Word up

"On the plantations, a strong black man was mated with a strong black woman. ((Blacks)) were simply bred for physical qualities." These words were spoken by black Olympic Gold Medalist Lee Evans, a militant protester against white racism during the 1960s.In 1971 Evans was quoted in a SPORTS ILLUSTRATED article on the physiological differences between blacks and whites. Now fast forward 17 years later to 1988 and Jimmy The Greek “The black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be that way , because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. This goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trading, the owner the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid.”Now after these comments Jimmy The Greek was subsequently fired from CBS and lambasted by none other than Jesse Jackson, The NAACP and numerous news organizations. I remember thinking ”Well damn isn’t that what happened on the plantations? Slaves were bred to be bigger ,stronger and work harder”

Last month journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann reported remarks in their new book, "Game Change," that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stated during Obama’s presidential campaign that as a black candidate, he could be successful , in part,due to his "light-skinned" appearance and speaking patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."they say he, Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination," .Now mind you this was supposed to be a private conversation,but that is not the point I am making. I know for a fact that a lot of people agreed with this. I had numerous conversations with friends and family, black and white who felt the same way about Obama. Of course there was a firestorm after the remarks were made public. Republicans were calling for Harry Reid to resign, comparing his remark with these made by Trent Lott at the 100th birthday party of Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina in 2002. Lott said: "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either .Thurmond ran for President of the United States in 1948 on the Dixiecrat (or States' Rights) ticket. Which at the time meant Thurmond had based his presidential campaign largely on an explicit racial segregation platform. Now the difference between remarks, is that Harry Reid has a history of working on African American issues and Trent Lott was a known racist homophobe.

I do have to agree with something RNC head Michael Steele said “ If Harry Reid were a Republican he would have been forced to resign for these racist remarks “. The Wall Street Journal has recently reported that in a closed-door meeting last summer, Obama’s top aide and political pit bull Rahm Emanuel called liberal specialinterest groups that wanted to run ads against conservative Democrats, who did not support healthcare reform "f—— retarded," When informed about the comment, Sarah Palin, whose child has Down syndrome, posted a note on Facebook alleging Emanuel’s words amounted to a "racial slur." "Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities is unacceptable," she wrote, adding that President Obama should "show decency" by removing the Chicago politician from his inner circle. Fast forward two days later on conservative Rush Limbaugh’s radio show “Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards,” Rush said,

The former governor was on FOX news the other day and went to great and sometimes awkward lengths to insist that when conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh used the same exact term to describe the same exact group, it was simply in the role of political humorist. According her "They are kooks, so I agree with Rush Limbaugh," she said, when read a quote of Limbaugh calling liberal groups "retards." "Rush Limbaugh was using satire “I didn't hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with 'f-ing retards,' and we did know that Rahm Emanuel, as has been reported, did say that. There is a big difference there." Okay maybe I’m missing something, but Limbaugh was doing the same thing exact thing ,but since he has such a strong conservative following she doesn’t want to alienate him. Fair enough, I know your wondering what all these incidents have in common. Well people are hypocrites, we black, white ,Hispanic all of us seem to get offended by words or statements from people we don’t agree with politically or share anything in common with socially. Stop the double standard or at least recognize it for what it is. The next time someone says something offensive or that can be perceived as offensive, check your mental rolodex and see if what they said is true or are you just being overly sensitive. In the immortal words of Dap from “School Daze” WAKE UP!!!!!!

Back to the Future II

“Just when I thought I was out they pulled me back in” Al Pacino said that in The Godfather III.A memorable line, in an otherwise forgettable movie. That is how I feel about our current president. It wasn’t that I had lost faith in the “Audacity of Hope” per se, just that the agenda he set was not coming to fruition as fast as we hoped. I had misgivings as I wrote about last year Back to The Future .I still feel like there is a lot for this president to accomplish, if given time. I also ,at one point felt maybe, just maybe he was like all the other politicians.All smoke and mirrors. Then he gave us The State of the Union speech last night .It was then I remembered why I voted for him in the first place. He wants to repeal “don’t ask don’t tell” in regards to Gays in the military. This was put in place during the Clinton administration, and never really made sense to me anyway. In the words of Chris Rock “if they want to fight, let em fight, I ain’t fighting”. He didn’t hit on healthcare reform that much, which has been his Achilles heel. Well that and the constant bickering from both sides about being bi-partisan, the bank bailouts and the failing economy. Here is the speech in it’s entirety .

