More Racial Drama in Texas-Hispanics Keep Out

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One week after a dust up between Neo Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen and Black Panthers in Paris, Texas, we have another racial incident in a state that is on the verge of changing while some of its old guard and ignorant desperately try to hold on. This one is small compared to the dust up in Paris, but represents an attitude that sadly gets spouted or implied on TV news shows hosted by the likes of Lou Dobbs and Glen Beck. In Azel, Texas not too far out of Dallas, we have a couple who have posted a sign that says ‘Hispanics Keep Out’

When confronted by concerned neighbors the 72 year old woman of the house who declined to give her name stated that she was within her ‘American’ rights to put whatever sign she wants to on her property.   For those who are outside of the Lone Star state bear in mind that Texas is very strong when it comes to property rights. You can get shot and the owner not be in trouble if you decide to come tresspassing on people’s property.

The woman’s stupidity and pure ignorance is borne out by the fact that she says she doesn’t want anyone who is here in this country illegally coming to her house.  However, she doesn’t specifically state ‘illegal’ or ‘undocumented’ Hispanics keep out.  Of course one might point out to this Azel woman,  indigenous folks aren’t the ones here illegally- if anything its the woman in question but that’s for another column on another date.

As was stated earlier Texas, is going through some serious growing pains. As the sate becomes Blacker and Browner in many sectors there are those who simply will not go with the flow and adapt. Most of the people in Azel Texas are not in agreement with the sign and have publicly stated so.. but there is an ilk of people some who hold power and set policy and some who have been granted a platform in national and even local media who espouse such views. They need to die off  and then we can start to really build a multi-cultural nation free of their ignorance and racial bias. 

This incident comes in the middle of a firestorm where conversations about race are now center stage in public conversations. Much of it stems from the Paris, Texas dust up and the incident in Cambridge, Mass involving Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates being arrested for breaking into his own home and his friend  President Obama commenting by calling the place stupid.  Gates who accused the police of racially profiling him sparked off a big debate on the issue. Now with this ‘Hispanics Keep Out Sign in texas, this no doubt will keep us talking.

-Davey D-

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This sign represents a sentiment that far too many feel comfortable expressing in public discourse

This sign represents a sentiment that far too many feel comfortable expressing in public discourse

Paris, Texas-The History of a Troubled City-Report Back from Paris pt2

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We continue our conversation with Brother Jesse about the racial unrest that took place in Paris Texas earlier this week. He was there to witness the drama as it unfolded. Here Jesse gives us an historical overview of the town. He talks about the sordid history of Paris, which was one of the leading places in the South where Black men were routinely lynched.

He pointed out how harsh racial politics are still a reality by citing the case of 15 year old Shaquanda Cotton. In 2007 Shaquanda was sentenced to seven years in jail for pushing a hall monitor at school after they had a harsh exchange of words. At issue were several white students being allowed to go visit a nurse office while Cotton was denied.

She was already on the radar with school officials who did not like that her mother was an activist who constantly put the school in her crosshairs over racial bias. Cotton who had never been arrested was charged with a felony on a public servant and received 7 years. Her case drew national attention and was a stark reminder that Paris still had serious issues around race relations that needed to be resolved even in 2007.

Brother Jesse talked about this and noted the rash of racially charged incidents that have been occuring all over the United States since Barack Obama had been elected president..

you can check out Brother Jesse write up of his visit

http://jessemuhammad.blogs.finalcall.com/2009/07/racial-tension-flares-in-paris-texas.html

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-Davey D-

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Trae Day community celebration ruined by driveby shooting at Texas Southern

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DaveyD-leather-225By now everyone has heard about the unfortunate situation that went down Wednesday night on the Texas Southern University campus during a huge community event called ‘Trae Day’which was a day long celebration meant to honor popular Houston rapper Trae the Truth and  give out free school supplies. According to police reports, 6 people were injured in a drive by shooting as things were winding down. 

  Houston police were quick to point out the the shooting stemmed from rival gangs that reside in cities outside of Houston. For many in attendance, it was a huge black eye for organizers and participants who wanted to put forth the community activism  and political maturing of Trae as well as many of the artists on the bill like Bun B who was scheduled to perform. The host of the event was Houston City Councilman Peter Brown who is campaigning for mayor and scheduled to attend was Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

This incident is one that is certain to evoke skepticism in the minds of some politicos who are wondering if engaging the Hip hop community is a liability. This unfortunately happens even if the artists themselves had nothing to do with the drama. In this case,  Trae had already left the event when the shootings took place. But his name will be associated with what went down as more than a few pundits will gleefully try to connect the dots and conclude that rappers + large crowd=violence.  

 Was it because of the number of people shot? Well  two days ago in Newark, New Jersey 5 people got shot and there was no national coverage. There was a shooting in Jersey City where 4 officers were shot and that didn’t make national news. It wasn’t talked about on the Bay Area stations nor any of the stations in Texas. 
Houston city council member Peter Brown hosted the Trae Day event. he is currently running for Mayor. Him and Trae collected school supplies for needy kids to offset the recession and budget cuts.

