Hip Hop icon, Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers is one of the dopest emcees around.. He’s also one of the most politically astute….
We caught up with him the other day while visiting the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh, Pa to get his take on staying fresh in the emcee realm and what the Occupy Movement means to him…
Needless to say Wise left us with some jewels..His freestyles are straight rewind material as they are full of relevant substance and clever wordplay..
Click HERE to listen to our interview w/ Wise Intelligent
The day after Thanksgiving Friday November 26 there will be two big events that folks will not want to miss.. First we have a special screening of the movie Cointel-Pro 101.. This will be followed with a community discussion featuring Killer Priest of Wu-Tang, Wise Intelligent of Poor Roghteous Teachers, Casual of Hiero and myself.. This is taking place at Madrone Studios in SF starting at 5:30pm..
We chopped it up with Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers about the upcoming discussion and concert..taking place Friday Nov 26.. here’s the link to our insightful conversation. Also on the show is Kamel Jacob Bell of Anhk Marketing who is the son of political prisoner Herman Bell http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/65574
Later that night there will be an incredible concert featuring Digable Planets, Killer Priest, Wise Intelligent and Casual.. This is all going down at Club 6.. Yours Truly will be working the ones and twos
Click HERE to listen to our interview w/ Cee Knowledge aka Doodle Bug of Digable Planets
Below is our in depth interview w/ Cee Knowledge of the group Digable Planets.. Here he talks about a variety of topics including the humble origins of the group.. How Ladybug Meca wound up being a 3rd member. He talks about how the group developed its signature sound which many feel was a precursor to the Neo Soul sound that emerged years later..
Cee Knowledge talks about why the group broke up and the role label politics played in downplaying their second album ‘Blow Out Comb‘. We conclude by speaking about the people they hope to work with as they undertake the challenges of working on new material.. Questlove from the Roots wants to be on board.. They would love to work with Shock G of Digital Underground.. Q-Tip is another one they’d like to build with especially since Digable saw the Native Tongues as huge influences..
Below is the link to our Hard Knock Radio interview w/ Cee Knowledge of Digable Planets. http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/65522
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Trials of a Hip Hop Educator: Racial Profiling in a Post-Racial America?
By Tony Muhammad
The past few months have indeed been strange (but yet not surprisingly strange) for a few of us in and among the conscientious Hip Hop community in relation to encounters with police. On the afternoon of Friday, May 8th, I, myself, was arrested for the very first time in my life. I wasn’t taken to jail, but I was fingerprinted on the spot and fined, charged with soliciting in the city of Miami Gardens, Florida. What was I actually doing? I was passing out invitations for a special Mother’s Day program at my mosque. I was passing out the invitations in traffic as many other FOI (Fruit of Islam) were doing throughout Miami-Dade county, nationwide and internationally. I was stopped by a police officer and asked if I was selling anything. I said “No.” He inquired about the Final Call newspapers that were in a bag I was carrying. He asked me if they were for sale. I told him that they were not for sale, but that we accept donations for them if offered. It was at this point that the officer asked for my ID and the “arrest” took place.
After he was done filling out forms and handed me the fine, the officer mumbled some words that sounded like I was permitted to leave but had to meet him on that same corner in an hour. I said to him, “Officer, I have a mosque meeting that I have to conduct in an hour. Why is it necessary that I meet with you in an hour?” The officer then explained himself in a louder and clearer voice. He said, “No! I will let you go ahead and sell your newspaper for another hour. You can go ahead. I won’t stop you.” I found this to be rather odd, practically like a set up. Like, if I got pulled over and ticketed for speeding, would it make sense for the police officer that pulled me over to say that its okay for me to continue speeding since he already caught me? I shook my head and said, “No.” I walked away, got in my car and drove off. A week and a half later, after the officer finally submitted the paperwork of the arrest, the charges were dropped by the judge even before I had the opportunity to make a motion for an appeal. Yet and still, the arrest is still on record and I have to pay to get it expunged. So, even though I am not guilty of any wrong doing, I still need to pay as if I was.
