabees -- that movie that he had." McGuirk was presumably referring to Lee's 1988 film, School Daze (Sony Pictures), though co-host Charles McCord misidentified it as "Do the Right Thing" (Criterion, June 1989).

People weren't taking it this time as the National Association of Black Journalists spear-heading a campaign against MSNBC and Imus for his racist comment
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In the Meetings Are Part Revival, Part Rally, but All Sharpton, the NY Times writes a story on Shapton's Sunday services

Every Saturday morning, Mr. Sharpton opens the doors of his National Action Network’s headquarters in Harlem for an “action rally.” The meetings are something more than a rally — part radio show, church service, comedy revue, civil rights demonstration, town hall meeting and fund-raising drive. The rallies are broadcast live on WLIB-AM, the city’s first black-owned radio station.

On most Saturdays, the so-called House of Justice on West 145th Street can feel as casual as the International House of Pancakes 10 blocks south. Anyone can walk in and take a seat. The words etched onto the large tinted window at the entrance, facing 145th Street, read not House of Justice or National Action Network but Diamond Gym, the storefront’s former occupant, which explains why the walls are lined with mirrors.

Yesterday, in a fast-paced 90 minutes before a crowd of fewer than 100 people, Mr. Sharpton led a drummer and a pianist through a gospel song (“Sing it like you mean it,” he sang into the microphone), criticized the federal government’s slow pace of rebuilding in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and paid tribute to the sacrifices of both Jesus Christ and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Gays find a cool reception on conservative black campuses.

April Maxwell was so lured by the promise of a black college experience, with its distinct traditions and tight-knit campus life, that she enrolled at Hampton University in 2001 without even visiting the waterfront campus.

A lesbian who is open about her sexual orientation, she arrived eager to join the extended Hampton family.

Instead, "I felt like I was the only gay person on campus - it seemed like nobody was really out," said the now 24-year-old Maxwell.

She channeled her isolation into organizing a gay support group, but a panel of students and faculty denied it a charter. The panel recently denied a second attempt at chartering Students Promoting Equal Action and Knowledge, headed by underclassmen after Maxwell graduated.

It's a tug-of-war that's emerging at other black schools, where students say outdated rules and homophobia block them from forming the gay campus voice common at majority white institutions.

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As the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut is marked, Major League Baseball is sure to give itself an extended pat on the back. We'll hear much this month about the breaking of baseball's "color line" as a civil rights milestone.

As the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut is marked, Major League Baseball is sure to give itself an extended pat on the back. We'll hear much this month about the breaking of baseball's "color line" as a civil rights milestone. We'll be reminded that the national pastime opened its doors to blacks way ahead of many other American institutions. The sport will bask in the righteous recounting of Robinson's courage and Branch Rickey's wisdom.

But to focus on events of 60 years ago is to dishonor No. 42. Jackie Robinson wasn't one to dwell on the past. After leaving baseball after the 1956 season, he devoted himself to blazing new paths -- in business, politics and the civil rights movement. He was all about today and tomorrow, not yesterday. Proud as he was of changing the game in 1947, Robinson biographers and contemporaries agree he'd be more interested in assessing the game of 2007.

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POLITICS
color of change has a number of items they are working on First, the CBC/Fox debate, as well as pressuring Lieberman and Congress to investigate the government's response to Katrina, an investigation that Lieberman called off once he became chair of the Homeland Security Committee.
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INTERNATIONAL
Africa is becoming both the beneficiary and victim of the high global price of oil.

Although Africa has long been known to be rich in oil, extracting it hadn't seemed worth the effort and risk until recently. But with the price of Middle Eastern crude skyrocketing, and advancing technology making reserves easier to tap, the region has become the scene of a competition between major powers that recalls the 19th-century scramble for colonization. Already, the United States imports more of its oil from Africa than from Saudi Arabia, and China, too, looks to the continent for its energy security.

Does Africa measure up to the hype? After all, the entire continent is believed to contain, at best, 10 percent of the world's proven oil reserves, making it a minnow swimming in an ocean of seasoned sharks. Africa is unlikely ever to "replace" the Middle East or any other major oil-producing region. So why the song and dance? Why all the goose bumps? Why do so many influential people in Washington let themselves get so carried away when they talk about African oil?

The answer has very little to do with geology. Africa's significance as an oil "play," to borrow the industry lingo, lies beyond the number of barrels that may or may not be buried under its cretaceous rock. Instead, what makes the African oil boom interesting to energy-security strategists in both Washington and Europe (and, increasingly, Beijing) is a series of serendipitous and unrelated factors that, together, tell a story of unfolding opportunity.

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Zimbabwe bishops warn of revolt Zimbabwe's Roman Catholic bishops have warned of a mass uprising unless free elections are held, in a letter pinned up in churches across the country.

Many people in Zimbabwe are angry, and their anger is now erupting into open revolt," the letter said.

Individual bishops have previously criticised President Robert Mugabe, a Catholic, but this is the strongest joint attack on his government.

A minister told the BBC that the letter showed Zimbabwe was a "free country".

"The churches are free to say what they like," said Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu.

"We have got a process for changing governments and electing leaders. We are preparing for elections."

'Biblical oppression'

Zimbabwe's nine Catholic bishops also called for a national day of prayer on Saturday 14 April.

Last month, a prayer meeting attended by opposition leaders and activists was broken up by police, leaving two people dead.

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Google Earth Focuses on Darfur. The Internet search company has updated its Google Earth service with high resolution satellite images of the region to document destroyed villages, displaced people and refugee camps..

In a project with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, inaugurated Tuesday, the Internet search company has updated its Google Earth service with high resolution satellite images of the region to document destroyed villages, displaced people and refugee camps.

Google Earth allows those who have downloaded its free software to focus on satellite images and maps of most of the world. When users scan over the Darfur region, where the United Nations estimates that more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in four years of carnage, Google Inc. hopes to attract their gaze with icons.

The icons represent destroyed villages with flames and refugee camps with tents. When users zoom in to a level of magnification that keeps most of Darfur on a computer screen, the icons seem to indicate that much of the region is on fire. Clicking on flame icons will open windows with the village's name and statistics on the extent of destruction.