Houston city council member Peter Brown hosted the Trae Day event. he is currently running for Mayor. Him and Trae collected school supplies for needy kids to offset the recession and budget cuts.

What i find even more disturbing is how this incident has made national news. It was one of the top stories on the news here in the Bay Area. They reported that story but not the flare up between the Neo nazis and KKK in Paris, Texas-why? I was watching the local news stations in New York City this morning and again this was a top story…Again no mention of the Paris, Texas incident-why?

 Here in Richmond, California there was a multiperson shooting involving 4 or 5 people and it barely made the newspaper-so why did Trae who is relatively unknown outside of mainstream circles suddenly become a household name?

When I saw the coverage in NY they made sure to mention it was a Get Out to Vote event.. They didn’t make mention that it was an event that collected school supplies for people in need… Why was this not mentioned?  AP and other major news agencies covered this story and I think it was only one local outlet that talked about the school supplies Trae and City Council Peter Brown who is running from mayor collected. 

Lastly there were national acts on that bill, Rick Ross and Bun B they were never mentioned.. News coverage is always by design and not by coincidence. I think the game plan was to discredit an event that was doing exactly what we complain ‘street oriented rappers aren’t doing.. organizing and politicizing their fans and the communities they come from..

Trae the Truth is one of Houston's most popular rappers. He was being honored at TSU for his community work

Trae the Truth is one of Houston's most popular rappers. He was being honored at TSU for his community work

The usual tact after a shooting incident is to gather a bunch of pundits around and start examining the lyrics of rap songs and critique the style of dress. And while I’ll be the first to admit there’s always a time and place for such discussions, whats at stake right now is dealing with the larger underlying issues that lead to bad behavior, bad choices and nihilistic attitudes. This could include poverty, poor schools, bad housing and  lack of health resources to name a few. The solutions to many of these ills are likely to come in the forms of a legislative or political decision where resources are allocated and laws are passed allowing one to obtain some sort of relief. Hence its good that Peter brown and Sheila Jackson were on hand. Its good that people came together and tried to make community activism and political education accessible to people normally left out of the process.

In anycase props to Trae for his work. Props to those who showed up to be inspired and get their polical and community grind going. Lets hope that we can all come together to resolve the causes leading up to last nights shooting at TSU. 

The way we have to look at this is that in many corners of society where people are marginalized and communities are undeserved the best way to lessen the chances of incidents like this occurring is to address the underlying issues that lead to violence. In other words community events like Trae Day are not only needed but should be seen as crucial steps in our attempts to move society forward.  

 Something to Ponder

-Davey D-

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6 shot, wounded in drive-by at Texas Southern

By JUAN A. LOZANO (AP) –

 http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvOKe3DE5K2dH0FCSznMnjDPNzYwD99JVMI00 

HOUSTON — A drive-by shooting at a community rally on the Texas Southern University campus Wednesday night left six people wounded, a school spokeswoman said. Police believe the incident was gang-related.

One male student was among the six people who were shot and treated for serious, but non-life-threatening injuries, TSU spokeswoman Eva Pickens said.

Witnesses told police that one car drove by and opened fire on the parking lot where a popular Houston rapper was promoting community service and voter registration, Pickens said.

Peter Role, a local music promoter, told the Houston Chronicle he heard what sounded “like the Fourth of July.”

“We heard some gunshots and everybody was hitting the ground,” Role said.

Campus police believe the incident resulted from a rivalry between two gangs, one from Missouri City, a suburb southwest of Houston, and the other from Fresno, a small town outside Missouri City, she said.

Among the rally participants was Houston City Councilman Peter Brown, who is running for mayor in November’s election.

Lucinda Guinn, who manages Brown’s mayoral campaign, said the rally — billed as a “family block party” — included a concert by rapper Trae the Truth and featured participants such as Brown and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. Guinn said she had no details on the shootings, but was dismayed that “an effort for bringing a very positive message to the community” would end in violence.

Nancy Byron, Trae’s publicist, told the Chronicle that the rapper already had left the event at 8:30 p.m. or 8:45 p.m. and did not see the shooting.

“We’re very depressed about it and we feel like its a black eye on an otherwise very community-driven event,” Byron said.

An e-mail sent to Lee wasn’t immediately returned. Her telephone mailbox was full and wouldn’t take messages.

Texas Southern is a historically black university in Houston with an enrollment approaching 10,000 students.

Associated Press Writer Terry Wallace contributed to this report from Dallas.

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Is the Obama Health Care Plan Really Better Than Nothing?

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By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Candidate Barack Obama told us to judge his first term by whether he delivers quality affordable health care for all Americans, including nearly fifty million uninsured. So why does his proposal not cover the uninsured till 2013, after the next presidential election when Medicare took only 11 months to cover its first 40million seniors? Why are corporate media pretending that no opinions exist to Obama’s left? And why has the public option part of the Obama health care plan shrunk from covering 130 million to only 10 million, with 16 million left uninsured altogether?

healthcare_again

Is the Obama Health Care Plan Really Better Than Nothing?

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-health-care-plan-really-better-nothing

The health care debate inside and outside the matrix

Like just about everything else, your take on the national health care debate depends on whether you’re inside or outside the matrix.

