F*** Joe the Plumber: Economic Equality and The Myth of “Free Markets”
by Tre B.
dangerousNEGRO.com
Now I’m no expert economist, so like Levar Burton used to say on Reading Rainbow, “You don’t have to take my word for it…” However, there are some commentators in the media, who claim to be experts, telling outright lies. Maybe it’s intentional or maybe they’re just ignorant, but let me tell you what I think about so-called “free” markets.
The point of this article is to make you aware of the tactics that are being used to distract people from the fight for economic, political, and social equality for all human beings. As soon as the government steps in to do something, you get these self-proclaimed capitalists bitching and raising hell. Now this is not in defense of the bailout, which is an example of when the government goes too far, but it’s more in reference to “Joe the Plumber.” He’s upset because after he buys his business and starts making over a quarter-million dollars a year, he’s going to have to pay more taxes. Poor f’ing Joe. Even when the government taxes half his money, he’ll still be making over 3 times more than the average working American. So while the media is distracting you by worrying about Joe the Rich Plumber, you need to be worrying about the countless other people (plumbers included) barely making it paycheck to paycheck. F*#& Joe the Plumber and McCain’s tricky ass for distracting people from the real issues.
COINTELPRO: The FBI’s War Against Black America pt 1 of 5
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Report: Global Warming Disproportionately Affects African Americans, Low-Income Communities
by Kimberley D. Mok, Montreal, Canada on 10.22.08
Image: EJCC website
Though it may have struck you already, a recent report corroborates what some advocates and the Hurricane Katrina debacle are making painfully clear: that people of colour are disproportionately affected by climate change and related disasters.
Titled A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming, and a Just Climate Policy for the U.S. and co-authored by the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative and Redefining Progress, the report analyzes data such as per capita carbon emissions, vulnerability to natural disasters, energy price increases, share of war costs and housing inequalities. The report’s findings show that though global warming affects everyone, existing inequalities are consistently amplified through unjust climate policies and lack of representation.
Black Men Say Rebel Flag Flies for Freedom
For an hour, the Confederate battle flag flew over the former site of the Eight Flags Display on U.S. 90.
Dressed in Confederate gray, a black man named Anthony Hervey marched with the banner clutched in his hands. His brother, Harry, accompanied him, wearing jeans and a Robert E. Lee T-shirt.
Hervey’s devotion to the flag began when he discovered that a great-great-uncle, James Hervey, was a black American who fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. James Hervey served in the Army of Mississippi and was killed at the battle of Shiloh.
Further research helped Hervey discover records of at least 100,000 black Confederates who fought in the war.
“I am marching for freedom,” Hervey said. “The battle flag stands for freedom and states’ rights. The U.S. flag is the flag of slavery. It flew over 100 years of slavery, and Native Americans were annihilated under that flag.”
For his march, Hervey chose the site where a Confederate flag once stood, one of eight representing entities that have governed the Coast. Harrison County removed the flags because of protests over the Confederate flag, a racist symbol to many, flying on the public beach.
Hervey’s crusade also has taken him to Jackson. In the Jackson City Council chambers June 13, Hervey showed up wearing his battle grays, wrapped in the flag. A scuffle erupted between a Jackson man, who said he supported Hervey, and a city councilman who exchanged words, according to published reports. Hervey was not involved in the shoving match.
Hervey sees a correlation between the past and today’s controversies over the flag.
“We currently live under a psychological form of reconstruction,” he said. “Whites are made to feel guilty for sins of their ancestors, and blacks are made to feel downtrodden. This keeps all of us from communicating. The political correctness of today is killing the pride of the people.”
Hervey is the founder of the Black Confederate Soldier Foundation, an Oxford-based, not-for-profit organization. Its stated mission is to foster new thought on the Civil War. Claims that the Confederate flag is a racist symbol are, to the group, part of a nonissue. Black Confederates, the group says, have been misrepresented in historical texts.
Hervey wants to build a memorial that will include the names of the black Confederates who fought and died in the War Between the States.
As the Hervey brothers continued their march, shouts of support and anger could be heard from passing motorists. A group of young black men hanging from car windows shouted at the pair. Hervey instructed his brother to look forward “like a true soldier.”
“Don’t even look at them,” Hervey said, citing the young men’s behavior as an example of black psychology today.
“They will yell a lot and want you to confront them, but they will not do anything,” Hervey said.
“I found it appalling what happened in South Carolina, and I’m afraid this is going to happen in Mississippi.” Hervey said. “We seek only to correct the errors in history – to right the wrongs done to the memories of these brave soldiers.