Fellow youth advocates Wise Intelligent (of Poor Righteous Teachers) and Paradise Gray (The Arkitect of X-Clan) have likewise experienced ridiculous arrests recently. Wise was falsely suspected of drug dealing, literally in front of his home in Trenton, New Jersey. In the end, he was charged with “obstructing an investigation” since they couldn’t charge him with anything else. Paradise was falsely charged with blocking a door entrance while video recording a public demonstration in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The reality of it all is that incidents like these continue to be an every day experience for Blacks and Latinos in the United States despite now having a President of the United States that is of color. According to CNN, a 2004 Gallop Poll revealed that 67 percent of African Americans and 63 percent of Latinos believe they have experienced police discrimination. Amnesty International estimates that in the United States 32 million people (approximately the same amount of people that live Canada) have been subjected to racial profiling. In truth these statistics are more than likely conservative because they are only based on documented cases. When taking class into account, we would more than likely find that there is a sea of undocumented cases. It has been shown that poor people of color are least likely to know what their rights are in relation to treatment by police. This is especially the case of immigrant populations where language barriers may exist. Official statistics also do not indicate percentage of false arrests or the amount of people there are that have accepted false charges in plea agreements in exchange for no jail time. More than likely, poor people of color, who also tend to be least aware of their legal rights, disproportionately make up a great percentage within this category. Coherently, it has also been shown that poor people of color are least likely able to afford adequate legal defense and are pressured to deal with court appointed lawyers who usually try to work on ending court cases as quickly as possible; seldom, if not ever, in the best interests of defendants.
Henry Louis Gates
Since Harvard Professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested in front of his Cambridge, Massachusetts home on Thursday, July 16th it has re-sparked much nation-wide discussion on the realities of racial profiling, involving even President Barrack Obama in an almost “out of character” way (initially publicly saying that police acted “stupidly” in the situation). As the story goes, after returning from a trip to China, Dr. Gates (along with a driver from a local car company) was seen by a white woman breaking down his “jammed” front door. The white woman alerted police that a “Hispanic looking” man (much likely the driver) and another man (much likely Dr. Gates) were trying to break into the house. When the police showed up Dr. Gates was asked by Sgt. James Crowley for ID to prove that he lived at the residence, which he provided. However, in the midst of it all, Dr. Gates demanded that Sgt. Crowley give him his badge number and, according to police, angrily accused the police of being “racist.” After ignoring the request for the badge number several times, the officer stepped outside. When Dr. Gates followed the officer outside, he was arrested for “disorderly conduct” and was detained for several hours. Less than a week later, after much media attention, the charge was dropped.
Several noted journalists have recently written articles criticizing the fact that so much attention has been given to Dr. Gate’s police encounter; labeling it a mere distraction. This is especially after President Obama attempted to defuse the hype behind it all last week by having a “beer summit” at the White House with Dr. Gates and Sgt. Crowley (no doubt in attempt to bring more attention to his national health care plans); likewise with the media exposure of Boston Police Officer Justin Barrett being suspended for referring to Dr. Gates as a “banana-eating jungle monkey” in a mass e-mail to his buddies on the force. Overall, I would argue that on a surface level the incident is a mere reflection of what happens to peoples of color on a day to day basis with police and on a larger scale white supremacy. However, if we analyze it in light of Dr. Gates’ attempt to promote a “post-race” identity academic movement since the Presidential Election of Barrack Obama; it serves as a major sign for us. If the police report is correct that Dr. Gates became emotional and accused the police of racism (and there is an overwhelmingly good chance that it did indeed happen) then surely it largely negates the basis of his work in the past half year. Even more evident of this is his announced plans on The Tom Joyner Morning Show recently to do a documentary on racial profiling in response to his experience. In truth, it all reveals how dangerously naïve this “post-racial” false ideology he was trying to push is in today’s times.
Johannes Mehersele
Concurrently, on New Year’s Day in Oakland, California, it was not a “post-racial” type of thinking that kept BART Officer Johannes Mehserle from irrationally holding a gun to the back of Oscar Grant and pulling the trigger. On June 10th, It was not a “post-racial” type of thinking that kept James Von Brunn from shooting and killing Stephen Tyrone Jones, a Black security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C. It was not a “post-racial” type of thinking that kept Broward Sheriff’s deputy Al Lamberti from sexually abusing undocumented Latin American immigrants in Fort Lauderdale, Florida just because he thought he could get away with it due to language barriers. It is not a “post-racial” type of thinking that is keeping the Miami-Dade County Commission from considering the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center to be financially expendable and shut it down due to financial constraints, despite the great service the Center provides to young people in Miami’s Liberty City community. It is not a “post-racial” type of thinking that is keeping colleges and universities nationwide from downgrading or literally shutting down Black, Latino and overall cultural diversity programming due to budgetary constraints… but yet there is always money available to expand sports (mainly football) programs.
Dr. Gates should be mindful of all of this while making his racial profiling documentary and make sure that it is not just simply a way to capitalize off of his experience, as many academics normally do. Because of his position of influence, it should in fact provide a service! He should also be mindful when it comes to selecting the right crew for such an assignment, preferably people of color that have extensively studied racism and racial profiling in the United States; likewise featuring people of color from different genres that have experienced being racially profiled. Noting Dr. Gates’ track record, the project should be unlike any project he has undertaken before; especially and namely the development of the Encarta Africana Encyclopedia in 2000 (An encyclopedia about peoples of African descent in Africa and the Diaspora) which involved racial profiling itself. It involved the hiring of merely 3 Blacks out of 40 full time writers. In truth, there is no coincidence that the only Hip Hop entry in the project was Sir Mix-A-Lot. I guess “Baby Got Back” but if Dr. Gates wants to show and prove that he has authentically learned from the experience he’s going to have to get the right “backing” for such a documentary!