Within the bubble of fake reality blown by corporate media and bipartisan political establishment, the health care news is that the Obama Plan is at last making its way through Congress. It’s being fought by greedy private insurance companies, by chambers of commerce, by Republican and some Democratic lawmakers.

Under the Obama plan, we’re told, employers will have to insure their employees or pay into a fund that does it for them. Individuals will be required under penalty of law to buy private insurance policies and for those that can’t afford it or prefer not to use a private insurer there will be something called a “public option.” This “public option, the story goes, is bitterly fought by the bad guys because it will make private insurers accountable by competing with them, forcing them to lower their costs. Both the president’s backers and opponents agree that the whole thing will be fantastically expensive, and the president proposes to fund it with cuts in existing programs like Medicaid which pay for the care of the poorest Americans and a tax on those making more than $300,000, later raised to $1 million a year.

The “public option” has that magic word “public” in it, and that’s reassuring to progressives and to most of the American people. Taxing the rich is a popular idea too. So if you rely on corporate media, the administration, or some of the so-called progressive blogs to identify the players and keep the score, it seems a pretty clear case of President Obama on the side of the angels, battling the greedy insurance companies, Republicans and blue dog Democrats to bring us universal, affordable health care.

That whole picture has about as much reality as the ones the same corporate media and most of the same politicians drew for us about Iraq, 9-11, weapons of mass destruction and some people over there who wanted us to free them. Iraq and the White House were and remain actual places, and there really is a problem called health care. But the places, problems and solutions are very different from the bubble of fake reality blown around them.

What sustains this fake reality is the diligent suppression from public space of any viewpoints, observations or proposals to Obama’s left. As long as the illusion that nobody has a better idea, that the only choice we have is Obama’s way or the Republicans’ way can be maintained, the crooked game can go on.

But bubbles are delicate things. Keeping this one intact requires so many vital topics to be avoided, so many inquiring eyes to be averted, so many fruitful conversations to be squelched that it’s hard to see how the president, the bipartisan establishment and the corporate media can pull it all off.

The real Obama Plan: doesn’t cover the uninsured till 2013, if then.

The first clue that something is deeply wrong with the Obama health care proposal is its timeline. According to a copyrighted July 21 AP story by Ricardo Alfonso-Zaldivar,

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare law on July 30, 1965, and 11 months later seniors were receiving coverage. But if President Barack Obama gets to sign a health care overhaul this fall, the uninsured won’t be covered until 2013 — after the next presidential election.

In fact, a timeline of the 1,000-page health care bill crafted by House Democrats shows it would take the better part of a decade — from 2010-2018 — to get all the components of the far-reaching proposal up and running.”

According to a peer reviewed 2009 study in the American Journal of Medicine, 62% of the nation’s 727,167 non-business bankruptcies were triggered by unpayable medical bills in 2007. Most of these had health insurance when they fell ill or were injured, but with loopholes, exclusions, high deductibles and co-payments, or were simply dropped when they got sick. In 2008 that figure was 66% of 934,000 personal bankruptcies and in 2009 it could approach 70% of 1.1 million bankruptcies. And 18,000 Americans die each year because medical care is unaffordable or unavailable. Waiting till 2013 means millions of families will be financially ruined and tens of thousands will die unnecessarily.

If the Johnson administration with no computers back in the sixties could implement Medicare for 45 million seniors in under a year, why does it take three and a half years in the 21st century to cover some, but not all, of America’s fifty million uninsured? And why does the Obama Plan make us wait till after the next presidential election? Politicians usually do popular things and run for election on the resulting wave of approval. Delaying what ought to be the good news of universal and affordable health care for all Americans till two elections down the road is a strong indication that they know the good news really ain’t all that good. And it’s not.

Inside the matrix of TV, the corporate media and on much of the internet, discussion of the Obama plan’s timeline, the human cost of another three years delay, and the comparison with Medicare’s 11 month rollout back in the days before computers are almost impossible to find. We can only wonder why.

The Obama plan is about health insurance, not health care.

As BAR has been reporting since January 2007, the Obama plan is not a health care plan at all, it is a health insurance plan. Based largely upon the failed model in place in Massachusetts since 2006, the Obama plan will require employers to provide coverage or pay a special tax. Everybody not covered by an employer will be required to purchase insurance under penalty of law, in much the same manner as you’re currently required to buy car insurance.

In my state,” testified Dr. Steffie Woolhandler of the Harvard Medical School last month before Congress, “beating your wife, communicating a terrorist threat and being uninsured all carry $1,000 fines.”

As in Massachusetts, the health insurance plans people are forced to buy will cost a lot and won’t cover much. In a July 20 National Journal article Dr. David Himmelstein says,

Nearly every day that he is in the clinic, Himmelstein says, he sees a patient who has problems paying for care “despite this reform.’ Some of them had free care before the 2006 law took effect but are now expected to handle co-payments. If you’re not poor enough to get a subsidy, say you’re making $30,000 a year, you’re required to buy a policy that costs about $5,000 a year for the premium and has a $2,000 deductible before it pays for anything. For substantial numbers of people, it’s effectively not coverage,’ Himmelstein said. The policy he described is about the cheapest Massachusetts plan available, according to the Physicians for a National Health Program report, which Himmelstein co-wrote.”

