the dangerousNEGRO

Happy Juneteenth!

cross-posted at Momma, here come that girl again!

Happy Juneteenth!

Now. Since my last posting, I’ve read several articles and blog posts on racism. The most interesting one, which hails from racismreview.com/blog, of course, had this letter that I’m sharing with you. I’ll save commentary for later, but here’re some thoughts from Ta-Nehisi Coates. Just enjoy the read and leave your thoughts. ____________________________________

SOURCE: Child, L[ydia]. Maria. The Freedmen’s Book. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865. pp. 265-267.
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Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865

To my old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee.

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy, — the folks call her Mrs. Anderson, — and the children — Milly, Jane, and Grundy — go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, ‘Them colored people were slaves’ down in Tennessee; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant, Jourdon Anderson.

dangerousNEGRO Rhymefest Hit The Studio

Generation Xed Out

By Demetrius D. Walker

I hardly watch TV since I feel guilty about the multiple other tasks I could be completing while sitting in front of the boob tube.  In the same amount of time I could allow the television to draw away my attention, I could be writing a new chapter in my book, finishing a lecture, improving a marketing plan, or curiously researching a fascinating topic.  Therefore, catching ABC News’ Earth 2100 was indeed a rare and inadvertent event.  I just happened to be looking for the following day’s weather forecast, when I stumbled upon the program and was immediately drawn in, as if I were standing on the event horizon of a black hole.  Earth 2100 painted the picture I had in my mind of capitalism’s dire consequences.

Call me pessimistic, but I believe the Bush Administration ushered in the beginning of the world’s new Dark Age.  As the planet’s role model for success, the United States abandoned all regard for environmental responsibility in favor of economic superiority.  The endless pursuit of oil and relentless control of that resource, clouded and continues to impair this country’s judgment.  We made an excuse to trample on the Middle East to secure a foothold in the region that controls a significant portion of the world’s oil supply.  Instead of exploiting the United States’ greatest competitive advantage, innovation, we allowed our government to barbarically cling to a system of old world industrialism. The planet is now at its breaking point.

I wish I could say humanity was simply trying to find its way and made a mistake, but Ray Charles could have seen this coming.  Oil is a finite resource.  Why did we not invest the trillions of dollars we spent in Iraq on developing alternative energies?  The answer is the powers that be are reluctant to let this oil gravy train come to a halt and stifle their pockets.  The wheels have already started to fall off but we’re still going full steam ahead over a cliff.  With the US as the locomotive, China, India, and other developing super powers are unlikely to give up any ground in constructing their competitive economies.  That means caring for the environment is secondary to capitalism.

Until the world’s superpowers agree to sacrifice their economic pursuits in favor of environmental sustainability, we are doomed.  I used to think the wild events in Revelation were far fetched, but now I see how they may just play out in my lifetime.  Global famine, drought, pestilence, disease, and war are inevitable if we do not immediately change our way of government.  Ruthlessly competing with each other for food, water, and energy can only go on for so long.  As long as capitalism is king I have little hope for humanity.  It was clear to Paul in the first century that “each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4).  In the 21^st, and possibly last century for mankind, the same advice is relevant – we must embrace some form of global socialism if we plan to survive.  If not, we will certainly end up HERE.

Make it Plain: Malcolm Day

Check out our brethren, the Sons of Malcolm

Grilled Chicken as Reparations for Slavery!!

…jk, just wanted to get your attention.  While reading one of the GREATEST BOOKS EVER WRITTEN, I came across one of the best arguments in favor of reparations ever written:

Consequently, while prior forms of White domination and exploitation of Blacks may have ceased and desisted, the economic injustices and inequalities they imposed continue unabated.  The legal prohibition of further injustices does not necessarily mean that the injurious effects of past injustices no longer persist and do not require rectification.  Justice requires not only the ceasing and desisting of injustice but also requires either punishment or reparation for injuries and damages inflicted for prior wrongdoing.  The essence of injustice is the redistribution of gains earned through the perpetration of injustice.  If restitution is not made and reparations not instituted to compensate for prior injustices, those injustices are in effect rewarded.  And the benefits such rewards conferred on the perpetrators of injustice will continue to “draw interest,” to be reinvested, and to be passed on to their children, who will use their inherited advantages to continue to exploit the children of the victims of the injustices of their ancestors.  Consequently, injustice and inequality will be maintained across the generations as will their deleterious social, economic, and political outcomes.