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The Battle for Nigeria

Nigeria contains many worlds. During 10 days in the country on a fact-finding trip for U.S. editors, I saw just a few of them, but I did catch a glimpse of both the calm, air-conditioned indoor world of politicians, lawyers, and diplomats—where we spent the bulk of our time—and the anarchic, sweaty outdoor world of the voters. The denizens of that first world can talk for hours about politicians and potential eleventh-hour alliances, about strategy and the 20 known methods of rigging an election. The people on the street are angry about open sewers and the dearth of jobs, schools, and clean water, and they have little faith that corrupt politicians will solve these problems.

As a recent International Crisis Group report put it, the Nigerian elections of April 14 and 21 "are not a routine quadrennial ritual." If elections happen and the results are regarded as relatively free, fair, and transparent, it will be the first time in the nation's history that one civilian administration will hand over power to another. Right now, that looks like a mighty big if.

Nigerian elections aren't issues-based—far more significant than policies and principles are where a candidate was born, the ethnic group he belongs to, and his religion. With the country pretty evenly split between Muslims and Christians and riven by regional rivalries, the notion of "power shift"—rotating the top office around the regions—has become paramount. Since current President Olusegun Obasanjo is a southern Christian, it's generally accepted that the next president will be a northern Muslim—and all the leading contenders meet that description. When elections are decided by whose turn it is rather than who has the best ideas, it's hard to be optimistic about democracy.

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MONEY.
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Two Faces of Minority Banking, Urban Trust, NuAmerica Differ in Target Markets and Size

Two new Washington banks, one seven months old, the other about to open, are taking two different approaches to serving minority communities.

Urban Trust Bank, which opened its headquarters branch at 14th and I streets NW in September, has nationwide plans focused on African American customers. The federally chartered bank is owned by RLJ, the Bethesda-based company headed by Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television.

NuAmerica Bank won approval from the D.C. Council last week to open a branch in Columbia Heights, from which it will target small businesses in the region's Hispanic sector, according to Julio Lopez-Brito, who will be its chairman.

But the banks' founders share the belief that their target markets are ripe for expansion that would benefit not only minority neighborhoods but also the banks' investors.

"A significant portion of urban consumers continue to be unbanked and under-banked," said Urban Trust's president, Dwight L. Bush. "We actually see these communities as viable, and our mission is . . . to bring these consumers into the financial mainstream, help them to become homeowners, to become entrepreneurs, and help them to create and maintain wealth in their neighborhoods."

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HEALTH
Blacks Face Challenge, One Pound at a Time

In the shadow of the Capitol, on the same ground where guns, wars and other life-and-death issues have been protested, African Americans rallied over another grave concern: obesity.

The tone of the gathering on the Mall last weekend was more pep rally than demonstration, the goal more to inspire than incite. But in confronting what is now a health crisis among black people, the 50 Million Pound Challenge is calling for nothing less than action: The extra weight has got to go.

"The numbers are unimaginable," said the campaign's founder and leader, Ian Smith, a prominent black physician, author and television commentator who wants the issue taken up on a national scale. "It's not just [an individual's] problem. It's a problem for all of us."

Nearly four in five black women in the United States are overweight or obese -- the worst rate of any group -- and nearly a quarter of black females ages 6 to 19 fit that classification. Although the percentages of black males with weight problems are not similarly disproportionate compared with the overall population, the numbers are extremely high and are growing. The already skewed prevalence of health complications within the community continues to increase, too.

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L.A. tops the nation's major urban areas with 1.1million Latinos, blacks and Asians living within two miles of hazardous waste sites.

California has the nation's highest concentration of minorities living near hazardous waste facilities, according to a newly released study. Greater Los Angeles tops the nation with 1.2 million people living less than two miles from 17 such facilities, and 91% of them, or 1.1 million, are minorities. Statewide the figure was 81%.

The study, conducted by researchers at four universities for the United Church of Christ, examined census data for neighborhoods adjacent to 413 facilities nationwide that process or store hazardous chemical waste produced by refineries, metal plating shops, drycleaners and battery recyclers, among others.

Though about one-third of U.S. residents are nonwhite, more than half of the people living near such facilities were Latino, African American or Asian American, according to the report.

The cause is simple, said Robert Bullard, a sociologist at Clark Atlanta University in Georgia and lead author of the study, which updates a landmark report from two decades ago. "The most potent predictor of where these facilities are sited is not how much income you have; it's race.... You don't have many of these facilities in West Los Angeles, and you don't have many minorities in West Los Angeles either.... You've got both in Vernon and surrounding neighborhoods."

2007-04-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

The reason I am writing this diary is I have been asked recently by three different local bloggers (2 in the south, 1 in the northeast) "why there are not more Minorities blogging?" Now I am not an expert but I do know a lot of Black bloggers (and quite a few Latinos too). I recently started asking them this question, and more importantly how do we change this?. I also asked some of my White blogger friends for their views and ideas on this. I hope this serves as a guide to anyone who post on Daily Kos, who also post locally, and wants to see this situation corrected.

THE INTERNET IS AN ACTIVE INFORMATION SOURCE UNLIKE TV WHICH IS A PASSIVE ONE

Yes this may seem obvious, but in my opinion this is the greatest mistake most progressive blogs make when they decry the lack of minority bloggers. Most people "stumble across" new websites by way of a search engine. They are actively looking for information on a specific topic. This is in contrast to TV where people turn on the news to watch what is being presented as "news" passively. Yes even with the advent of cable with more channels and obtions then in the broadcast days, there is no comparision to the multitude of choices available on the web.

So how does this come into play? Put yourself in your "consumers" shoes. Imagine you run a local blog. Next imagine yourself as a Black or Latino. Think about and issue effecting minorities in your state. Got that? OK now google your site. Does it show up? If a person was actively looking up said topic, which in a sense means they are interested in it. Would your site even register?