A family of four making under $24,000 a year in Massachusetts gets its insurance premium free, but is still expected to cough up deductibles and co-payments and live with loopholes and exclusions that often deny care to those who need it. And in both the Massachusetts and Obama plans, funds to pay those premiums come out of the budgets of programs like Medicaid that already pay for care for the poorest Ameicans.

The Obama plan’s “public option” is a bait-and-switch scam

A July 21 pnhp.org article titled “Bait and Switch: How the Public Option Was Sold” outlines how the public option is neither public, nor an option.

Public option” refers to a proposal… that Congress create an enormous “Medicare-like” program that would sell health insurance to the non-elderly in competition with the 1,000 to 1,500 health insurance companies that sell insurance today…

Hacker (its author) claimed the program, which he called “Medicare Plus” in 2001 and “Health Care for America Plan” in 2007, would enjoy the advantages that make Medicare so efficient – large size, low provider payment rates and low overhead…

Hacker predicted that his proposed public program would so closely resemble Medicare that it would be able to set its premiums far below those of other insurance companies and enroll at least half the non-elderly population.”

The White House is committed to twisting arms in the both houses of Congress and reconciling the two versions of Democratic bills to emerge from the House and Senate. What emerges will be the Obama plan. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Senate version of the Democrats’ pending health care legislation leaves 33 million uninsured and omits the public option altogether. The House version includes a “public option” estimated to cover only 10-12 million people, a number far too small for it to create price pressure on private insurance companies, while leaving 16 or 17 million uninsured. Instead of setting prices for health care, it will be forced to pay whatever tthe private insurers already pay, and perhaps more.

As private insurers use their marketing muscle to recruit younger, healthier people who’ll pay for but not use their benefits, the public option will be a dumping ground for the customers they don’t want… the middle-aged, the poor, those with pre-existing conditions. And of course the Obama plan’s “public option’ will be managed by contractors from the private insurance industry.

Private insurers spend a third of every health care dollar on non-health related things like bonuses, denial machinery, advertising, lobbying and bad investments. Medicare spends 2 or 3% on administrative overhead. Bush’s “enhanced Medicare” administered by private insurance contractors, spends about 11% on overhead. That’s about what we should expect from the Obama public option. So much for change.

So far, discipline is holding. Nobody in corporate media, the administration, or among Democrats in Washington has gotten round to telling us that the public option has been eviscerated. But its powerful appeal and the awesome power of the word “public” are offered by Obama supporters as the central reasons to shut up, clap harder, and get behind the president on this.

Taxing the rich, paying for health care. How the Obama Plan stacks up against single payer.

Along with being funded by cuts in Medicaid, the Obama plan is supposed to be funded by taxing those who make $300,000 or more per year. That’s not a bad thing. The wealthy don’t pay nearly enough taxes. But the US already spends more on health care than anyplace else on the planet while leaving a greater portion of its population uninsured than anybody.

The Obama plan will not contain costs. It will subsidize the insurance vampires well into the next decade. On the other hand, single payer would eliminate the private insurance industry altogether. In many advanced industrial countries, most of the practices private insurers follow here, such as cherry picking healthy patients while dumping and denying sick ones, are illegal. Why can we do that?

Single payer, according to a study by the California Nurses Association would eliminate 550,000 jobs in private insurance while creating 3.2 million new ones in actual health care. It would be responsible for $100 billion in wages annually and a source of immense tax revenues for local governments.

So is the Obama plan really better than nothing?

The Obama plan seems calculated to buy time for private insurers, to end the health care discussion for a decade or more without solving the health care problem, do so in a way that discredits the very idea of everybody in- nobody out health care. It will leave tens of millions uninsured, a hundred million or more underinsured, and the same parasitic private interests in charge of the American health care system that run it now.

The Obama plan as it now stands requires us to let another 18,000 die for each of the next three years and allow more than a million additional families to be bankrupted by medical expenses before we can judge whether or not the plan is working. It’s easy to imagine Obama partisans telling us in mid 2013 that it’s still too early to be sure.

The Kucinich amendment, which allows the few states wealthy enough to try it the liberty to fashion their own single payer regimes is intended to attract progressives and single payer votes in Congress without breaking the bubble. By itself, it should not be a reason to support this bill.. The wealthiest state in the union is probably California, and it’s handing out IOUs instead of salaries this month. It’s hard to see what would be lost if this health care bill went down in flames, and we started over again next year.

Can he get away with it?

Maybe. Maybe not. If the corporate media and the president can keep discussion of the devilish details to a minimum, if they can silence, co-opt and intimidate the forces to Obama’s left — if they can keep most of the public inside their bubble of fake reality, Barack Obama may achieve his goal of thwarting the reform that most of the American people want — an everybody in, nobody out single payer health care system on the model of Canada or Australia, or Medicare for All. It won’t be close, it won’t be easy, and with nothing to be gained, progressives shouldn’t make it any easier.