Basically, what he’s saying here is that in order for the Afrikan/Black community to ever reach equality with the white community within any reasonable amount of time (say before your great grandchildren kick the bucket) there must be economic compensation made for past social, political, and economic injustices (emphasis on the economic) or else the chronic state of Black subordination will continue indefinitely.

Allow me to illustrate.  What if I stole $100 a month from you for the next five years and then I got caught.  If for some strange reason you allowed me to escape unharmed and didn’t get your money back, I would be $6 stacks richer and you would be that much poorer.  Then you’d have to start saving that money all over again, while I’d be investing and earning interest on that money I stole.  Furthermore, say I did this to everyone on your block, and bought all the stores in your neighborhood with the money I stole.  So now you have to get a job from me in order to earn your money back, but the more you work, the more money I make off of your labor.  So I’d have all this money and businesses to pass down to my kids, and plenty of broke n*gg*s working for me making barely enough to stay out of debt because I’ve convinced you to spend your money on useless crap from the stores I bought.  Finally, every time you get a little worked up about your messed up situation, I throw you a bone…a Black mayor or even a President, some token Tom in a higher paying manager position, a scholarship, etc., but the majority of you are still out of luck and even the tokens are getting peanuts compared guap I’m making.

Now, since I’m a thief and obviously not trustworthy, I’m not going to just give you your money back.  You’re going to either have to lay down and take it, lay down and beg me for a job so you can earn your money back (which is what most of you Negros are doing), or figure out a way to stand up and get it from me yourself, and you can’t just take it because I also bought a crapload of weapons with that stolen money.  Whatchu gonna do?  I vote we start taking over these businesses…who’s with me?!

Racism, in Primetown, on The CW

crossposted at Momma, Here Come That Girl Again!

I actually meant to say this earlier and it slipped my mind. This whole pattern from the CW/UPN just goes to show why African Americans maybe need to develop more TV networks dedicated to the African American community. TVOne can’t do it all alone. And BET is now more or less minstrel shows.20. So when you think of black empowerment in terms of black businesses, or my dreams, a black Wall Steet (or at least a collection of companies on the level of the DOW Jones), you have to remember to include black-owned and operated media for a black audience.

You know what really pisses me off about this? The CW, and before that, UPN, built itself on black comedy. First, In the House, LL Cool J/Todd Smith’s initial sitcom. UPN bought the rights to it from NBC. But at least In the House ended with some sense of closure. But Half and Half, Girlfriends, and now Everybody Hates Chris and The Game are being ended abruptly in the middle of a plot line. I mean, does Lynn ever get it together? And Joan married? Maya adopting? And the Toni-replacement a mother? “Yes, more please.” Sorry. Not a regular viewer of Everybody Hates Chris, but the last episode I saw had him taking the GED because his teacher wanted to hold him back a year for all his tarties. Whatever becomes of him? And, so okay. Melanie and Derwin get married. I’m almost sure of it. Rick Fox and Tasha get back together. But what about Jason and Kellie Pitts, huh? What? The white girl can’t get no love? (Okay, so I’m not as open to interracial dating as popular culture kind of demands, but that’s neither here nor there.)

I know what you’re thinking, right? Aliens in America was cut after 2 seasons and it was a white sitcom. Tell you the truth, I actually liked the show. But, come on. One “counter-example” to a demonstrated pattern? What’s The CW gonna do when it loses viewers en masse? I’ll tell you. It’s gonna turn right back to urban comedy. And I hope this time, nobody watches.

We should all be reading and working in our communities, anyway.

And for the love of all that’s good and holy, will somebody please tell me who Mona (half of Half and Half) ended up with! ~ No1KState

“In just three years, The CW has become TV to talk about, with culturally current, quality programming,” Ostroff said in a statement. “We have a full slate of great programming to keep our viewers watching, chatting, texting and tweeting all next season.”

Maybe some viewers.

The other African American-targeted sitcom ‘Everybody Hates Chris’ won’t be returning in the fall either.