One of the reason I started publishing Black Kos, week in review is to give the larger progressive blogosphere a window into what issues are affecting and being talked about in the "Black community". If you run a local blog it would be easy to link stories like these. Hell copy mine if you must! The idea is that if someone is looking up a topic they SHOULD find your site. This alos should establish that they can come back to your site and find similar information from time to time along with the other polictical news.

HAVE YOU REALLY LOOKED FOR POTENTIAL MINORITY BLOGGERS?

There are 30 Historical Black colleges in the United States. Most if not all teach Political Science classes. Have your local blogs ever tried to contact a political science professor there? What about their student government? Many of these schools have suffered from unequal funding, do you think maybe they would want to post a diary on this subject? (hint, hint) This is a vast untapped recource. What if every one of these schools has one potential Georgia 10?This would require liitle more then a few phone calls or quick emails. But I'm not going out on a limb to say that this is a vast untapped recource for local bloggers. This is also an easy and cheap way to reach out because let's face it most blogs don't have large budgets. Think of it as a form of advertisement. You have this great product and you want knew consumers to use it.

HAVE YOU CONTACTED ANY LOCAL BLACK POLITICIANS?

Here on Daily Kos from time to time we have national politicians who post on this site. Politicians by their job and nature want "low cost" means to reach out to their constituants. They also will trumpet this reaching out. So how does this come into play for your local blog? Email a state rep or state senator and ask them a few questions? 3 of them should be general (what do you think of spending money on highway 59, cutting taxes while laying of firemen, ect) three should be specifics to their community (is racial profiling having an adverse effect in your community), but the last three should be questions pertaining to a committee they sit on.

Nothing NOTHING drive minorities nuts like only being asked question when their is a "Black issue". Until very recently it was rare to see a minority congress person interview on topics like social security, foreign policy, ect but let their be an urban riot and BAM suddenly they are every where. You still see this phenomenon on the sunday morning shows (almost no Black's, Latino's, or Asian's but a few woman now).

Now many Black and Latino officials have been sitting on commitees for years so why aren't they being asked any questions?

I digressed a little there, but the point is that if you develop a relationship with local politicians of color it will be mutually beneficial. They will tell their supporters that they "wrote an article on this topic on your blog" which helps drive traffic to your blog. Their writing their adds some voices your local blog may lack. It also allows them an unfiltered way to express their views directly to the voters.

MANY MINORITIES DONT SEE BLOGGERS, CONVENTIONS, ECT AS BEING WELCOMING TO PEOPLE LIKE THEM

Part of this is race. A vicious circle develops where people seeing a dearth of Black or Brown faces and think "this isn't for people like me." But the fact they don't go only reinforces the lack of minorities, which caused the problem in the first place.

"No one goes there (to that restaurant) anymore, it's too crowded!" Yogi Berra

The crowd at an event helps self select who will attend. This can only be changed by reaching out and getting more minorities to attend.

But this isn't just about race. My own opinion is that class is playing a larger role in this then many people will admit. In the minority community the idea that politicians only pay attention to money and moneyed interst is stronger then in America as a whole. By not thinking they can have an effect, the interest in attending plummets. Many minorities see these events as meetings of upper middle class to rich people where they are not really welcomed.

Spreading the idea that the netroots are about BREAKING big money interest would pay huge dividends here. I really think getting this idea out there would be huge. Letting people know that the netroots is about raising large sums of money from many small donations, people like them, would be huge.

The idea is that since they collectively decide to whom the money goes to, there isn't any chance that their donations are being used to empower anyone else but themselves. Over the years many communities of color have been victimized by people who proport to be raising money on their behalf, but who swindle it instead. Showing how the netroots can be a important tool in breaking down this barrier is the key.

THERE IS A NEED FOR THE NETROOTS IN COMMUNITIES OF COLOR
Because of voting rights laws many Minorities are congregated in Minority Majority communities where there are few interparty competitive races. But getting involved in intraparty races in other words Primaries would be huge. Many cities suffer from poor management, but as we saw in Newark NJ with Cory Booker, bad incumbants could only be unseated by a challenger raising money from "outside" sources. This tends to bread resentment. By spreading the idea that incumbants can be beaten by the netroots, or at least being held accountable, would lead to many bad pols being removed.

There is a difference between politicians of color being democrats, and being progressive. Because most communities of color are Democratic many pols there don't feel any heat for bad votes. The only way to change this is to have more contested primaries.

The idea that many minority pols are only getting elected by raising money from "outside interest" is much stronger then many people realize. Local blogs by helping to change this could have a positive effect.

2007-04-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

WEEK IN REVIEW

The Martin Luther King you don't see on TV Every year on April 4, as Americans commemorate Martin Luther King's death, we get perfunctory network news reports about "the slain civil rights leader."

The remarkable thing about these reviews of King's life is that several years - his last years - are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.

What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).

An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn't take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.

Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they're not shown today on TV. Why? It's because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.

In the early 1960s, when King focused his challenge on legalized racial discrimination in the South, most major media were his allies. Network TV and national publications graphically showed the police dogs and bullwhips and cattle prods used against Southern blacks who sought the right to vote or to eat at a public lunch counter.

But after passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation's fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without "human rights" - including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.

Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for "radical changes in the structure of our society" to redistribute wealth and power.

"True compassion," King declared, "is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

By 1967, King had also become the country's most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 –– a year to the day before he was murdered –– King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

( Full text and audio of the speech is here )

From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was "on the wrong side of a world revolution." King questioned "our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America," and asked why the U.S. was suppressing revolutions "of the shirtless and barefoot people" in the Third World, instead of supporting them.

In foreign policy, King also offered an economic critique, complaining about "capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries."

You haven't heard the "Beyond Vietnam" speech on network news retrospectives, but national media heard it loud and clear back in 1967 - and loudly denounced it. Time magazine called it "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi." The Washington Post patronized that "King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."

In 2007, in this nation of immense wealth, the White House and most in Congress continue to accept the perpetuation of poverty. They fund foreign wars with "alacrity and generosity," while being miserly in dispensing funds for education and healthcare and environmental cleanup.