Since the president’s success depends mostly on keeping people silent and in the dark, he will probably be unable to mobilize the 13 million phone numbers and email addresses collected during the recent presidential campaign, and now held by OFA, his campaign arm. If an organizing call went out to them, too many would try to read the bill and discuss the options, and such a discussion could easily get out of hand. When OFA called house meetings on health care last December, the most frequently advanced question was why we couldn’t or shouldn’t get a single payer health care system.

Single payer isn’t dead yet. It’s very much alive among Barack Obama’s own supporters. To succeed, he has to bury it alive, to keep them in the bubble, in the dark and quiet, or clapping so loudly they cannot hear themselves or each other think. It’s not over.

Bruce Dixon is managing editor at BAR, and can be reached at bruce.dixon@blackagendareport.com

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President Obama Reacts to Harvard Arrest Says Police Acted Stupidily

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daveyd-raider2It was just last week that President Obama spoke at the NAACP  Convention and gave an incredible speech that received a rousing standing ovation. He covered a lot of ground, but frustratingly he never made mention of police brutality and the high number of incidents that have taken place with young Black and Brown people being shot or mistreated. He has gone out of his way to comment on almost all police killings including the ones in Oakland, Pittsburgh and last week in Jersey City.

Since that speech we have seen Jersey City police kill a woman who had a knife , but was never warned before being shot to death. Her husband, residents and witnesses accuse the police of wrong doing.  

We’ve heard about the false and dubious arrests of prominent Hip Hop figures and community activists like; Paradise Gray of X-Clan and Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers.

We’ve heard about Black police officers in Philadelphia suing fellow white officers for posting up and running a website full of racist rants called Domelights. What was the final straw that prompted the lawsuit was white officers referring to the young Black kids who were recently discriminated by a white run country club as ‘Ghetto Monkeys’ .

Since the NAACP speech, we’ve seen the angry white pundits like Pat Buchanan and even some Senators make over the top racist remarks about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Buchanan was so angry that he came on a primetime news show and called Sotomayor a Minor Leaguer and stated that white men weren’t getting a fair shake. He said the race pot needed to be stirred up.  He then went and made the outrageous assertion that this country and its wars were built and fought 1005 by white people.

Since that speech we’ve seen KKK square off with the New Black Panthers in Paris, Texas after they attempted to disrupt a rally being held to protest the freeing of two white men accused of dragging a young man Brandon McClelland to death.

On that same day Henry Louis Gates the prominent 58 year old Harvard Professor who heads up the African studies department was arrested in his own home after police initially approached him accusing him of breaking into his own home.

I guess President Obama has heard enough and finally said something. He accused Cambridge Police of acting stupidly. It took me by surprised. Now I hope it calls up Attorney General Eric Holder and has him start investigating police misconduct and start holding folks accountable. They better start holding those serious conversations about race and do this quick before Holder or Obama get arrested and mistreated over a minor incident by police who are resentful about these two Black men holding so much power.

That may seem like a off the cuff remark, but I remind people as I close out that back in the late 1800s after slavery had ended, Black folks were moving into positions of power. We were getting into elected offices. We even had a Black senator. We were moving on up as jealous and resentful white folks saw the upward move as a threatening. This was called the Reconstruction period. Enter DW Griffith and his movie Birth of a Nation. This was where the Ku Klux Klan was introduced and depicted as heroes who saved this country from ‘Uppity Negroes’ getting power.

It wasn’t too long after Birth of a Nation came out that the KKK increased its membership in huge numbers and that mobs of white people started rioting, burning down and even bombing Black cities and neighborhoods. From Chicago to Cincinnati to Tulsa, Oklahoma, roving mobs of angry whites came through and destroyed these cities and the people within them. After that came along period of lynchings. These things happened almost everyday in places throughout the country prompting singer Billie Holiday to do the song ‘Strange Fruit’.

Let’s not wake up and find ourselves repeating history as more and more racist shed their masks and start showing their true colors and expressing their true hatred for Black and Brown people.

Something to Ponder

-Davey D-

Mass. policeman who arrested Gates won’t apologize

Prominent College Professor Henry Louis Gates was mistreated in his own home by a white police sergent who refuses to apologize

Prominent College Professor Henry Louis Gates was mistreated in his own home by a white police sergent who refuses to apologize

NATICK, Mass. – A white police sergeant accused of racism after he arrested renowned black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home insisted Wednesday he won’t apologize for his treatment of the Harvard professor, but President Barack Obama said police had acted “stupidly.”

Gates has demanded an apology from Sgt. James Crowley, who had responded to the home near Harvard University to investigate a report of a burglary and demanded the scholar show him identification. Police say the 58-year-old at first refused and then accused the officer of racism.

Gates said Crowley walked into his home without his permission and only arrested him as the professor followed him to the porch, repeatedly demanding the sergeant’s name and badge number because he was unhappy over his treatment.

Obama said Wednesday he didn’t know what role race played in the incident but added that police in suburban Boston “acted stupidly” in arresting Gates even after he offered proof that he was in his own home.