Destroying Black Radio or Protecting Performer’s Rights? You Decide.

by RHYMEFEST (Guest Blogger)

It’s funny how the things that you’re passionate about can be nonexistent one day, but the next consume your existence. Recently, I was introduced to an issue on performance artist’s rights. A bill entitled HR 848, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers passed through the Judiciary Committee last week to ensure that radio stations pay American artists performance royalties whenever their songs are played. Currently digital radio, television and film pay performer’s royalties to artists and the only countries that don’t include North Korea, China, Iran and the U.S. But all other foreign radio stations pay artist perfomer’s royalties. Seems fair right?  Well it is.

You’d be surprised how when the power structure rears it’s head to fight against fairness, how effective it can be at convincing people that the opposite is true. Cathy Hughes, owner of Radio One (which includes over 50 stations), Al Sharpton and Tom Joyner are using the radio as the pulpit to fight against paying artist performing royalties claiming that it will destroy black-owned and gospel radio stations. They are calling it a “tax” against black radio, when in actuality, it is a small annual royalty fee that all radio, regardless of race will be required to pay to compensate artists for their work that is being used by the stations to generate ad and sponsorship revenue that they make billions off of each year. There is no smaller business than an independent artist. Seeing as though most artists are not Mariah Carey, Kanye, or Jay-Z, these royalties will do great good in helping them provide for their families, pay for healthcare and other life necessities in order to continue to bring the world great music. Isn’t it a shame that although “Respect” by Aretha Franklin is played on the radio, only Otis Redding receives compensation because he is the writer and she receives nothing. It is true that currently, BMI & ASCAP provide the writer’s royalties every time their songs are played on the radio. The performers often die broke because they don’t receive anything. This is one of the reasons James Brown couldn’t rest in the last years of his life and ended up performing even through his illness just to pay his bills.

I recently traveled to Houston, TX and spoke with Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee another supporter of the bill whom I know personally would not do anything to hurt black businesses. Despite all of the positive work that she has done in the black community and for minority business owners such as Cathy Hughes, it baffles me how these same people roused emotions to the point where the Congresswoman received over 4,000 calls accusing her of “selling out.” I’m learning so much about how the politics of capitalism works. When you don’t want to be fair, you accuse the other person of unfairness.

True indeed, artists need radio to help promote their projects as well as open them up to new audiences but at the same time, radio would be nothing without music to play. As they do concerts where they charge the community for tickets, as well as collect ad and sponsorship revenue for their own private gain, so should the performing artist be compensated for their beautiful voices. For more information visit http://www.musicfirstcoalition.org and contact your local representatives and senators to tell them you support HR 848 The Performance Rights Act.

(Read Rhymefest’s Journal Entry at HipHopGame.Com)

Red or Blue Pill? Escaping The Matrix of Consumer Driven Capitalism

By Demetrius D. Walker

Being the owner of a streetwear line, I try to stay semi-fresh… well at least when there’s a chance I might be seen by people outside my inner circle.  Otherwise, I’m rather comfortable rocking my funky, old, grey sweatpants and a dangerousNEGRO tee.  I’ve never gotten a rush out of spending exorbitant amounts of cash to impress others or fill a subconscious insecurity.  This is not to say that I haven’t made any purchasing mistakes (uhh buying a brand new BMW 1 year into my professional career on the advice of my girlfriend).  Like most Americans, I have succumbed to the pressure of “keeping up with the Jones’” from time to time.  Even still, I realize that our current system of consumer driven capitalism has desensitized us to the world’s ills and shields us from what is most important in life.

Though these thoughts have been floating around my mind for quite some time, I wasn’t inspired to write this article until an incident at the Houston Galleria this week.  After striking a deal with It’s On Fashions to carry dN|Be Apparel, I perused America’s 4^th largest mall looking for new fashion trends.  I decided to stop in Sneaker Lab to get some ideas on color schemes for our tees.  Looking at the new Dunks, Forces, and Jordans, I concluded that purple and teal are still king in urban wear.  Before I left the store, the owner told me he had something special for me – a pair of Air Yeezy’s, size 11.  “Yo I’ll give them to you for the low low… $700 for the white ones and $750 for the grey joints” he said with a straight face.  Internally, I was thinking “is this dude out of his @#$%* mind?!” He promised me it was a good deal and encouraged me to at least see them in person.  I declined and hauled @ss out the store.  700 ways to better spend that sum of money scrolled through my cerebral cortex on the drive home.  “What kind of person justifies a purchase for sneakers that expensive?” I thought.  “People trapped in capitalism’s matrix” was the only conclusion I could comfortably surmise.