And those priorities are largely unquestioned by the mainstream media. No surprise that they tell us so little about the last years of Martin Luther King's life.
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POLITICS
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The Miami Herald ran an article titled

Haitians have high profile, low clout. The Haitian-American Community has failed to come together to lobby for immigration reform. This is a recuring problems from my pespective on immigration. Immigration is viewed as a "Latino issues", and other groups that would stand to benefit from reform are silent and unorganized.

The contrast is stark. Cuban Americans have a powerful Washington lobby that has helped win and maintain favorable treatment for its migrants.

Why can't the Haitian diaspora do the same?

The Haitian community has more friends than ever in high places in Congress, and its diaspora is throwing its muscle around more. But on immigration -- a burning theme for many Haitians -- its voice is muted.

Class and political divisions, some of them carried over from Haiti, hinder its lobbying clout on issues like immigration, several experts say, and explain in part the lack of congressional outcry when the 101 Haitians washed up on Hallandale Beach last Wednesday were immediately detained.

South Florida is home to the largest Haitian community in the country, with an estimated 329,883 of the 694,123 Haitians nationwide. And their status as one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups is reflected in their political gains.

Fresh from walking the once gang-plagued streets of this capital's most notorious and feared slum, Kendrick Meek warned Haitians to stay home and not attempt to take risky boat trips from Haiti.

''I want to discourage anyone that is even thinking about it from taking to the sea. Nine times of 10, they will be deported or even lose their life at sea,'' Meek told Haitians after ending a seven-hour trip along with Navy Adm. Jim Stavridis, who heads the U.S. Southern Command. ``I've seen the U.S. Coast Guard tapes of hundreds of Haitians dying at sea when boats tip over at night.''

Meek and Stavridis flew in and out of Haiti Monday, meeting with Haiti, U.N. and U.S. officials, but not before Meek -- a Miami Democrat who represents the largest voting bloc of Haitian immigrants -- also toured Cité Soleil on foot.

Barely a month ago, few would dare venture into the heart of the slum, where gangs freely roamed, bringing kidnapping victims by boat late at night.

My sources tell me that Meek has been getting grilled on creole radio stations, many feel he isn't doing enough for the Haitian community. He faced a primary challenge in 2006 over this issue so stayed tuned.
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When House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn addresses a joint session of the legislature in his home state of South Carolina on April 10, he will do so with a sense of pride — and a sense of history.

The fact that Clyburn will become the first African-American congressman in more than a century to address the General Assembly is not because the legislators failed to invite any of Clyburn’s black predecessors: Between 1897 and Clyburn’s first election in 1992, there were none.

The Capitol building in which Clyburn will speak is the same one where statutes passed in the late 19th century — known as “Jim Crow” laws — essentially deprived the state’s large black population of the franchise and other civil rights.

Not until the enactment of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, when Clyburn already was 25 years old, were African-Americans able to vote freely in South Carolina. Not until that law, as amended, was interpreted in the early 1990s as effectively requiring the creation of more districts that would elect minorities to Congress did South Carolina create the black-majority district, the 6th, that enabled Clyburn to win his seat in the House.

His rapport with colleagues and skill as an inside political player were quickly evident. Elected as co-president of the House freshman Class of 1992, he later earned a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, served as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and quietly but effectively moved up the House Democratic leadership ladder.

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CULTURE
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Uncle Ben will return as CEO?!?! I don't know how you feel about this but I keep laughing. I know I should take it more serious because of the history but...

A racially charged advertising character, who for decades has been relegated to a minor role in the marketing of the products that still carry his name, is taking center stage in a campaign that gives him a makeover — Madison Avenue style — by promoting him to chairman of the company.

The character is Uncle Ben, the symbol for more than 60 years of the Uncle Ben’s line of rices and side dishes now sold by the food giant Mars. The challenges confronting Mars in reviving a character as racially fraught as Uncle Ben were evidenced in the reactions of experts to a redesigned Web site (unclebens.com), which went live this week.

“This is an interesting idea, but for me it still has a very high cringe factor,” said Luke Visconti, partner at Diversity Inc. Media in Newark, which publishes a magazine and Web site devoted to diversity in the workplace.

“There’s a lot of baggage associated with the image,” Mr. Visconti said, which the makeover “is glossing over.”

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Black stars bring faith into the open as we get closer to 2008 and he here the term "Value Voters" (only applied to White people who go to conservative churches) we need to remind Democrats to remember there are lots of Progressive Christians. All Democrast should take a page from how Black Celebrities talk about religion. They need to not only do the "Black Church Rally before Election time" but also visit Hispanic and Progressive White Denominations (Episcopalians, UCC, ect)

Throughout the industry, where many white entertainers hide their light under a bushel, their African-American equivalents are more than happy to let it shine.
For instance, at this year's Oscars, Jennifer Hudson and Forest Whitaker were the only two winners to thank God in their acceptance speeches.

It's a cultural thing, says Reuben Cannon, who produced Bishop T.D. Jakes' "Woman Thou Art Loosed" and the Tyler Perry features for Lionsgate: "The open expression of faith and belief in God among African-Americans has always been there. It is simply embracing that which most African-Americans were raised with, which is the black church. We know we've come this far by faith, and our success will be in direct proportion to our faith."

While Hollywood sometimes fears that religion will drive away auds, the opposite often proves true with black entertainment. Many of the arena's biggest stars manage to be devout without coming across preachy or square.

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Food for thought. I will let yall make up your own mind on this one. For some black fraternities, body branding is a symbol of devotion

When Kenny Curtis got his first brand, he wanted to scream because of the pain, but he couldn’t because of the towel in his mouth.

Curtis, a 23-year-old senior at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha. He has the number 1 branded on his right arm and the symbol for Alpha Phi Alpha on his left.

The tradition of branding, which is a third degree burn on the skin that results in a scar, is a complex practice in black fraternities. To its supporters, branding is a visual aid that shows commitment to a Greek organization. To critics, it is a barbaric act.