Truth ,Justice and The American way

First and foremost I want to send my prayers out to our Haitan brother and sisters in this trying time.America with all of our faults will still be a beacon of hope as we unite and see you through this dark period in your country's storied history.Now on to the Blog of the week.The Supreme Court has tossed out a lower court ruling that nullified the death sentence for former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of gunning down a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, police officer more than 28 years ago. Jamal a former Black Panther has long claimed that racism was the main reason he was even convicted. He also feels that procedural errors during his capital sentencing, and that too few blacks on the jury led to the death penalty punishment Pennsylvania officials were appealing a federal court ruling on the sentencing question that went in Abu-Jamal's favor in 2008. The justices made their announcement Monday, ordering a federal appeals court to revisit its earlier ruling granting a new sentencing hearing. The high court last year denied Abu-Jamal's separate petition for a new trial. The appeals court now has the option of reimposing the death sentence or ordering a new federal trial to hear other claims of injustice raised by Abu-Jamal.


Born Wesley Cook in 1954,Mumia was a member of the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther party, he served as the Minister of Information when he was just 15 years old. Philadelphia prosecutors contended at trial in 1982 that Officer Michael Faulkner stopped Abu-Jamal's brother in an early-morning vehicle check. Abu-Jamal, then driving a cab, saw his brother's car and the uniformed officer, parked the taxi, and ran to the scene. Prosecutors argued that Abu-Jamal confronted Faulkner and fatally shot him. Abu-Jamal himself was found shot and slumped against a curb a few steps from the slain officer. Mumia’s website freemumia.com states” On the night in question he was driving his cab through the red light district of downtown Philadelphia at around 4 a.m. Mumia testifies that he let off a fare and parked near the corner of 13th and Locust Streets. Upon hearing gunshots, he turned and saw his brother, William Cook, staggering in the street. Mumia exited the cab and ran to the scene, where he was shot by a uniformed police officer and fell to the ground, fading in and out of consciousness. Within minutes, police arrived on the scene to find Officer Faulkner and Mumia shot; Faulkner died. Mumia was arrested, savagely beaten, thrown into a paddy wagon and driven to a hospital a few blocks away (suspiciously, it took over 30 minutes to arrive at the hospital). Mumia somehow survived.”

Now I don’t know what happened that night,but I do know that in the 60’s the FBI initiated a program called “COINTELPRO” whose objective was to neutralize what they considered Black Nationalist Hate Groups. The Black Panther Party (BPP) was not among the original "Black Nationalist" targets. In September 1968, however, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the Panthers as: "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country” By July 1969, the Black Panthers had become the primary focus of the program, and was ultimately the target of 233 of the total authorized "Black Nationalist" COINTELPRO actions. Mumia was an active BPP member from May 1969 until October 1970 was subject to Federal Bureau of Investigation COINTELPRO surveillance from then until about 1974.He was an outspoken advocate against police brutality where he railed against the “establishment” via his radio show and also in his writings. Contrary to popular opinion or belief Cointelpro is still active today it just isn’t called Cointelpro anymore. Back to the matter at hand, the courts decision basically means that the prosecution can now attempt to reinstate the death penalty sentence that was originally handed down, or order a new federal trial to hear other claims of injustice raised by Mumia.It will be interesting to see what happens next, as I wrote last year some states don’t have the finances to execute death row prisoners at this time Death Row..what a brother know!!! . Mumia Abu Jamal has been on death row for almost 30 years. Will we have to wait another 30 before we know the truth?Is that cruel and unusual punishment or poetic justice?