Ever since watching Neo choose the red pill in The Matrix, I have been highly skeptical of the way the world operates.  Never would I allow myself to succumb to Herd Mentality I vowed.  No matter how calm the climate in my environment, I know there are people facing storms elsewhere.

In 2008 I was able to travel to Arusha, Tanzania where I learned valuable lessons which reinforced my philosophy.  Once I got settled, the first place I visited was the downtown market.  For an American accustomed to shopping at Wal-Mart, Kroger, and the classic mega mall, the Arusha market would have seemed primitive, unsanitary, and unpleasant.  There were chickens running aimlessly, merchants cutting fish on wooden stumps, and tons of non refrigerated produce exposed in the open air market.  Nevertheless, the residents of Arusha were eager to show me that they had access to food.  As an obvious tourist, I began to attract a significant following of locals during my walk through the market.  Near the end of my market tour, two 6 year old boys approached me for money.  My natural inclination was to ignore the young men in order to not attract an even larger crowd of beggars.  In broken Swahili, I tried to tell them that I had no money.  In their tattered clothing they began to point to my shoes.  I was wearing a pair of grey Jordan IIIs worth over $100.  How could I not afford to give them some change when I walked through their town with 3 months worth of food on my feet?

Later that summer, I participated in a youth camp in Colorado for Black children adopted by White families.   One of the families insisted that I meet their daughter, adopted from Ethiopia.  As I was introduced to the shy, innocent, young lady, I had no idea her story would bring tears to my eyes.  She had witnessed the murder of her mother at the hands of her father.  Starving and desperate to feed her family, the girl’s mother had stolen a potato from the local market.  Upon coming home and seeing his family eat the potato, (which he knew they could not have afforded to purchase), the husband grew irate.  When his wife confessed that she had stolen the vegetable to save their family from starvation he beat her to death… in front of the children.  To put things in perspective, I purchase a 10 pound bag of Russet potatoes for $3 every time I shop for groceries.  This girl’s mother was murdered for a single potato.

So what drives Americans to feel justified in purchasing severely overpriced items that serve no benefit to the greater good of society?  I’ve heard several excuses which make my skin crawl.  Speaking with women I am close to, the common rationale is that they feel they “deserve to have nice things”; whether this is the result of them having worked hard or it is an inherent birthright, they believe there is nothing wrong with coveting designer handbags, shoes, clothes, and accessories.  Typically, the more expensive the item, the more they want it.  Some will even save in small monthly increments so they can feel guilt free when they finally amass the capital to purchase said items.  Can someone please tell me why it is so important to carry around your wallet, cell phone, and other miscellaneous junk in an $800 purse when people die over potatoes in other parts of the world?  Do you really need a $300 pair of pumps to match the dress that you will wear only a couple of times in a given year (for fear of being caught dead in a repeat outfit)?

Men are not exempt from my scrutiny either.  Fellas, if you’re buying Air Yeezy’s for $700 you should be ashamed of yourself.  In fact, if you’re spending anywhere in the triple digits for your sneakers, you should reexamine your life.  Last night I saw Soulja Boy spend 12K at the Louis Vuitton store on TMZ.  I wished with all my heart that I could have reached through the screen and smacked his kufi off.  What has Louis Vuitton, Gucci, etc. done to improve the lives of people across the Black Diaspora?  Are you just wearing this crap so you can feed your own ego and make others think “he must have money to burn because he’s wearing a $500 shirt?” If you have the money to waste on luxury goods that benefit no one but the company you purchase them from, why not spend it on something constructive instead?

My belief is that the pursuit of the almighty dollar has corrupted people’s vision and impaired their judgment on life’s values.  Because most people cannot imagine existing in a world where financial gain is not the number one priority, it is difficult to prevent them from being slaves to currency.  When you believe that “Cash Rules Everything Around Me” (C.R.E.A.M courtesy Wu-Tang), there is no way to detach yourself from the rigors of attaining money for the purpose of spending your way to your coveted lifestyle.  Essentially, you are trained to swallow the blue pill of conformity – get money and spend what you can since you worked hard to get it in the first place.  After all, you deserve it right?  Wrong.  You may have earned your income legitimately and labored great hours to get it.  Does that justify throwing it out the window on luxury goods?  Swallow the red pill for once.  Open your eyes to the shortcomings of your community, your city, your state, your country, your planet.  Before you give Louis Vuitton and Mercedes your hard earned cash, think about how that same money could impact the homeless (humans and/or pets), the poor in 3^rd world countries, and families in your neighborhood.  I challenge you to exit the matrix, which wants you to ignore society’s pains so you can spend, spend, spend to keep this capitalism machine running.  I’m talking to YOU Neo!  In the words of Morpheus “Remember, all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.”