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MONEY
This is a must read. The gentrification of rundown city neighborhoods conjures an image of well-off whites displacing poor minorities. What's actually going on is far more complex, and the winners and losers can be hard to predict. As minorities become wealthier many of the homes being bought in "urban renewal" projects are being purchased by middle class minorities. I found it hard to find a good part to quote but it's a very good read.
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2007-03-30T05:53:00.000-07:00

I am so mad at this. I can't even begin to write how mad I am. I will begin an email campaign. I really hope that maybe we can get a large progressive organization to hold it's debate on the same day in order to put the CBC and Fox on the spot.

Fox Sets 2 Debates With Congressional Black Caucus

In a statement accompanying the Fox announcement, chairman of the C.B.C., Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, said this:
“As a leading organization dedicated to educating the public on issues of national policy, the CBC Institute is committed to presenting the presidential candidates to the broadest audience possible.”
“Our goal with each debate is to provide a platform that will allow voters to hear the positions of candidates from both political parties. Collaborating with FOX News provides an opportunity to take this presidential election to millions of households.”

According to Fox:

The first of the two debates will be among Democratic candidates and will be held on September 23rd at the Fox Theater in Detroit. The second debate will be among Republican candidates and will take place in the fall of 2007 at a location to be determined. Both debates will serve as a forum for the candidates to make their platforms known.

The CBC thinks this debate will get the GOP to talk about civil rights and issues of color. Instead it will give Foz another opportunity to run their tired old line that "Democrats take the Black vote for granted" and "How more and more Blacks are becoming Republicans" (statistics don't back this up), yada yada yada. The CBC just gave their progressive base the middle finger!

This isn’t the first time the C.B.C. has paired with Fox. It did so in 2003 as a runup to the 2004 election cycle.
The C.B.C. sent out its own release announcing the debate schedule. And it also provided toward the end, a justification perhaps, for this deal:
Fox News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour general news service covering breaking news as well as political, entertainment and business news. For five years, FNC has been the most watched cable news channel in the nation and currently presents 9 out of the top 10 programs in cable news. Owned by News Corp., FNC is available in more than 85 million homes.

Bringing back home in New Orleans. The devastated Lower 9th Ward is still beautiful to two sisters with deep roots there. They're rebuilding not just houses but their neighborhood.

Today, the Lower 9th Ward is a dreary landscape of deserted brick and wood-frame structures, concrete slabs where homes once stood, unshaded streets and sidewalks buckled by uprooted live oaks and weeks of standing water. At night, a graveyard silence is broken only by the skittering of rats.

It is about as inhospitable a place as exists in post-Katrina New Orleans.

And yet sisters Tanya Harris and Tracy Flores are moving back.

To them, the "Lower 9" is still beautiful. In her mind's eye, Harris is fishing with her grandfather in Bayou Bienvenue at the end of the street where his house stood. She and her sister are sitting on his front porch "door-popping," their grandfather's term for playful gossip and people-watching.

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CULTURE

How did a sport with so much support amongst African-Americans for most of its History, come to this? Where most
inner-city schools lack funding, equipment to support baseball programs

Their coach, Marcus Rogers, would have preferred them to have been playing or practicing Saturday on a baseball diamond, like many of the rest of Shelby-Metro's top high school baseball programs.
Instead, the Fairley Bulldogs spent Saturday morning and most of the afternoon gathered near the front entrances of a Whitehaven Wal-Mart, hustling team baseball cards for $10 a pop to raise money for transportation, equipment and other key needs for the Bulldogs' 2007 baseball season.

"Man, I'm ready to be through with this stuff and to concentrate on just baseball, but it's kind of hard. You've got to have money to do this."

As Saturday's inaugural Civil Rights Game at AutoZone Park commemorating the civil rights movement and baseball's role in it approaches, Rogers, reflecting on his own team's plight and those of the other predominantly black high school baseball programs in the city, described the harsh reality that faces today's inner-city teams.

Unlike their predominantly white county school counterparts that typically clobber the Bulldogs every postseason, Fairley has no baseball booster club, leaving Rogers and his players on their own when it comes to raising money for basic team needs.

Rather than practicing or playing, the Bulldogs have spent much of the early part of this season selling $10 team baseball cards that offer discounts and benefits at area businesses.

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For Some Black Pastors, Accepting Gay Members Means Losing Others

When the Rev. Dennis Meredith of Tabernacle Baptist Church here began preaching acceptance of gay men and lesbians a few years ago, he attracted some gay people who were on the brink of suicide and some who had left the Baptist faith of their childhoods but wanted badly to return.

At the same time, Tabernacle Baptist, an African-American congregation, lost many of its most loyal, generous parishioners, who could not accept a message that contradicted what they saw as the Bible’s condemnation of same-sex relations. Over the last three years, Tabernacle’s Sunday attendance shrank to 800, from 1,100.

The debate about homosexuality that has roiled predominantly white mainline churches for years has gradually seeped into African-American congregations, threatening their unity, finances and, in some cases, their existence.

In St. Paul, the Rev. Oliver White, senior minister of Grace Community Church, lost nearly all his 70 congregants after he voted in 2005 to support the blessing of same-sex unions in his denomination, the United Church of Christ.

In the Atlanta area, a hub of African-American life, only a few black churches have preached acceptance of gay men and lesbians, Mr. Meredith said. At one of those congregations, Victory Church in Stone Mountain, attendance on Sundays has fallen to 3,000 people, from about 6,000 four or five years ago, said the Rev. Kenneth L. Samuel, the senior pastor.

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Who's gifted? Miami-Dade schools are expanding gifted programs to better represent poor and black students. In Broward, and across the state, Black and poor students are less likely to be identified as gifted.

Their high IQs are their rudders, propelling them through a challenging subject with little guidance or explanation from their teacher.

This gifted class, like others across the Broward County public school district, offers intense, advanced lessons in unique ways to teach students who need an outside-the-box, abstract approach to traditional subjects.

But identifying gifted students is inconsistent, and poor and minority students are often overlooked. Despite Broward's efforts to diversify gifted classes, the numbers show students who are poor or black are the least likely to be recognized as gifted.