Same Old Same Old

I’m back for the new decade folks, my vacation is over. It is now 2010, you would think that celebrities athletes and entertainers would cease the ignorance. I guess they didn’t get the memo. We have Gilbert Arenas who is under investigation by federal and local authorities after admittedly bringing guns into the Washington Wizards' locker room. On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that according to first-hand accounts, teammate Javaris Crittenton, whose disagreement with Arenas is what supposedly instigated the incident, loaded and cocked his own gun in response to Arenas. This was allegedly the result of a gambling debt between the two players. The New York Post had earlier reported that during the incident, Arenas and Crittenton had drawn weapons and pointed them at each other. Arenas disputed this account ,but according to the The Washington Post, citing two first-hand accounts of the incident, reported that after Arenas laid out four guns in Crittenton's locker with a note that said "pick one," Crittenton brandished his own weapon, loaded it and chambered a round. So let me see if I have this straight two multimillionaires pull guns on each other and attempt a duel over a gambling debt . Is this The Source Awards? Needless to say Arenas was suspended indefinitely without pay Wednesday by NBA commissioner David Stern . Granted this incident happened before the New Year , but Arenas actions after it speaks volumes about why he is called Agent Zero.
Arenas tried joking about his gun trouble by saying he uses humor to deal with stress. He said in a statement Monday that he took unloaded guns from his locker in a "misguided effort to play a joke" on a teammate. Then to add insult to injury he was photographed before a game in Philadelphia playfully pointing his index fingers at his teammates as if they were guns. When is it ever funny to joke about shooting someone? Especially in Washington D.C which was once the murder capital of America. Where young black men lose their lives everyday due to gun violence. With each game he misses, Arenas, who turned 28 on Wednesday, will lose about $147,200 of the $16.2 million he will earn this season in the second of a six-year, $111 million contract. As of Wednesday he had $9,429,505.41 remaining for this season. Arenas has been suspended once before because of a gun-related matter. He sat out Washington's season opener in 2004 because he failed to keep proper registration of a handgun while living in California in 2003 and playing for the Warriors.

Arenas initially stated he was bringing the guns to Washington because he just had a baby girl, and didn’t want them around the house anymore. NBA suspensions for on-court violations that last more than 12 games can be appealed and heard by an arbitrator. Yet it remains to be seen if Arenas' case, which involved transporting firearms from his home to the Verizon Center before the confrontation with Crittenton on a practice day, is treated as an on-court incident. According to ESPN.com one source with knowledge of the Wizards' thinking said that Arenas' teammates who participated in the pregame gun simulation against Philadelphia have been told they will be fined. The Wizards supported Stern's decision in a statement attributed to president Ernie Grunfeld and the Pollin family, which owns the team. The late Abe Pollin changed the team's name from the Bullets to the Wizards because of the violent connotation. According to Espn.com the firearms language was strengthened in the 2005 collective bargaining agreement. NBA players are subject to discipline if they bring guns to the arena, practice facility or an offsite promotional appearance. That gave Stern the option of taking action now instead of waiting until the completion of the criminal case. Well that and Arenas acting like a complete moron the entire time. You would think with what happened to Chedda Plax that athletes would learn, but I guess not. New Year ,New Decade same nigga sh*t.

Don't always believe the hype

A woman accused of cutting in line at a Wal-Mart, shoving merchandise and assaulting police officers will plead guilty to disturbing the peace and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors. Under the plea agreement, which was reached after the jury received the case for deliberations. Heather Ellis will plead guilty to disturbing the peace and resisting arrest. She will serve a year of unsupervised probation, attend an anger management course and serve four days in jail before the end of the year. Ellis, then a college student with no criminal history, has said that some white patrons shoved and hurled racial slurs at her when she switched checkout lines. Store employees refused to give her her change and called police, she said. As she left the store, Ellis told the Dunklin County Circuit Court, a police officer told her, "Look at this stupid bitch. Take your ass back to the ghetto. Ellis was also charged initially with assaulting a police officer" She did not resist, but said her body was "flung around" by officers. She screamed loudly for help as officers "choked" her and pulled her hair, but she did not hit or kick them, she testified. I don’t know whether she did any of those things or whether this is a racial issue or not according to CNN.com a camera from above the cash register appeared to show Ellis' arm shoving merchandise to the side on the register's conveyor belt. Another camera showed her being led out of the store by police, with her arm in the air. A third, from the parking lot, showed her being handcuffed and put into a police car. It appeared to show Ellis kicking backward at police, as authorities allege. Her defense maintains she did so after police had assaulted her.

