Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, standing beside a damaged yacht, Tuesday accused the Israeli navy of ramming the vessel to halt the delivery of medical supplies to the embattled Gaza Strip.
“Our mission was a peaceful mission,” McKinney told CNN after she and 15 others aboard the boat made it safely to the harbor in the Lebanese seaport of Tyre.
McKinney, the recent Green Party candidate for U.S. president and frequent center of controversy, is the most prominent political figure to join the relief voyages sponsored by the Free Gaza Movement.
McKinney was slated to travel by car to Beirut where she was expected to conducted media interviews and meet with Lebanese government officials, said Paul Larudee, a co-founder of the California-based Free Gaza group. [...]
The Conference on Research Directions is a biannual event that will be held at the beautiful Hilton Oceanfront Resort on Hilton Head, South Carolina, from May 3-6, 2009. Hilton Head is also the home of the Gullah people. These are African people who created a self-sustaining community after slavery with retention of the African heritage. Conferees will have the opportunity to take the Gullah Heritage Tour in addition to experiencing a Gullah heritage celebration, distinctive Gullah food delicacies, folk art, artifacts and landmarks. The conferees will be able to experience a beautiful oceanfront resort and also explore the West African heritage and seminal events in American history.
This conference is designed to bridge the gap between research and practice in education. All researchers and practitioners who are interested in the latest strategies for closing the academic achievement gap that affects African American children should attend. [...]
Interview with Iconic Educator, Dr. Janice Hale, by Tolu Olorunda.
It is rare for an educator to reach great heights of popularity and acclaim, but Dr. Janice Hale has earned every stripe of fame. As an internationally-renowned scholar, Dr. Hale is no stranger to controversies surrounding her work and theories. No other than Rev. Dr. Jeremiah E. Wright Jr. acknowledged her in his, much-talked about, speech in Detroit earlier this year. Wright celebrated Dr. Hale as someone we owe “a debt of gratitude.” [...]
YourBlackWorld.com recently had the esteemed opportunity to engage Dr. Janice Hale in dialogue on a wide array of topics. Included in the conversation were issues surrounding the recent selection of Arne Duncan as Sec. of Education, problems confronting Black students, the ISAAC program, Early Childhood education and more. As one never known for mincing words, Dr. Hale took no prisoners as she expressed her feelings about Bill Cosby… Excuse me, Dr. Bill Cosby, modern-day Civil Rights Organizations, Oprah Winfrey, and the public/private school system. Get your pens and pads ready. Class is in session:
Thanks for being with us, Dr. Hale. To kick things off, how did it feel being snubbed for the Sec. of Education position, which you lobbied so tenaciously for?
*Laughs* That’s so funny. I don’t feel snubbed about that. What I feel snubbed about is that, I feel in my book “Learning While Black,” I really provide solutions for what is wrong with education and how to fix African-American education, and I don’t feel my solutions have gotten any attention. [...]
Based on the selection of Arne Duncan – who holds a bachelor’s in Sociology – as Sec. of Education, what is incumbent upon Black folks in pushing an agenda that would improve learning conditions of Black students?
Full Interview At Your Black Education
White Liberals Scold Obama… But Come Off Cynical & Hypocritical
By: Tolu Olorunda
Reprinted From Dissident Voice
In the wake of President-Elect Obama’s recent cabinet-appointments, many white liberals have taken it upon themselves to release pent-up aggression at a man they thought was the “progressive” candidate he had earlier claimed to be.. As they saw it, Obama had “betrayed” the loyalty that earned him victory. As a sort of catharsis, railing Obama’s reputation over the coals of indignation could make them feel better about their decision to elect a man who promised virtually nothing (of substance) in his bid for the presidency. White liberals, especially, have had to learn so much, in the last 1 month, about the man whose political dirty-laundry was never hidden from the public to begin with.
In a highly predictable move, they have sought to bash everything Obama, or Obama-like, and couch their frustration in the ‘eloquence,’ and ‘con-artistry’ of Obama. Spare me the misplaced aggravation. [...]