Resegregation?

More often than not, we tend to look at history and give the events and people in it a Godlike aura. We dare not question the success of yesterday or feel as blasphemers to our race. But what if the successes of today lay in just that, questioning the “successes” of yesterday?

I say that to bring in desegregation. It has been widely documented that we as Black people in Amerika have proportionately not made any strides since the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1965. In fact, some would argue that we have gone backward. Yeah, we have a lot more millionaires, but that is because Amerika itself has more millionaires. Yeah, we produce more college graduates, but what have these professionals done for the whole of the community. As of right now, we have more young Black Men dying in the streets every year than soldiers who died in Vietnam. Jobs seemed to have taken the next flight after them whites right out of our communities leaving nothing but impoverishment, a goldmine for outsiders to exploit in the illicit drug trade. More high schoolers each year opt for dropping out of school leaving our graduation rates at dismal numbers. Now we are head first in a manipulated culture that glorifies foolishness and folly over wisdom and righteousness.

See the thing is, in their attempts to socially intermix with the popular culture our forbearers took for granted the things that we already had that made us strong and made us who we were. In thinking that the white man’s ice was colder, they didn’t realize that the white man didn’t have ice at all. He had one of those plastic ice cubes that you buy from Spencers with the fly in it. As Martin Luther King is reported to have spoken in a conversation with Harry Belefonte shortly before he died, he wasn’t even sure if he was “integrating his people into a burning house.” {see the video at the bottom} Well yes the house was burning, and with us living in the trailer out back, we decided it was better to move into a big burning house than to stick it out in the back until the house went ahead and burned down.

When Moses was sent to deliver the Children of Israel from under the rule of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, he did not come to reform Pharaoh or Egypt. He came to REMOVE HIS PEOPLE. No matter what relationship one had forged with an Egyptian, no matter how one felt about Egyptian society, if you wanted to come under the blessing of God, you followed Moses and SEPARATED from your oppressor.

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that it’s much easier to look back on life and discern the right path than it is to see it moving forward. But as in an individuals life, if you ever come to the point where you realize that a decision that you have made has lead you down a wrong path it is up to you to first identify this and then make the necessary steps to go back and right your wrong.

At the point in which we stand a physical seperation might be next to impossible seeing as how you cant get some of these negroes to stop identifying with their masters for nothing in the world. What we can do however is take our own Destiny in our own hands and separate ourselves mentally and spiritually from the destructive mindset that was given to us by these masters. I’m not even talking bout just the “Nigga” Mentality, but the House Nigga Mentality as well. That mentality that tell us that one day if we work real hard and be real good we might have all the big shiny things that massa got. As long as we work under their system we will always be slaves to the ones who created and control it.

We live in a time when information flows freely through many channels. Knowledge of the past as well as a myriad of understandings of the present are available to all who seek them. More and more young Afrikans in Amerika enter college each year eager to learn something and do something for their people, yet end up getting a job and lending their energies to the system because they cannot see any concrete movement put in place to do anything with their inherent abilities. We have countless “spooks” sitting by them doors but no one is telling them what to do with the information. RISE UP YOU MIGHTY NATION AND AWAKEN. See it’s hard to come up with a plan for life when you spend all day sleeping in the bed. You gotta get up, orient yourself, then start your day. I am calling for all of my brothers and sisters to first wake up, so that we can collectively orient ourselves in order to begin our Day of Reign in this Universe.

Proverbs 3:31 “Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose NONE of his ways” {Capitolization mine}

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiEKS5iPtDs

Peace and Blessings to all who receive me, and Much Luv to those who don’t….

What you think???