A Louisiana justice of the peace who drew criticism for refusing to marry an interracial couple has resigned the secretary of state's office earlier this month. Keith Bardwell resigned in person at the Louisiana secretary of state's office. The state Supreme Court will appoint an interim justice of the peace to fill Bardwell's position, a special election will be held next year to fill the position permanently. Bardwell, a justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish's 8th Ward, refused to perform a marriage ceremony for Beth Humphrey, 30, and her boyfriend Terence McKay, 32 because he was concerned for the children that might be born of the relationship and that, in his experience, most interracial marriages don't last. The two were married by another justice of the peace. Bardwell also stated I'm not a racist," he said. "I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children."
‘It's kind of hard to apologize for something that you really and truly feel down in your heart you haven't done wrong," he said. There is the problem right there too many people still feel like this and have positions of power. I’m not one to pull out the race card on a whim, I am honestly not sure is this man is a racist or just plain ignorant. I know black women and men, who do not believe in dating or marrying outside their race. Are they racist? Or is it just keeping it real when we say it? As far as Heather Ellis goes, not everything is black and white or racially charged sometimes people just act like asses and have to the pay the price.

Death Row..what a brother know!!!

Charles Manson has spent more than half his life in prison for masterminding the notorious Helter Skelter killing spree that left actress Sharon Tate(wife of Roman Polanski another blog altogether) and six others dead in Los Angeles during the summer of 1969. While his appearance has changed significantly from the wide-eyed cult leader who appeared on the cover of Life magazine in 1969, Manson continues to wield influence over some who consider him a wizened messenger. According to CNN.com Prison officials say Manson still gets lots of mail and spends most of his days singing and playing guitar in a high security unit. This crime happened 40 years ago yet Charles Manson is still alive and actually has followers. He just celebrated his 75th birthday, he is able to celebrate and enjoy his birthday albeit in prison, but he is still aboveground and in reasonably good health. After the Manson Family killings probably the most notorious serial killer would be David Berkowitz , otherwise known as The Son of Sam. The twelve months of terror that David Berkowitz inflicted on the people of New York that culminated in 1977 was such a huge event that it became known as the Summer of Sam. Berkowitz confessed to killing six people and wounding seven others in the course of eight shootings in New York between 1976 and 1977; also this week John Allen Muhammad was executed by the state of Virginia on Tuesday night. During three weeks in October 2002, Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, Muhammad’s step son then 17, killed 10 people and wounded three, while taunting police with written messages and phoned-in threats and demands. During two trials and in years of appeals, Muhammad professed his innocence. One of his trials included testimony from Malvo, whose youth excluded him from consideration for the death penalty.

These are just a few instances where I’m perplexed by the justice system. Charles Manson and his followers brutally slaughtered 7 people yet he gets to remain alive and basically living off of tax dollars for 40 years and counting. John Muhammad had so little regard for human life that Prosecutors say he intended the killings to provide a smokescreen to cover up his real goal -- killing his ex-wife Mildred and gaining custody of his three children. Muhammad was put to death by lethal injection 7 years after the fact. David Berkowitz was sentenced to 365 years in prison. Since being imprisoned, David Berkowitz has undergone “religious” conversion. He has become a writer and evangelist, his supposed strongest desire is to repair the evil that came out of him during his madness. While redemption and repentance are things that I do believe in, I still think after killing people there has to be some type of retribution by the justice system. Some states don’t have the death penalty and others such as California spend more than $130 million a year on its capital punishment system -- housing and prosecuting inmates and coping with an appellate system that has kept some convicted killers waiting for an execution date since the late 1970s Forty executions have occurred so far in 2009 in 10 states, all by lethal injection. That total is up from 37 for all of last year, but less than half of the high of 98, from 10 years ago. The Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