Looks like President Obama has had enough of all these police terrorism incidents-he has finally spoken out by saying the police acted stupidly

Looks like President Obama has had enough of all these police terrorism incidents-he has finally spoken out by saying the police acted stupidly

“I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry,” Obama said. “Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And number three — what I think we know separate and apart from this incident — is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that’s just a fact.”

He said federal officials need to continue working with local law enforcement “to improve policing techniques so that we’re eliminating potential bias.”

Crowley said Wednesday he’s disappointed by the heated national debate triggered by the incident and insisted he followed proper procedures in arresting Gates last week in Cambridge on a charge of disorderly conduct. The charge was dropped Tuesday.

Officers were responding to the home Gates rents from Harvard after a woman reported seeing “two black males with backpacks” trying to force open the front door, according to a police report. Gates, who had returned from a trip overseas with a driver, said he had to shove the door open because it was jammed. He was inside, calling the company that manages the property, when police arrived.

Gates was accused by police of “tumultuous” behavior toward the officers. But Gates countered by saying Crowley was clearly responding to racial profiling and “couldn’t understand a black man standing up for his rights, right in his face.”

source:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090723/ap_on_re_us/us_
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M-1 of dead prez-Report Back from Gaza -Why we should be concerned w/Palestine and International Struggles …

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M-1 of dead prez reports back from his trip to Gaza

M-1 of dead prez reports back from his trip to Gaza

We caught up with M-1 of the group dead prez to find about his recent trip to Gaza. For folks who don’t recall, last week M-1 made headlines along with former Green Party Presidential candidate and Cynthia McKinney, New York City Councilman Charles Barron and UK Parliament member George Galloway.. They along with over 200 people defied a blockade and warnings from the Israeli government and went to Gaza to bring humanitarian aid.

We spoke with M-1 about how he hooked up with Viva Palestina which was the organization that made the trip. M-1 explained that he has been involved with Palestinian causes for a number of years. He broke down the history of his involvement  and spoke about how the organizations and people he has rolled with have been equally involved in struggles African Americans are dealing with here. We will be posting that up later this afternoon

In the meantime we are posting up two portions of our long interview. The first is M-1 addressing a nagging question that frequently pops up:

Why should Black people in America be concerned about political happenings in far off places like Iran or Palestine when we have problems here at home? M-1 gave us a history lesson and reminded us that the Black struggle has always been international from the days of Paul Robeson to Malcolm X wanting to take our case before the United Nations to Martin Luther King dealing with Vietnam on up to the foreign aid that came to help us when we went through Katrina. M-1 goes into detail about why Black folks had better be concerned about international struggles. He lets us know that our struggle at home would’ve been seriously hindered if we weren’t internationally connected. He also encouraged us to see our selves as part of a larger movement without borders.

In this next video clip we speak to M-1 about what he experienced while visiting Gaza. He talks about the conditions there and how the people are and the role his fellow rappers in Palestine are fairing … We also spoke to M-1 about why he felt he was a hostage in Egypt. The government kept people in the country from 5-10 days and then made them jump through all types of hoops to get out of the country.  He also talked about the totalitarian state of Egypt and how it was ironic that Obama spoke at a country that does not allow free speech.  If dead prez was living in Egypt espousing the political views that they do here they would be in jail.. below is the interview segment from that..

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Did White People Build This Country? A False Assertion Gets Corrected

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daveyd-raider2The challenge we have with today’s news media is that far too often it is driven by ‘expert’ punditry. We see this all the time where people holding lofty titles like ‘Professor’, ‘journalist’ and ‘doctor’ are invited onto shows as pundits and are assumed to be the definitive expert in the topics being discussed. As a result anything they say is taken as fact and hence gets repeated and passed along to others as gospel.

Far too often people holding other perspectives that are widely shared by members of particular communities are excluded from these discussions which leaves folks who do not fully understand or critically think about media matters to assume the following;

1-There are no other perspectives to consider but those of the pundit

2-When other perspectives are presented they are ‘alternative’ at best and on the fringe and out of sync at worse.

3-If a person who looks or says he/she is a member of that marginalized or often excluded community does appear on a mainstream news show what they say is given addition weight and taken as the predominant view of the community.

Over the years I’ve heard these types of  handpicked  leaders say outrageous things on behalf of the community ranging from ‘we are against immigration reform’ to ‘racism and discrimination has ended and we no longer need to talk about such matters’. We’ve heard age old myths that have long been proven wrong like ‘The majority of Black people are in jail as opposed to college or the majority of Brown people in this country are here illegally. We’ve heard conservative women come on shows and say things like; fighting for equal rights to pay is not needed at this time.woman should stay home and take care of family. I am still hearing handpicked Black pundits pushing outdated assertions like; Black people from the hood don’t do well in school because they are afraid of appearing to ‘act white’ . Can we please require this myth which first emerged in the late 80s when during an interview with film maker Spike Lee?

We can take these misperception closer to home-with false assertions like; President Obama is a Muslim or President Obama is a socialist.

This continued misrepresentation of communites has spawned the media reform and media justice movements that has pushed for major changes and overhaul of systems in place that routinely assualt people who do not have a seat at the table where they can speak to the masses and provide a counter or more balanced view.