Peace! Until Next Time!
Tony Muhammad teaches American, African American and African History at an inner-city high school in Miami and is currently involved in efforts to reform The African American Voices Curriculum for Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Tony is most noted for his work as publisher of Urban America Newspaper (2003 – 2007) and co-organizer of the Organic Hip Hop Conference (2004 – 2008).
Hiphopeducator19@gmail.com
www.myspace.com/tonymuhammad
www.tonymuhammad.wordpress.com
It was just a few days ago that we ran the article of Wise Intelligent being falsely arrested. Sadly this type of over the top behavior is what Wise Intelligent was trying to avoid.. Police terror is at an all-time high.I said it before and I’ll say it again, whats taking place is alow grade one sided war of sorts. brothers are being picked off left and right by the police..
-Davey D-
INTELLIGENTNEWZNET
INFORMING the HIP-HOP COMMUNITY
Trenton Police Shoot, Kill man last night (7/16/09)
Wise Intelligent Speaks on yet another incident of police terror
On Wednesday July 8, 2009 here is what I was lucky to avoid in Trenton, New Jersey. This is the environment we as black men are embedded in. Regardless of our vocation, lawyer, doctor, beggar, thief, rapper, activist, youth program director or civilian on a path train enjoying New Years Eve; ala Oscar Grant, we are subject to inhumane treatment by “law” enforcement officers that come to the job with a less than human view of black people. This brother had a 7 inch knife (including the handle) in hand. He ran from the police and into his child’s grandfathers home. Police pursued him to the home, he ran out of the back door where he was confronted by several officers brandishing firearms. Of course the official police report says this scared brother who was already running from the police “lunged” at them with a knife? The report says there were more than 20 cops on the scene, police dogs, etc. I can hardly believe that unless police officers are trained to “shoot to kill” they could not subdue this suspect without open firing with multiple gunshots killing this man? Are police officers trained to “shoot to kill”?, or have they through America’s history of devaluing black life, in effect been trained to kill black people? To add insult to injury police officers arrested the grandfather for “giving the suspect shelter in his house” when they admit the suspect “ran” into the elderly mans home? This is colonial era policing! Oppression by any other name is still oppression….
http://www.intelligentseedz.org / http://www.intelligentmuzik.com / http://twitter.com/wiseintelligent
Police shoot, kill suspect
Man wielded knife in incident
Thursday, July 16, 2009
BY ALEX ZDAN
TRENTON — City police shot and killed a man who was carrying a knife on Stuyvesant Avenue last night, officials said.
The unidentified man was wanted following an earlier call reporting a man with a gun, Capt. Joe Juniak said. Based on a description, officers spotted the man on Prospect Street at 7:02 p.m.
Juniak said the man fled from the officers, running to Stuyvesant Avenue, where he entered a house on the 400 block. With marked cars and uniformed officers pursuing him, the suspect fled out the back of the house and onto the avenue, police said. At this point, Juniak said, the suspect was armed with a knife.
In front of 475 Stuyvesant, the man was confronted by officers with guns drawn. Juniak said the suspect lunged at the officers, and they fired, striking the man.
He was taken to Capital Health at Fuld, where he died of his inju ries just before 8:30 p.m.
At the Stuyvesant intersection with Linwood Avenue, people lined their porches in the fading sunlight and watched police pacing back and forth on the street, in and out of the house. The street was shut down for several blocks and lined with crime scene tape.
“They had to shoot him?” one man wondered aloud to his friends sitting behind him on the porch. “Twenty cops, right there.”
The man said the suspect had been carrying a seven-and-a-half inch knife.
A young man on the porch said police had fired three times.
“All I heard was, ‘Toot, toot, toot,'” he said.
Officials confirmed the man had been shot multiple times. One woman who knew the man who had been shot, but not his name, wondered why police didn’t at tempt to wound their suspect.
“You could have shot him one time in the leg. He would have been down,” a woman said. “He’s skin and bones anyway.”
An elderly man in handcuffs sat uncomfortably on the front stoop, guarded by police. Neighbors said he was the grandfather of the man’s child, under arrest for allegedly giving the suspect shelter in his house.
Juniak said that over 30 law enforcement officers were on the scene last night beginning an investigation.
Contact Alex Zdan at azdan@nj times.com or (609) 989-5705.