Forty-one percent of Broward students are from low-income families, yet poor students make up only 19 percent of the district's gifted classes.

''There is a belief system in this society that being gifted and being a minority or being from poverty don't go together,'' said Joyce VanTassel-Baska, president of the National Association of Gifted Children.

And it may get worse.

Like many other districts, Broward and Miami-Dade allow some leeway for minority and poor students who score less than the 130 IQ score required for gifted. This is because poor students and those learning English may do well on parts of an IQ test but may not be able to score well on areas requiring strong reading and verbal skills.

''These kids really may be extremely bright, but have not had the opportunities other students have had,'' explains Beth Klein, a Weston clinical psychologist.

But Florida is poised to do away with those accommodations. To get into gifted programs, students who score lower on IQ tests will have to score high on the FCATs and other achievement tests -- ones requiring strong reading skills -- regardless of whether they are poor or learning English.

Look no further than the number of gifted students enrolled in some of the county's poorest schools to understand the disparity among gifted classes. At 33 schools where at least half the students are poor, 10 or fewer students have been identified as gifted.

At Sunland Park Elementary in Fort Lauderdale, for example, where 86

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ABC Family Takes Drama to Daring, New Heights Russell Hornsby is all over the map. He's making movies, shooting a TV drama — ABC Family's Lincoln Heights, which airs a new episode tonight at 7 pm/ET —

TVGuide.com: What do you like most about playing Eddie?
Hornsby: I like the fact that he is three-dimensional, that I get to show both sides, because there aren't many African-American dramas on television that are dealing specifically with the black man. To look at this black man as a well-rounded character and see that this is a man who has integrity, heart, humanity and a sense of soul and spirit about him, that's the most fun for me. I modeled Eddie Sutton after my two uncles who live in the Roxbury section of Boston, Massachusetts. They both work in law and government — one is a judge and the other is a constable — and they grew up in the ghetto. They went away to college, but they came back. The judge is now sending friends of his, or their sons and daughters, to jail. I sat in his courtroom and what I saw was that people had respect for him, because not only did he stay, but he was fair. My uncle who's a constable has to evict old friends and their kids from their apartments, because they haven't paid in three, four, five or six months. When you have examples to draw from, it's a much richer experience.

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POLITICS
Patrick Shaped by Father's Absence. As a child, Deval Patrick endured the painful absence of his father, Pat Patrick, a talented sax player who traveled the world with the legendary Sun Ra Arkestra.

He was 18 years old and his family was gathered in the crowded Milton Academy gymnasium on a rainy summer morning in 1974 to watch him graduate. Suddenly, his father, who had largely abandoned the family 15 years earlier and had seen his son rarely, showed up unexpectedly. Deval was not happy to see him.

Patrick's family -- his mother, grandparents, and sister -- sat though the ceremony rigid with tension, angrily eyeing Pat Patrick at the end of the row. And then as they all drove in his grandfather's Buick toward a restaurant to celebrate, his parents began to fight. They screamed at each other, and curses flew. Patrick senior, an emotional man who had opposed his son's attending the elite private school, broke into tears.

Through it all, Deval sat quietly in the front seat. When the car stopped at a light he got out, slammed the door, and stamped back to his dorm.

"It was a disaster," the governor recalled in an interview in his State House office. "I am thinking, this is supposed to be my day. . . . I just bailed."

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Why is there so much racial profiling allowed in Jury cases? St' Louis County is about 50/50 Black and White. So how do you get a jury (twice) that is so far from the demographic medium? The victims in this case were Black so it's not that the Prosecution wanted Whites to be outraged and choose the Death Penalty. It seems that many prosecutors (in my opinion) don't think Blacks are tough enough on crime. For the second time in less than a year, the Missouri Supreme Court has struck down a death sentence over concerns that St. Louis County prosecutors removed blacks from juries for "racially discriminatory reasons."

Both cases involved the same defendant, Vincent McFadden, 26, but separate death sentences were recommended by separate juries for separate murders.

Assistant Public Defender Janet M. Thompson, who argued the case, said the decision, announced Tuesday, reflects a pattern of excluding blacks.

She said her office has unsuccessfully sought data from judges on the rate at which blacks are excluded in St. Louis County juries, and is now calling for lawyers to create their own tracking system.Advertisement
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch and an assistant were too busy to talk about the case, an employee said Tuesday.

Mark Bishop, who prosecuted both cases for McCulloch's office and is now in private practice, said there was no policy to exclude blacks.

"My hands are tied as far as giving my real opinion about the decision," he said. "I do want to point out that every one of McFadden's victims was African-American. Every witness was African-American. My whole focus was to get justice for these victims. It doesn't matter to me if they're African-American or not. It does not matter to me if he's African-American or not."

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ARIANNA HUFFINGTON writes a strong editorial in the L:A Times dealing with the fact that " Democratic presidential candidates crave the Latino and black vote, but ignore the Drug War's unfair toll on people of color." Her editorial is titled:
The war on drugs' war on minorities

THERE IS A subject being forgotten in the 2008 Democratic race for the White House.

While all the major candidates are vying for the black and Latino vote, they are completely ignoring one of the most pressing issues affecting those constituencies: the failed "war on drugs" — a war that has morphed into a war on people of color.

Consider this: According to a 2006 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, African Americans make up an estimated 15% of drug users, but they account for 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted and 74% of all drug offenders sentenced to prison. Or consider this: The U.S. has 260,000 people in state prisons on nonviolent drug charges; 183,200 (more than 70%) of them are black or Latino.

Such facts have been bandied about for years. But our politicians have consistently failed to take action on what has become yet another third rail of American politics, a subject to be avoided at all costs by elected officials who fear being incinerated on contact for being soft on crime.

Perhaps you hoped this would change during a spirited Democratic presidential primary? Unfortunately, a quick search of the top Democratic hopefuls' websites reveals that not one of them — not Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama, not John Edwards, not Joe Biden, not Chris Dodd, not Bill Richardson — even mentions the drug war, let alone offers any solutions.

The silence coming from Clinton and Obama is particularly deafening.