Rachel Maddow Corrects False Assertions made by Pat Buchanan

Rachel Maddow Corrects False Assertions made by Pat Buchanan

In the clip below we will show you haw this works and one of the rare times someone in mainstream media returned to the airwaves to correct what was uttered, widely heard and subsequently listened to and believed. This centers around the debate that took place the other day between conservative pundit Pat Buchanan who appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and made the outrageous assertion that this country was built by 100% white people. He said that the Civil war, World War  I and II were fought by all white people and basically rewrote American history.  This was a conversation between two white people and Buchanan’s remarks went unchallenged and uncorrected until yesterday when Rachael Maddow came on her show and spent 10 minutes correcting the assertions made by Buchanan.

As I said this rarely happens. As you listen to this keep in mind how many people were left believing what Buchanan said was fact. Hopefully we all learn to think about what is presented on the news more critically. Check out the clip below.

-Davey D-

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KKK & Neo Nazi’s Square Off Against Black Panthers in Paris, Texas

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Here’s pt2 of our interview with Brother Jesse

Madness went down in Paris, Texas today as members of the New Black Panther Party and White Supremacists squared off. The trouble took place when skin heads descended upon a rally held by members of the Black community to protest the jasper style-dragging death  of Brandon McClelland last september by two white men. In what appeared to initially be a slam dunk case, the special prosecutor Toby Shook said no charges would be pursued due to lack of evidence..

Brother Jesse Muhammad of the Final Call Newspaper was one of the first to break this story. He was present at the rally today and gave us a in depth break down of what took place.  You can peep out brother jesse’s blog here.

http://jessemuhammad.blogs.finalcall.com/

In the meantime take a look at the footage from AP and you can get a glimpse of what took place.. As you watch this ask your self- how and why is this happening in the Age of Obama and why isn’t Race being discussed seriously as advocated by Attorney General Eric Holder

-Davey D-

Brother Jesse of the Final call was on the scene and took this crazy picture. Reuters and AP were also on hand.

Brother Jesse of the Final call was on the scene and took this crazy picture. Reuters and AP were also on hand.

Neo Nazis and KKK Members tried to disrupt a rally in Paris, Tx held by the New Black Panther Party

Neo Nazis and KKK Members tried to disrupt a rally in Paris, Tx held by the New Black Panther PartyPolice stand in between Neo Nazis and New Black Panther members

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Police stand in between Neo Nazis and New Black Panther members

Police stand in between Neo Nazis and New Black Panther members

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Chris Brown Publicly Apologizes to Rihanna & His Fans

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Chris Brown offered up what appears to be a sincere and heartfelt apology to Rihanna and his fans

Chris Brown offered up what appears to be a sincere and heartfelt apology to Rihanna and his fans

In a video that appeared online late Monday afternoon (July 20), Chris Brown has apologized publicly for the first time about the domestic altercation that took place between him and Rihanna earlier this year.

In the clip, obtained by MTV News, Brown, dressed in a red long-sleeve shirt with buttons on the front, spoke directly to the camera and apologized to his former girlfriend and his fans.

“I’ve told Rihanna countless times and I’m telling you today, I’m truly, truly sorry that I wasn’t able to handle the situation both differently and better,” Brown said.

At the beginning of the two-minute clip, Brown explains that his attorneys advised him to not speak about the situation until the legal ramifications were settled. But Brown said that ever since the February incident, he’s wanted to speak about the matter. The singer expressed his “deepest regret” over the fight and said he “accepts full responsibility” for the incident.

According to the police report, on the eve of the 2009 Grammy Awards, Brown and Rihanna engaged in an altercation that left the “Umbrella” star with facial contusions. Just last month, Brown pleaded guilty to one count of felony assault. The singer will attend anger-management courses, seek therapy and perform community labor as a result of his plea deal.

Toward the end of the apology, Brown continues to express remorse. The singer said up until the incident, he was living his life in a way that would make those around him proud. Through soul searching, he said, and help from his minister and mother, Brown intends to work on himself and gain forgiveness for his actions.

“I only can pray that you forgive me, please,” he said to his fans.

Below is the video:

source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1616575/20090720/brown__chris__18_.jhtml 

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Mark Anthony Neal: The Demise of VIBE

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The Demise of VIBE
By Mark Anthony Neal–SeeingBlack.com Contributing Critic
Jul 19, 2009, 21:48

Professor Mark Anthony neal

Professor Mark Anthony neal

There is no small irony to the fact that the announcement of the folding of Vibe Magazine occurred the day after the death of Michael Jackson. Though Jackson’s career was on the downside in the United States when Vibe Magazine published its first issue in September of 1993, the magazine was the product of a cultural landscape that Jackson had a large hand in crafting. Presenting a glossy and urbane view of urban culture, Vibe became a preeminent venue for journalists and scholars chronicling contemporary Black popular culture. The lists of writers who can claim a Vibe by-line represent the cutting edge of a critical intelligentsia, many of them Black writers who would have had few other legitimate options to hone their craft. As such the death of Vibe Magazine raises questions about the future of popular criticism at a moment when few print or on-line journals see the value of paying for such content.