Source: The Sun Herald, June 22, 2000
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Barack & Curtis: Manhood, Power, & Respect
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5YoS3bqk5g]
The Bailout and Reparations
By Tre Millyanz
I just have one point to make to all you hankerchief-headed Negroes out there that don’t “believe” in reparations…you can’t ever say that the U.S. can’t afford to give reparations to Blacks in America (for slavery and Jim Crow semi-slavery). They spend $700 billion for a bailout and have a $661 billion budget for the so-called Department of Defense, but Blacks, who weren’t even allowed to read for 400 years, still have to pay for college? $700 billion and our people still lag behind on every economic indicator imaginable? If this sounds right to you, please seek professional psychological help immediately.
Now you see that money is no object when it’s in their self interest to spend in order to avoid disaster. Given that statement, you should know the answer to this question: How do you make the US government and society in general interested in giving African Americans reparations?
Racism Without Racists
Racism Without Racists
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: October 4, 2008
One of the fallacies this election season is that if Barack Obama is paying an electoral price for his skin tone, it must be because of racists.On the contrary, the evidence is that Senator Obama is facing what scholars have dubbed “racism without racists.”
The racism is difficult to measure, but a careful survey completed last month by Stanford University, with The Associated Press and Yahoo, suggested that Mr. Obama’s support would be about six percentage points higher if he were white. That’s significant but surmountable.
Most of the lost votes aren’t those of dyed-in-the-wool racists. Such racists account for perhaps 10 percent of the electorate and, polling suggests, are mostly conservatives who would not vote for any Democratic presidential candidate.
Rather, most of the votes that Mr. Obama actually loses belong to well-meaning whites who believe in racial equality and have no objection to electing a black person as president — yet who discriminate unconsciously.
“When we fixate on the racist individual, we’re focused on the least interesting way that race works,” said Phillip Goff, a social psychologist at U.C.L.A. who focuses his research on “racism without racists.” “Most of the way race functions is without the need for racial animus.”
For decades, experiments have shown that even many whites who earnestly believe in equal rights will recommend hiring a white job candidate more often than a person with identical credentials who is black. In the experiments, the applicant’s folder sometimes presents the person as white, sometimes as black, but everything else is the same. The white person thinks that he or she is selecting on the basis of nonracial factors like experience.
Research suggests that whites are particularly likely to discriminate against blacks when choices are not clear-cut and competing arguments are flying about — in other words, in ambiguous circumstances rather like an electoral campaign.
For example, when the black job candidate is highly qualified, there is no discrimination. Yet in a more muddled gray area where reasonable people could disagree, unconscious discrimination plays a major role.
White participants recommend hiring a white applicant with borderline qualifications 76 percent of the time, while recommending an identically qualified black applicant only 45 percent of the time.
John Dovidio, a psychologist at Yale University who has conducted this study over many years, noted that conscious prejudice as measured in surveys has declined over time. But unconscious discrimination — what psychologists call aversive racism — has stayed fairly constant.
“In the U.S., there’s a small percentage of people who in nationwide surveys say they won’t vote for a qualified black presidential candidate,” Professor Dovidio said. “But a bigger factor is the aversive racists, those who don’t think that they’re racist.” Faced with a complex decision, he said, aversive racists feel doubts about a black person that they don’t feel about an identical white. “These doubts tend to be attributed not to the person’s race — because that would be racism — but deflected to other areas that can be talked about, such as lack of experience,” he added.
Of course, there are perfectly legitimate reasons to be against a particular black candidate, Mr. Obama included. Opposition to Mr. Obama is no more evidence of racism than opposition to Mr. McCain is evidence of discrimination against the elderly or against war veterans. And at times, Mr. Obama’s race helps him: it underscores his message of change, it appeals to some whites as a demonstration of their open-mindedness, and it wins him overwhelming black votes and turnout.
Still, a huge array of research suggests that 50 percent or more of whites have unconscious biases that sometimes lead to racial discrimination. (Blacks have their own unconscious biases, surprisingly often against blacks as well.)
One set of experiments conducted since the 1970s involves subjects who believe that they are witnessing an emergency (like an epileptic seizure). When there is no other witness, a white bystander will call for help whether the victim is white or black, and there is very little discrimination.
But when there are other bystanders, so the individual responsibility to summon help may feel less obvious, whites will still summon help 75 percent of the time if the victim is white but only 38 percent of the time if the victim is black.
One lesson from this research is that racial biases are deeply embedded within us, more so than many whites believe. But another lesson, a historical one, is that we can overcome unconscious bias. That’s what happened with the decline in prejudice against Catholics after the candidacy of John F. Kennedy in 1960.
It just might happen again, this time with race.
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, and to join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kristof.