When Black Kids Talk “White”

By Demetrius D. Walker

Tuesday a good friend of mine asked me to speak to her 8 year old daughter about an issue in which I am quite familiar.  For the entire semester, her oldest child has been pleading with her for a transfer to a new school.  Apparently the young lady is being badgered and teased on a daily basis.  It’s no secret that bullies tend to pick on those with obvious differences – the skinny kid, the overweight girl, or the guy that stutters.  Unfortunately, in this instance, and across Black America, “talking white” can be added to the list of subjects that trigger harassment.

Somewhere in the last 3 decades, the usage of slang, ignorant language, and/or Ebonics became exclusively associated with being Black.  Was this the end product of the 1970s blaxploitation films?  Or could it be the direct result of Hip Hop’s emergence on the urban landscape?  I would truly have to do more research to get to the bottom of this issue.  Whatever the origin, it gravely concerns me that our youth are brought up with the expectation that they should avoid scholarly behavior and rhetoric in order to be considered authentically Black.

The mentality that proper sentence structure and words with more than two syllables are exclusively reserved for Caucasians is more than troubling.  This thinking perpetuates a cycle of ignorance that compels Black youth to find comfort in underachieving.  Growing up, I would listen to all the “cool” kids brag about how many absences they had and how many classes they either failed or were close to failing.  In order not to create a spectacle of name calling, or worse, physical assault, I did my best to conceal my report card and deny receiving commendable grades.  As well, I even made sure to incorporate improper grammar, foul language, and the latest slang to assimilate to my inner city public school environment.  Occasionally a bully would wrestle the stiff piece of paper out of my clutches and discover that “yo this ni**a is a nerd!”  While these experiences forced me to develop thick skin and a sense of humor (to distract the ig’nant folk that could obviously dish out a ghetto shellacking), it’s quite sad that I and many Black adolescents had to live in fear of being considered “too” intelligent.

In the age of Obama, the destruction of degenerate Black mentalities is essential to the reversal of our race’s misfortunes.  The longer we associate “talking white” with being inferior, the farther we will fall behind our White, Asian, and other counterparts.  Black parents, encourage your children to speak properly.  Make them take pride in being Young. Gifted.  Black.  College students, graduates, and scholars make it your duty to mentor at least 1 elementary, middle, or high school student. Be America’s Next Top Role Model for them.  Professionals, take time out of your schedules to do what Wu-Tang’s Inspectah Deck asked in ’93s C.R.E.A.M and “kick the truth to the young, black youth.” Certainly scholarship was involved in you arriving at your destination – prove to them that Smart Is REALLY The New Gangsta.

Although the following video is humorous, it has a message.  Wayne Brady is notoriously associated with “talking white.”  In this clip he goes out of his way to prove his “Blackness.”  I love this clip because it shows how silly it is to assume that you can prejudge a person’s “Blackness” by the way he or she talks.  I’ll tackle the whole issue of “Blackness” in another article.  In the meantime enjoy!

Killing Black Business

Farbeit for me to become another of those black liberals just finding things to hang around white folks and Republicans’ necks like fiery cross-shaped albatrosses. Though, they do give us a lot of material to work with. I mean, they have an entire cable news channel we can dress down every day!

But. It is important that we offer policy proposals and other ideas to move us as a community and the nation forward. And here’s one idea: the government should actually help keep black business strong and not collaborate in its destruction!

Via my new black blogosphere friend, Btx3:

President Obama wasn’t kidding about the demolition of small business under the Bushit administration. This data derived from statistics kept by the National Association of Small Business Investment Companies pretty much says it all.

The Shrinking Small Business Pie – SBIC Investment Under Bush

Look at that bottom right number, and as part of the “Shrinking pie” – it isn’t hard to discern whose shorts got hit the hardest.

Look at the bottom line – that was the shrinking percentage to Women and Minority owned businesses, down from 26% in 1998.

When you consider that only about 3% of the commercial Venture Capital money goes to women owned businesses, and .03% goes to black owned businesses – you begin to understand the “problem”.

______________________________

Please read the entire article.

Racism is Session(s)

crossposted at Momma, Here Come That Girl Again!

On the eve of Pres. Obama’s crucial nomination of a justice to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, the Republicans have chosen Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) to replace Sen. Arlen Spector (presently D-PA) as ranking member on the senate’s judicial committee. I think it’s important to know what we’re getting so we can begin thinking of how to respond. And also because I think what we’re getting sucks.