Vibe Magazine was launched just as rap music and hip-hop culture were gaining mainstream credibility in terms of delivering a substantial buying audience to advertisers. The galvanizing of that audience was set in motion years earlier when MTV embraced rap music in the form of Yo MTV Raps—an embrace that was made possible, in large part, due to the efforts of Michael Jackson, CBS Records head Walter Yentikoff and Vibe founder Quincy Jones to force MTV to open up its playlists to Jackson and, by extension, other popular Black recording artists in the early 1980s.

As scholar Todd Boyd recently opined, “In the early ‘90s, hip-hop had made the successful transition from Sedgwick and Cedar through Compton on its way to global dominance. Along the way, as the music grew more and more pervasive, its influence had started to become evident in multiple cultural arenas.” Vibe Magazine was a blatant attempt by Jones and publisher Len Burnett to trade on hip-hop’s increasing commercial and cultural influence. In the process the magazine helped establish a generation of Black writers and critics as tastemakers for an American—and increasingly global—public desiring to consume the best of Blackness.

kevinpowellcolor-225Figures like Joan Morgan, Kevin Powell, Toure, Karen Good, Danyel Smith, Michael Gonzalez, and Scott Poulson Bryant—what I’ll call the Vibe Magazine generation—along with seasoned critics like Harry Allen, Greg Tate, Barry Michael Cooper and Nelson George (all veterans of the Village Voice in the 1980s) were among the writers that graced the pages of Vibe Magazine, contributing to what became a late 20th century renaissance of Black thought and thinkers. The best of those writers brought contemporary Black popular culture in conversation with the rich traditions that came before. At its best, the Vibe Magazine generation helped establish the criteria for high-end popular cultural criticism and perhaps the first sustained critical view of Black youth culture that was informed by Black youth culture.

 But Vibe’s success would undermine its very role as a critical arbiter of urban culture and, ultimately, the legitimacy of accessible mainstream cultural criticism. Many will point to the magazine’s role in the bi-coastal tensions that arose between the Death Row and Bad Boy record label camps, personified in the war of words between the late Tupac Shakur and the late Christopher Wallace. As Boyd suggests, “Vibe’s place as a nexus in this bi-coastal war cemented the magazine’s status as a relevant chronicle of hip-hop’s rapidly expanding evolution from sub-cultural status to mass cultural behemoth. Vibe, like The Washington Post during Watergate, no longer simply reported on the story; the magazine had at this point become an integral part of the very story that it was supposed to be reporting on.”

Equipped with a new sense of gravitas, Vibe became a part of the promotional machine that fueled hip-hop’s invasion of the American mainstream. Vibe Magazine was not alone in this regard; the Source Magazine, particularly after Bakari Kitwana’s editorship, was in many ways far more egregious in this matter, though it never professed the kind of mainstream appeal that Vibe Magazine garnered at its circulation peak. Many of the so-called urban journals of the late 1990s and early 21st century became little more than enablers of hip-hop’s most distasteful excesses, instead of providing the kind of critical scrutiny that many expected the magazine to maintain. In the process the very criticism that the magazine was founded on became devalued in a marketplace more interested in access to celebrity lifestyles. Magazines like Vibe were all too aware of the price that was to be paid if they didn’t toe the line. Such was the case when Damon Dash, then of Roc-A-Fella records pulled advertising from the magazine after Elizabeth Mendez Berry’s expose on domestic abuse among hip-hop figures placed the mogul in an unfavorable light.

Though many will cite the current recession as the primary force in Vibe’s demise, the magazine’s closing is just confirmation of a trend that began earlier in the decade when print media became challenged by free Internet content. With a wealth of cultural criticism available, print journals have been hard pressed to justify paying for content such as book reviews, film criticism and music journalism. The use of in-house bloggers has been one of the responses by print journals, though writers are paid a fraction of what they were paid even three years ago.

JohnMcWhorter-225The Internet has been an important component in bringing so many more voices to light—voices that were largely ignored a generation ago—but the democratization of criticism has undermined the value of cultural and critical expertise. Thus figures like Stanley Crouch and John McWhorter can be pitched as credible critics of hip-hop culture, though neither man has expertise on the subject.

With diminishing resources available for thoughtful and accessible cultural criticism (the academy remains a viable option for inaccessible criticism), contemporary mainstream Black cultural criticism exists as little more than commentary on the Obama White House and complaints about Black Entertainment Television. Blackness, however more visible, has been reduced to fit a 24-hour news cycle.

Longtime critic and author Nelson George alluded as much in a recent interview on the Michael Eric Dyson Show when he lamented that with a lack of available venues for Black criticism to be nurtured, very often audiences and consumers are unable to discern what is essentially “product” and what is “art.” Increasingly many Black critics have taken to publishing their criticism on self-contained blogs and websites, without remuneration, simply to make sure that the story of Black culture gets told right. Still others, confronting a public less interested in reading, have begun to produce video blogs and podcast in an effort to maintain a critical public voice. The best critics have been able to adapt to the limitations placed on their writing and I have faith that this generation of Black critics will do the same.

Mark Anthony Neal is the author of several books including New Black Man and Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation. He is a professor of African-American Studies at Duke University.