Obama has written eloquently about his own struggle with drugs but has not addressed the tragic effect the war on drugs is having on African American communities.

As for Clinton, she flew into Selma, Ala., to reinforce her image as the wife of the black community's most beloved politician and has made much of her plan to attract female voters, but she has ignored the suffering of poor, black women right in her own backyard.

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INTERNATIONAL
Diamonds Move From Blood to Sweat and Tears

Diamond mining in Sierra Leone is no longer the bloody affair made infamous by the nation’s decade-long civil war, in which diamonds played a starring role.

The conflict — begun by rebels who claimed to be ridding the mines of foreign control — killed 50,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes, destroyed the country’s economy and shocked the world with its images of amputated limbs and drug-addled boy soldiers.

An international regulatory system created after the war has prevented diamonds from fueling conflicts and financing terrorist networks. Even so, diamond mining in Sierra Leone remains a grim business that brings the government far too little revenue to right the devastated country, yet feeds off the desperation of some of the world’s poorest people. “The process is more to sanitize the industry from the market side rather than the supply side,” said John Kanu, a policy adviser to the Integrated Diamond Management Program, a United States-backed effort to improve the government’s handling of diamond money. “To make it so people could go to buy a diamond ring and to say, ‘Yes, because of this system, there are no longer any blood diamonds. So my love, and my conscience, can sleep easily.’

“But that doesn’t mean that there is justice,” he said. “That will take a lot, lot longer to change.”

In many cases, the vilified foreign mine owners have simply been replaced by local elites with a firm grip on the industry’s profits.

At the losing end are the miners here in Kono District, who work for little or no pay, hoping to strike it rich but caught in a net of semifeudal relationships that make it all but impossible that they ever will.

A vast majority of Sierra Leone’s diamonds are mined by hand from alluvial deposits near the earth’s surface, so anyone with a shovel, a bucket and a sieve can go into business; and in a country with few formal jobs, at least 150,000 people work as diggers, government officials said.

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Zimbabwean Opposition Leader Released

The country's main opposition leader was freed after being held by police for several hours, party officials said Thursday, as southern African leaders gathered in Tanzania to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe.

Police denied arresting Morgan Tsvangirai as he prepared to talk to reporters about a wave of political violence that left him briefly hospitalized.

State media reported that police had seized weapons and explosives at the party's headquarters during a raid.

Officials with the Movement for Democratic Change denied the allegations.

''The MDC does not have any arsenal of weapons or armed movement; the story is not credible,'' said Tsvangirai's aide, Eliphas Mukonoweshuro.

He said the opposition was not waging an armed terror campaign against the government, as authorities had claimed. Police had said they arrested a total of 35 opposition members in recent days, saying they belonged

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Uganda's Early Gains Against HIV Eroding

Students packed a grassy field at Makerere University in April 1989 for a farewell concert by singer Philly Lutaaya. This symbol of swaggering virility had grown gaunt, with splotchy skin and the fine, sparse hair of a baby. He sang hauntingly, "Today it's me, tomorrow it's somebody else."

Between songs, he warned the stunned crowd that having several sex partners was a sure way to die in the age of AIDS, echoing pleas also made by political and religious leaders of the time. When Lutaaya died that December, at age 38, the country already had begun its historic reversal of the epidemic, researchers say, because of the power of that single, terrifying message.

Despite this success story, unmatched elsewhere on this AIDS-ridden continent, no country has entirely replicated Uganda's approach. Most instead have followed a diffuse palette of other remedies pushed by Western donors -- condom promotion, abstinence training, HIV testing, drug treatment and stigma reduction -- while forgoing what research shows worked here: fear and a relentless focus on sexual fidelity.

Even in Uganda, these key ingredients have been lost as a new generation coming of age years after Lutaaya's death indulges in the same reckless behavior that first spread the disease so widely.

"We saw him. We saw him die. We abandoned the girlfriends," said Swizen Kyomuhendo, a social scientist at Makerere, who was an undergraduate when Lutaaya spoke there. "When you look at the university students now, they are not as terrified as we were then."

The percentage of sexually active men with multiple partners has more than doubled in recent years, undoing earlier declines, surveys show. Reports of sexually transmitted diseases among women, another indicator of dangerous behavior, have risen sharply as well

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Welcome to Jerusalem, Africa

Ethiopia's Orthodox Christians are among the oldest Christian communities in the world. Their hymns and prayers have been preserved and passed down over the ages. But with its numerous religious holidays, the Christian tradition also worsens the country's grinding poverty.

From the air, Lalibela looks like any other village. An ocean of corrugated iron huts, shrouded by thin columns of smoke that condense into a bluish haze below the rocky plateau. It's a familiar sight all across Ethiopia.

But Lalibela isn't just another village. It's the capital of Ethiopia's Christians, their "holy place," their "wonder of the world." And nowhere else is this clearer than at Bet Gyiorgis, the Church of St. George. The monumental structure - chiseled out of the rocks on the town's western fringes - is some 800 years old. Built in the form of a cross, it is ringed by a dry moat that helps set it apart from the 10 other rock churches, all of which are interconnected by subterranean tunnels.

The interior is dimly lit with beef-tallow lamps. A little daylight filters through the narrow windows. The smell of incense hangs in the air. Elderly, bearded men in white robes are seated along the walls, reading handwritten bibles.

A pious murmuring resounds throughout the church, softly punctuated by harp music teased by a boy from his bagana - a wooden string instrument embellished with gleaming brass plates.

Some 40 percent of the 68 million Ethiopians are Orthodox Christians. Their faith and traditions hark back some 1,600 years. According to the legend, their church was established as the unintended consequence of a kidnapping. Two Christians named Frumentios and Aidesios - both residents of Tyre - were accosted on the Red Sea and abducted to Aksum, Ethiopia's capital at the time. Being educated people, they were soon installed as private tutors to the royal family. They not only taught the king's children mathematics and Greek, but imparted the fundamentals of their Christian faith as well.