The Death Penalty Information Center study found that death penalty costs can average $10 million more per year per state than life sentences. Increased costs include higher security needs and guaranteed access to an often lengthy pardon and appellate process. The group is an information resource on capital punishment, and opposes its application as unworkable, inefficient and prone to mistakes. Many death penalty proponents say part of the problem is that states have added unnecessary, time-consuming delays, and have been reluctant to carry out the death penalty that their own legislatures have enacted. They say states should carry out the wishes of judges and juries that weighed evidence and imposed death on the worst murderers. In states with the death penalty, the average county obtained sentences of at least 20 years in almost 51 percent of cases in which the defendant was charged with murder and convicted of murder or voluntary manslaughter. Those sentences were reached through a guilty plea in about 19 percent of the cases. In states without the death penalty, sentences of at least 20 years were obtained in 40 percent of those cases, but only 5 percent were guilty pleas, about one-quarter of the number in the death penalty states. That study relied on U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics data from 33 large urban counties. When it comes to worst murders, who is worse someone that shoots his victims or someone that stabs his victims? Does it matter no of course not murder is murder and if someone is sentenced to death then they should be put to death. There are mitigating factors in certain instances, and yes some innocent people have been put to death (mainly minorities), and that’s not to say that the death penalty is used disproportionately against us. My point is that when you have serial killers and admitted murders …KILL EM

Back to The Future

“Well we did it!!! I have to tell you this was beautiful. Now we as black people can really look into our children’s eyes and tell them that yes you can aspire to be anything you want to be in this country, yes you can!!! It was beautiful in more ways than one. The first person to call me when they announced that Obama had won was my daughter. My 19 yr old college sophomore. The first thing she said was "We did it Dad and my vote counted!!" I told her "Yes your vote counted". See what we can achieve if we all work together for the common good? It was also symbolic because the first people I called were my grandparents; to tell them how happy I was that they got to see this moment in their lifetime. See they are in their 80's and have lived through Jim Crow in the south. So they know first hand how much of a triumph this was. We have to savor the moment, but remember that there is still much to be done. We can't rest on this, but let's build on it.”

I wrote that last year after the historic election of Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States. I was elated and hopeful because “We were who we had been waiting on”. This was a campaign born of hope and promise. I have to admit when I first heard his name as a candidate I was skeptical. I was a Hillary backer, I figured “this guy doesn’t stand a chance and I’m not going to vote for him just because he’s black” Then something happened, I heard the Iowa caucus victory speech He said” we are choosing hope over fear, unity over division and sending a clear message to the whole world that change has come to America.” I was done after that caught up in the message and the mission. There were some roadblocks along the way. Rev Wright, ACORN, Bill Ayers the “He’s a Muslim “rumors. None of that could derail or stop one of the most flawless campaigns ever run. I have to admit I was swept up in the moment also, but was still a realist. I didn‘t expect him to fulfill every campaign promise, It would be a process, but I did think that we would eventually end the war in Iraq, that there would be more transparency in government, that we would have universal healthcare. I’m still hopeful that President Obama will set his agenda and get these things done.

The only complaint I have with our current president, I don’t want people to take this the wrong way, is that I wish he had some George Bush in him. I don’t mean “your doing a heckuva job Brownie”, while New Orleans is underwater and FEMA was days late with a response George Bush. Nor do I mean let’s start an illegal war with Iraq over faulty intelligence, that they knew was faulty, but wanted to get a dictator that threatened my father and could not use that as an excuse to go to war George Bush either. I mean the one thing I admired about Bush was that right or wrong if he believed in something he stuck to his guns and didn’t let republicans or Democrats sway him. He did what he felt was right party be damned. I want to see President Obama be more assertive and take on his own party if he feels its right. Now that is not a dig at our President according to Politifact.com of the over 500 promises that were made on the campaign trail 52 have been kept and another 134 are in the works. He has compromised on a few and almost 300 are not yet rated. I understand Rome was not built in a day and it will take time. As I said on the historic night a year ago we must not rest, but build on this. We are who we have been waiting on. It is up to us to hold our elected officials responsible and to make sure they live up to our expectations. I know that is a lot to ask with a horrible economy, unemployment at the lowest it has been since 1983.These are the cards that President Obama was dealt, lets make sure he doesn’t fold until the job is done.