Book Review: The Green Economy by Van Jones
by Kimberley D. Mok, Montreal, Canada on 10. 7.08
Van Jones is one busy man. Based in Oakland, CA, the civil rights and environmental activist has been working tirelessly for the last decade and a half – first as the co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, then Color of Change – two social justice organizations striving to give positive alternatives and a political voice to vulnerable communities. Most recently, Jones is the founder of Green For All, a national initiative committed to creating “green pathways out of poverty” and advocating “green-collar jobs for all.”
His latest book, The Green Collar Economy, comes out today and discusses the social, economic and political implications of the “green-collar job” (a term that’s being bandied around a lot nowadays). Jones defines a green-collar job as a “family-supporting, career-track job that directly contributes to preserving or enhancing environmental quality,” but is also part of what he calls the “one solution [to] fix our two biggest problems” – namely, poverty and our environmental crisis. You may ask: what does environmentalism have to do with alleviating poverty?
ATLANTA: dangerousNEGRO has arrived!!!
We finally have product available in a store in Atlanta….Tease in Little Five Points. Atlanta is definitely an important market for us and the Black Empowerment Movement. Please visit the store and buy a shirt (unfortunately for the fellas, they only have ladies shirts for now). Even if you don’t buy a shirt at least ask about us or mention that you heard they carry dangerousNEGRO and pretend like you love us.
New Gangsta and Top Role Model
- Tease, 1166 Euclid Ave, Atlanta, GA (Little Five Points)
Poll: Racial views steer some white Dems away from Obama
By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them “lazy,” “violent,” responsible for their own troubles.
The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points.
Certainly, Republican John McCain has his own obstacles: He’s an ally of an unpopular president and would be the nation’s oldest first-term president. But Obama faces this: 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.
More than a third of all white Democrats and independents — voters Obama can’t win the White House without — agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don’t have such views.
Such numbers are a harsh dose of reality in a campaign for the history books. Obama, the first black candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, accepted the Democratic nomination on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, a seminal moment for a nation that enshrined slavery in its Constitution.
“There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn’t mean there’s only a few bigots,” said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey.
The pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats. President Bush’s unpopularity, the Iraq war and a national sense of economic hard times cut against GOP candidates, as does that fact that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.
The findings suggest that Obama’s problem is close to home — among his fellow Democrats, particularly non-Hispanic white voters. Just seven in 10 people who call themselves Democrats support Obama, compared to the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who back McCain.
The survey also focused on the racial attitudes of independent voters because they are likely to decide the election.
Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren’t voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn’t vote for any Democrat for president — white, black or brown.
Not all whites are prejudiced. Indeed, more whites say good things about blacks than say bad things, the poll shows. And many whites who see blacks in a negative light are still willing or even eager to vote for Obama.
On the other side of the racial question, the Illinois Democrat is drawing almost unanimous support from blacks, the poll shows, though that probably wouldn’t be enough to counter the negative effect of some whites’ views.
Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicates. More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to vote against him because of that.
Three in 10 of those Democrats who don’t trust Obama’s change-making credentials say they plan to vote for McCain.
Still, the effects of whites’ racial views are apparent in the polling.
Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama’s support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice.
But in an election without precedent, it’s hard to know if such models take into account all the possible factors at play.
The AP-Yahoo News poll used the unique methodology of Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, Calif., firm that interviews people online after randomly selecting and screening them over telephone. Numerous studies have shown that people are more likely to report embarrassing behavior and unpopular opinions when answering questions on a computer rather than talking to a stranger.
Other techniques used in the poll included recording people’s responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen, asking participants to rate how well certain adjectives apply to blacks, measuring whether people believe blacks’ troubles are their own fault, and simply asking people how much they like or dislike blacks.
“We still don’t like black people,” said John Clouse, 57, reflecting the sentiments of his pals gathered at a coffee shop in Somerset, Ohio.
Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word “violent” strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with “boastful,” 29 percent “complaining,” 13 percent “lazy” and 11 percent “irresponsible.” When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.
Among white Democrats, one third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.
The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that “if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites.”
Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn’t.
Among white independents, racial stereotyping is not uncommon. For example, while about 20 percent of independent voters called blacks “intelligent” or “smart,” more than one third latched on the adjective “complaining” and 24 percent said blacks were “violent.”
Nearly four in 10 white independents agreed that blacks would be better off if they “try harder.”
The survey broke ground by incorporating images of black and white faces to measure implicit racial attitudes, or prejudices that are so deeply rooted that people may not realize they have them. That test suggested the incidence of racial prejudice is even higher, with more than half of whites revealing more negative feelings toward blacks than whites.