Contemporary of Genghis Khan

And they were evidently persuasive. In the middle of the 4th century, King Ezana decided to become baptized. Just a few years later Christianity was proclaimed the state religion. Despite this, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church was headed for centuries by a metropolitan who was appointed by the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria. It wasn't until the middle of the past century that the Ethiopian church became autonomous and appointed its own patriarch in Addis Ababa. Alongside the 17 eparchies in Ethiopia, bishoprics in Nubia and in Jerusalem now fall under his aegis.

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EDUCATION
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Morehouse the all Male, Historically Black College in Atlanta Georgia is going through some trying times. Morehouse Searches for a Leader and a Way to Keep Making Gains

Morehouse, the only all-male historically black college in the country, has long possessed an aura of impeccability and privilege. Founded to serve newly freed slaves, it has educated generations of the black elite, counting among its graduates Maynard Jackson, the first black mayor of Atlanta; David Satcher, a former surgeon general; the film director Spike Lee; and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

But if its place in history is secure, Morehouse’s future has often, in the past decade, seemed precarious. And it will reach a milestone this spring, when Walter E. Massey, who became president in 1995, retires. Dr. Massey has been credited with helping the college rebound from hard times. As Morehouse searches for a replacement, many students and faculty members say the stakes are high if the college is to consolidate its gains.

When Dr. Massey took over, applications were declining because the country’s top colleges had stepped up their pursuit of qualified black men. The historic campus in the heart of Atlanta was aging. The endowment, at $118 million, is still relatively tiny; Swarthmore, a smaller institution, has more than $1 billion.

This year, applications are expected to reach 3,100, up from fewer than 2,700 last year. Four new buildings have been completed, and the ground will soon be broken for a fifth, a performing arts center.

Last year, the college took custody of the papers of Dr. King, bought with $32 million raised by Atlanta’s mayor, Shirley Franklin. And the college completed its largest fund-raising effort to date, a capital campaign taking in $120 million.

Not all the news has been good. In August, Morehouse dropped in an annual ranking by Black Enterprise magazine, from the top institution for African-Americans to No. 45. Dr. Massey said this was because the magazine placed more weight on graduation rates and used data from a Morehouse class that had a particularly low one.

The college has since introduced a scholarship for upperclassmen, to help increase the graduation rate, now at 61 percent. It has also received a $500,000 grant to recruit Hispanic students.

Over the summer, four former students were charged with murdering a current student in what prosecutors say was a robbery attempt. In September, students from Spelman, Morehouse’s sister school, marched on campus in protest after rumors of multiple rapes, which later proved unfounded, by Morehouse students. The result was soul-searching throughout the campus.

“The guys just felt, you know, that the world was collapsing,” Dr. Massey said. “I tried to put it in perspective” by explaining that the timing of the episodes was coincidental.

This year, Morehouse began requiring interviews for applicants, a move that some students on campus viewed as a response to the murder indictments, but that the administration says was done to match the practices of other exclusive colleges.

Naturally the college wants a new leader who will continue to raise its profile. But alumni and students, some of whom fret over the inroads of hip-hop and gangsta cultures on campus, have also wondered whether the choice of someone like the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, would signal a renewed emphasis on moral leadership. Mr. Butts, who is also president of SUNY College at Old Westbury, is one of the many influential black pastors still minted at Morehouse.

Other frequently mentioned candidates include Michael L. Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund; Robert Franklin Jr., a professor at the Candler School of Theology at Emory; and John S. Wilson, a faculty member and former executive dean at George Washington University’s Virginia campus. All are, like Dr. Massey, “Morehouse men,” or graduates of the college.

Dr. Massey, a physicist who directed the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts under President George H. W. Bush, left the post of provost of the University of California system to return to Morehouse because, he said, he thought he could have a greater impact at a small institution. He said his goal was to push Morehouse into the ranks of the country’s top liberal arts colleges. But one of his first jobs on arrival was raising money.

“We really had not had, in 20 or 30 years, a capital campaign,” he said. “There was no focused and concerted effort to generate funds and support. But the name Morehouse always resonated positively, even though people didn’t know too much about it. Some people didn’t even know it was all-male.”

Playing on, and against, the much-discussed plight of young black men, Dr. Massey tapped celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, who has given $11 million during Dr. Massey’s tenure, and Ray Charles, who gave $2 million to the capital campaign. Other contributors include David Geffen, who gave $500,000.

Dr. Massey persuaded corporations like Bank of America, Motorola and American Express to think of their contributions as substantial investments rather than token support. All three became major givers. “We’re not a charity. We’re not a poor small struggling school in the South that’s going to fail if you don’t give it money,” Dr. Massey said, recounting his sales pitch. “I also make the case that not all black men are in danger of falling off a cliff.”

A sign that the college was meeting its academic goals came in 2003, Dr. Massey said, when a study by The Wall Street Journal ranked Morehouse 29th on a list of the top 50 feeder schools for the country’s most prestigious graduate programs, ahead of Emory, Brandeis, Reed and Washington University in St. Louis.

Still, Dr. Massey points out that despite its prestige, Morehouse is poor. Its endowment breaks down to $42,000 per student, compared with $360,000 per student at nearby Emory and more than $1 million per student at the wealthiest institutions.

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MONEY
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I have very mixed emotions on this one. On one hand I can see the employers point, but also employees need to make a living and how else can they improve their credit but to make more money? I guess this why Harry Truman wanted a handed economist.Credit checks: A civil-rights issue?

Lisa Bailey worked for five months at Harvard University as a temp entering donations into a database. When the university made the job a salaried position, Bailey, who is black, saw a chance to lift herself out of dead-end jobs.

Bailey's superiors encouraged her to apply, she says, but turned her down after discovering her bad credit history.

Bailey, with her lawyer, has lodged a complaint against Harvard charging racial discrimination. The reason: Studies indicate that minorities are more likely to have bad credit, but credit problems have not been shown to negatively affect job performance.

Some privacy and minority advocates are now seeing credit as a civil-rights issue as minorities start to fight employers and insurers who base decisions on credit histories. Their effort could slow the near doubling in credit checks by employers in the past decade, which affects millions of Americans who are struggling with debt.

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