Closed Sessions
The senator who’s worse than Lott.

Sarah Wildman, The New Republic Published: December 30, 2002

Trent Lott must think he’s living in a nightmare. More than one week has passed since his segregationist cheerleading at Strom Thurmond’s century celebration, and the chorus of anti-Lottism has swelled ever louder. Conservatives in particular can’t scream loud enough. William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, called Lott’s comments “thoughtless” and told CBS’s “Early Show” audience on December 12 that “Trent Lott shows such a lack of historical understanding that I think it would be appropriate for him to offer to step down.” And conservative pundit Peggy Noonan told Chris Matthews this Sunday, “I am personally tired of being embarrassed by people … who don’t get what the history of race in America is, what integration has meant, what segregation was. I’m tired of being embarrassed by Republicans … who don’t get it.”

It’s a nice sentiment, and, if conservatives are serious about it, they might want to direct their attention one state to Lott’s east, home of Alabama Republican Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. His record on race arguably rivals that of the gentleman from Mississippi–and yet has elicited not a peep of consternation from the anti-racist right.

Sessions entered national politics in the mid-’80s not as a politician but as a judicial nominee. Recommended by a fellow Republican from Alabama, then-Senator Jeremiah Denton, Sessions was Ronald Reagan’s choice for the U.S. District Court in Alabama in the early spring of 1986. Reagan had gotten cocky by then, as more than 200 of his uberconservative judicial appointees had been rolled out across the country without serious opposition (this was pre-Robert Bork). That is, until the 39-year-old Sessions came up for review.

Sessions was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. The year before his nomination to federal court, he had unsuccessfully prosecuted three civil rights workers–including Albert Turner, a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr.–on a tenuous case of voter fraud. The three had been working in the “Black Belt” counties of Alabama, which, after years of voting white, had begun to swing toward black candidates as voter registration drives brought in more black voters. Sessions’s focus on these counties to the exclusion of others caused an uproar among civil rights leaders, especially after hours of interrogating black absentee voters produced only 14 allegedly tampered ballots out of more than 1.7 million cast in the state in the 1984 election. The activists, known as the Marion Three, were acquitted in four hours and became a cause celebre. Civil rights groups charged that Sessions had been looking for voter fraud in the black community and overlooking the same violations among whites, at least partly to help reelect his friend Senator Denton.

On its own, the case might not have been enough to stain Sessions with the taint of racism, but there was more. Senate Democrats tracked down a career Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert, who testified, albeit reluctantly, that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) “un-American” and “Communist-inspired.” Hebert said Sessions had claimed these groups “forced civil rights down the throats of people.” In his confirmation hearings, Sessions sealed his own fate by saying such groups could be construed as “un-American” when “they involve themselves in promoting un-American positions” in foreign policy. Hebert testified that the young lawyer tended to “pop off” on such topics regularly, noting that Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a “disgrace to his race” for litigating voting rights cases. Sessions acknowledged making many of the statements attributed to him but claimed that most of the time he had been joking, saying he was sometimes “loose with [his] tongue.” He further admitted to calling the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a “piece of intrusive legislation,” a phrase he stood behind even in his confirmation hearings.

It got worse. Another damaging witness–a black former assistant U.S. Attorney in Alabama named Thomas Figures–testified that, during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he “used to think they [the Klan] were OK” until he found out some of them were “pot smokers.” Sessions claimed the comment was clearly said in jest. Figures didn’t see it that way. Sessions, he said, had called him “boy” and, after overhearing him chastise a secretary, warned him to “be careful what you say to white folks.” Figures echoed Hebert’s claims, saying he too had heard Sessions call various civil rights organizations, including the National Council of Churches and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, “un-American.” Sessions denied the accusations but again admitted to frequently joking in an off-color sort of way. In his defense, he said he was not a racist, pointing out that his children went to integrated schools and that he had shared a hotel room with a black attorney several times.

During his nomination hearings, Sessions was opposed by the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, People for the American Way, and other civil rights groups. Senator Denton clung peevishly to his favored nominee until the bitter end, calling Sessions a “victim of a political conspiracy.” The Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee finally voted ten to eight against sending Sessions to the Senate floor. The decisive vote was cast by the other senator from Alabama, Democrat Howell Heflin, a former Alabama Supreme Court justice, who said, “[M]y duty to the justice system is greater than any duty to any one individual.”