Researchers used mathematical modeling to sort out the relative impact of a huge swath of variables that might have an impact on people’s votes — including race, ideology, party identification, the hunger for change and the sentiments of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s backers.
Just 59 percent of her white Democratic supporters said they wanted Obama to be president. Nearly 17 percent of Clinton’s white backers plan to vote for McCain.
Among white Democrats, Clinton supporters were nearly twice as likely as Obama backers to say at least one negative adjective described blacks well, a finding that suggests many of her supporters in the primaries — particularly whites with high school education or less — were motivated in part by racial attitudes.
The survey of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27 to Sept. 5. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
———
Associated Press writers Nancy Benac, Julie Carr Smyth, Philip Elliot, Julie Pace and Sonya Ross contributed to this story.
dangerousNEGRO Public Speaker: Demetrius Walker
In partnership with Great Black Speakers, we bring to you our first official dangerousNEGRO speaker, Demetrius Walker. Visit dwalkerspeaking.com for booking
Demetrius Darnell Walker is a native New Yorker. Born in Brooklyn and raised in the Bronx, Demetrius represents not only the merits of higher education, but street knowledge as well. Growing up in New York City, Demetrius was exposed to the struggles of the urban community. Avoiding the common pit falls of fellow friends and family members was a daily battle. An exceptionally gifted student, Demetrius left the city turmoil to study at the prestigious Taft School in the hills of Watertown, Connecticut. While away at the elite boarding school, Demetrius developed a keen sense of commitment to those in his home community neglected by America’s bourgeoisie. He went on to further cultivate his philosophies as a scholar at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. As a Vanderbilt leader, Demetrius served as the vice president of the National Pan-Hellenic Council and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. During his college years he was fortunate enough to volunteer his services as a mentor to inner city middle schoolers. It was there that Demetrius coined his widely received principle “ambition plus determination equals success.”
As a professional, Demetrius has a diverse background ranging from banking to public speaking.After joining the Emma Bowen Foundation for Minority Interests in Media, Demetrius was able to travel on the PGA Tour and edit NBA coverage with ABC Sports Television. He also worked for Dell Computer in Nashville for 3 years after completing his undergraduate requirements at Vanderbilt. Most recently, he was employed with Pop Labs, an internet marketing firm in Houston, TX. Today Demetrius serves as the Chief Marketing Officer of dN Group LLC, the parent company of dangerousNEGRO. Through dangerousNEGRO Demetrius is able to spread the message of Black uplift via apparel design, writing, and lecturing. To date, he has been a guest on several urban radio talk shows across the nation. As well, Demetrius has excelled as a motivational speaker, spreading dangerousNEGRO’s tenets of Black empowerment.
He currently resides in southwest Houston, TX with his two dogs, Dominoe and Paris.
dangerousNEGRO Mixtape
dangerousNegro: Smart is the New Gangsta
(Sat Aug 16, 2008 07:20 PM CT)
What is a dangerousNegro? As defined on dangerousNegro.com, a dangerousNegro is a Danger to America’s racial paradigm, a Danger to low expectations, a Danger to degenerate black mentalities, and is Dangerously contagious to the miseducated individual.
In short, dangerousNegro is a clothing line that helps to promote the Black Empowerment Movement through fashion and entertainment. And if I might add, the clothes are pretty fly.
Recently dangerousNegro dropped the new mixtape dangerousNegro: Smart is the New Gangsta. The mixtape features 5th Flow, Mookie Jones, Bun-B, Naughty By Nature, Royce Da 5’9, and many more. We’re bringing it to you free of charge. Download it via megaupload.com, jam it, and pass it along. Also, check out the clothes on dangerousNegro.com.
Track Listing
- 5th Flow – dangerousNEGRO
- Ivy League – Jamaican Carl
- M1 (dead prez) – Drop
- Mookie Jones – Return of The Prince (4 Pac)
- Mookie Jones – Still Flossin ft Bun B and Beanie Sigel
- 5th Flow – Hustle Harder
- Reo – Talk About Nothing
- Reo – Every Memory of You
- Naughty By Nature – Hip Hop’s Pain
- GT Garza – It’s In Ur Heart
- Syreeta – Nicotine Dreams
- Old Money – Steve Harvey
- The Alpha Project – Obama
- ReoBounce Back
- D.O.E Record2 Minute PSA
- Royce Da 5’9Black Girl
- Ivy LeagueVanity
- SyreetaSincere
Check out JClay sporting the dangerousNegro t-shirt.
Welsing on For The People-Part1A: Understanding Chess in Black & White
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Obama asked, “What about the Black community?”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ul8gPo4zwo]
The Black Miracle
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