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Hip Hop pioneer Paradise Gray is the latest in a string of journalis/ community activist to be arrested on trumped up charges by police from coast to coast
Yesterday I received several disturbing phone calls from the city of Pittsburgh informing me that Hip Hop pioneer and X-Clan member Paradise Gray the Architect was falsely arrested by a police department that seemed bent on targeting him. The details are still coming in but from what was conveyed, ‘Dice’ was at a demonstration filming the procedings so he could write and report back the story. For those who don’t know, Dice is also a long time seasoned journalist and documentarian. During the demonstration a doorway was blocked resulting in a bottleneck which spawned the anger of a number of people who rushed the door, pushing people and creating a situation where a couple of women would be crushed and stampeded if action was taken. Dice went to the door to assist by creating a path so people could move through the door when he was tackled by police. He was accused of blocking the doorway and preventing people from leaving and later for resisting arrest
According to witnesses, there were several demonstrators on hand, all of the white who were there at the doorway to commit acts of civil disobedience. They were clearly present blocking the door, yet police ran right past them to attack Paradise who got tagged with the resisting arrest charge when he put his hands in the air to let the police know he was a working journalist and not part of the demonstration. It didn’t matter to the police Dice was hauled off. Later on police arrested the actual demonstrators who were all cited and immediately let go. Paradise who spent much of the day in jail was later quoted as saying. ” (I was not one of the people who was trying to be arrested. I was rushed by the Police after trying to free a young lady from being crushed by the revolving door that was being pushed hard by a man trying to exit the building) – Paradise
This incident had a chilling effect on several levels. First Paradise is known for his peace making activities by the police. He’s met with them on anumber of occassions and has long advocated that the community spark dialogue instead of confrontation. They knew that Dice is a journalist covering the story. Second point was that several people who started the bottlneck and disruption by blocking the door were arrested and let go. Third this pattern of false arrest and trumped up charges has happened to several other well known people who are part of the Hip Hop community and do journalism. I hardly think this is coincidence.
The first is Minister of Information JR out of Oakland, California. During the demonstrations for police killing of Oscar Grant, JR was doing what he’s done for years, covering the story and taking pictures so he can later report back to the community through the SF Bayview newspaper and on his widely heard Block Report Radio show and podcast. He was tackled by 4 officers and charged with arson. It did not matter that he was standing next to a number of other people including a couple of lawyers who were also observing the demonstrations. His outspoken, bold activism made him a target. He is currently fighting the trumped up charges. http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/oakland-pd-brutally-arrests-minister-of-information-jr-at-oscar-grant-protest/
Last week we ran the story of Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers being falsely arrested by Trenton, New Jersey police. His account of the incident is quite chilling. Wise does a weekly radio show where he brings to light community issues. http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/wise-intelligent-of-poor-righteous-teachers-falsely-arrested/
If you add to the mix the arrest/kdnapping of former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney by the Israeli government and the outlandish arrest of former gang member turned peacemaker Alex Sanchez in Los Angeles, you can see just how insidious and this pattern really is. We will keep you posted on the situation involving Paradise Gray. In the meantime check out his website Http://www.1hood.org
written by Davey D
Community Benefits Protesters Arrested On North Shore
Demonstration Held Outside Del Monte Building
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/20075464/detail.html
PITTSBURGH — At least four members of a community group were arrested during a protest on Pittsburgh’s North Shore, where they were calling on local corporations to offer more community benefits.The demonstration was staged outside the Del Monte Building on North Shore Drive on Thursday morning. Some protesters held a sign that said “Millionaires Get Our $ While Our Kids Die.”City police made arrests when members of Northside United began blocking the building’s main entrance.Meanwhile, the group chanted, “It’s the North Side, not the North Shore, this land is our land, it’s not yours.”
Land around Heinz Field on the North Shore will be built up by developers.
“We keep giving things to millionaires who don’t even live in the state of Pennsylvania, and the residents of the city of Pittsburgh get nothing in return,” said Michael Glass, co-chair of Northside United. “Those of us who live on the North Side are being most impacted by the developers. Our homes are falling down. There’s a high rate of unemployment, a high rate of violence. We have people who work in these buildings making $8 an hour getting no benefits for their families. Develpoment should support the community.”Northside United consists of neighbors, churches, social service agencies and labor unions. The group has been asking for a community benefits agreement with developers who are planning to build up the land near the sports stadiums on the North Shore.”This community was a thriving community years ago. I lived here. You can’t even find the street where I lived. It’s all asphalt now. It’s not reponsible development,” Glass said.Glass acknowledged that the group was trying to publicize its agenda with civil disobedience, and he said the police officers responded appropriately.He wants Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to “force developers to sit down and have a real conversation with people in the community, so their needs can be heard and understood. That’s all we’re asking.”