None of this history stopped Sessions’s political ascension. He was elected attorney general in 1994. Once in office, he was linked with a second instance of investigating absentee ballots and fraud that directly impacted the black community. He was also accused of not investigating the church burnings that swept the state of Alabama the year he became attorney general. But those issues barely made a dent in his 1996 Senate campaign, when Heflin retired and Sessions ran for his seat and won.

Since his election as a senator, Sessions has not done much to make amends for his past racial insensitivity. His voting record in the Senate has earned him consistent “F”s from the NAACP. He supported an ultimately unsuccessful effort to end affirmative action programs in the federal government (a measure so extreme that many conservatives were against it), he opposed hate-crimes laws, and he opposed a motion to investigate the disproportionate number of minorities in juvenile detention centers. Says Hillary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau, “[Sessions’s] voting record is disturbing. … He has consistently opposed the bread-and-butter civil rights agenda.” But it has been on judicial nominees that Sessions has really made a name for himself. When Sessions grabbed Heflin’s Senate seat in 1996, he also nabbed a spot on the Judiciary Committee. Serving on the committee alongside some of the senators who had dismissed him 16 years earlier, Sessions has become a cheerleader for the Bush administration’s judicial picks, defending such dubious nominees as Charles Pickering, who in 1959 wrote a paper defending Mississippi’s anti-miscegenation law, and Judge Dennis Shedd, who dismissed nearly every fair-employment civil rights case brought before him as a federal district court judge. Sessions called Pickering “a leader for racial harmony” and a “courageous,” “quality individual” who was being used as a “political pawn.” Regarding Shedd, he pooh-poohed the criticism, announcing that the judge “should have been commended for the rulings he has made,” not chastised.

And yet, despite his record as U.S. Attorney, attorney general of Alabama, and senator, Sessions has never received criticism from conservatives or from the leadership of the Republican Party. President Bush even campaigned for him in the last election. It’s true, of course, that Sessions isn’t in a leadership position, like Lott. But, if conservatives are serious about ending the perception that the GOP tolerates racism, they should look into his record as well. After all, if Noonan and friends are really “tired of being embarrassed” by this kind of racial insensitivity, they can’t just start yelling once the news hits the stands.

Sarah Wildman was an assistant editor at The New Republic from 1999 to 2003.

Before You Enlist

An interesting piece if you’ve ever thought about joining the military.  Any brothers or sisters with military experience feel free to comment with a different perspective.

Black History Year Weekly Digest

Here are the daily quotes/facts from our Black History Year Facebook Application for the past week:

February 6th, 1820. The first organized emigration back to Africa begins when 86 free African Americans leave New York Harbor aboard the Mayflower of Liberia. They are bound for the British colony of Sierra Leone, which welcomes free African Americans as well as fugitive slaves.

February 7th, 1926. Carter G. Woodson creates Negro History Week. In 1976 it became Black History Month.

February 8th, 1925. Marcus Garvey entered federal prison in Atlanta. Students staged strike at Fisk University to protest policies of white administration.

Feb. 9: Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it. – Dr. John Henrik Clarke

Feb 10: Our success educationally, industrially and politically is based upon the protection of a nation founded by ourselves. And the nation can be nowhere else but in Africa. -Marcus Garvey

Feb 11: I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together. -Marcus Garvey

Feb 12: In 1948 W.E.B. DuBois revised and restated his Talented Tenth theory first published in “The Negro Problem” in 1903 to address the failures of the self-serving Talented Tenth up to that point in time. His revised theory was called “The Guiding Hundredth” and was first addressed to the members of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity.

Feb 13: I have no desire to take all black people back to Africa; there are blacks who are no good here and will likewise be no good there. -Marcus Garvey

Free Knowledge: KRS~One

I’m not sure why dude is always yelling, but he’s speaking that realness.

“The New World Order has a black face.”

“Liberty is not granted, it’s taken.  Freedom, it can never be given to you, it’s in here [your heart]!”

“If somebody else can give you freedom, they can also take it away.”

“…Are you free or have you been freed?”

Interview With Rhymefest – Entrepreneurship, Philanthropy and Politics

Real talk from Rhymefest about his real occupation. Check him rocking the dN Definition tee during the interview.