Whilst Black progressives sought to rip the mask off of Barack Obama, in an attempt to unveil his true identity, we were deemed ‘Obama-haters,’ whose egos sought to stifle the chances of a Black man making history. [...]
Full Article At Your Black Politics
Interview with Youth Motivational Speaker, Caitlin Powell, by Tolu Olorunda.
Caitlin Powell is a role-model, motivational speaker, writer, telecaster and singer – all packed into one. The catch: She’s a mere 10 years of age! Though a fifth grader, Caitlin’s exceptional intellect is inspiring kids and parents across the country. Caitlin, who loves reading and studying math, is also the host of her very own webcast titled, “Caitlin’s Corner TV.” As one who takes advanced courses in her school, Caitlin knows, first hand, how challenging school can be. In her nationally-syndicated webcast, Caitlin offers tips and advices to her peers, on how to lead a fruitful life and embrace the challenges that come. Caitlin Powell is also a role model to her two younger siblings, who look up to her, being the oldest, for leadership. YourBlackWorld.com recently had the opportunity to speak with Caitlin on her interests, the joy of reading, motivational speaking and much, much more:
Thanks for joining us, Caitlin. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Well, I’m involved in my courses at my school; I love to sing; I’m on the telecast – it’s a lot of fun. I do the announcer #1, announcer # 2, camera-director and sound. My favorite is actually announcer #1, because you get to share a lot of information about what’s going on in the school. [...]
In your latest webcast, you mentioned math as your favorite subject. Why is that?
Well, it gets my brain working; it’s really hard and challenging – and I love a good challenge. So, I stay really smart, and I hope I have a good future.
A lot of your peers dislike math for this reason. Why? And how can you help them come to love it, just as much as you do?
Full Interview At Your Black Scholar
Book Review of “Reggie Wakes Up”
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com
“Under the FUBU is a guru, that’s untapped…”
-Hip-Hop artist, Common, The 6th Sense.
With the recent victory of President-Elect Obama, many have speculated a change of attitude in young black men, vis-à-vis the thirst for educational prowess. Whilst this prediction does seem, by all measures, accurately reflective of the lingering emotion within Black circles, some have suggested the need for a handbook of sorts, as necessary in guiding Black students, male and female, toward a more promising future. Of such is Zekita Tucker, a St. Louis author and publisher, whose advocacy for Black students builds on the legacies established by W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Janice Hale, etc. Zekita Tucker, of fame “Don’t Call Me Nigga 
,” has a new book out titled, “Reggie Wakes Up .”
Reggie Wakes Up is a blueprint for teachers and students alike – with an emphasis on public schools. [...]
Meant for ages 8 and up, Reggie Wakes Up takes a hard look into the public school system, and its effects on the psyche of Black students [...]
More At Your Black Education
CHICAGO (AP) – In an unwavering statement of innocence, Gov. Rod Blagojevich said Friday he will be vindicated of criminal corruption charges and has no intention of letting what he called a “political lynch mob” force him from his job.
“I will fight. I will fight. I will fight until I take my last breath. I have done nothing wrong,” Blagojevich said, speaking for about three minutes in his first substantial public comments since his arrest last week on federal corruption charges.
The Democrat is accused, among other things, of plotting to sell or trade President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat in secretly recorded phone conversations.
“I’m not going to quit a job the people hired me to do because of false accusations and a political lynch mob,” Blagojevich said.
It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn’s home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on.
As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me.”
Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat. [...]
All this is according to a lawsuit filed in Galveston federal court by Milburn against the officers. The lawsuit alleges that the officers thought Dymond, an African-American, was a hooker due to the “tight shorts” she was wearing, despite not fitting the racial description of any of the female suspects. The police went to the wrong house, two blocks away from the area of the reported illegal activity, Milburn’s attorney, Anthony Griffin, tells Hair Balls.
After the incident, Dymond was hospitalized and suffered black eyes as well as throat and ear drum injuries.
Three weeks later, according to the lawsuit, police went to Dymond’s school, where she was an honor student, and arrested her for assaulting a public servant.
A new documentary, written, produced and directed by Daphne S. Valerius, takes a critical look into the fragile souls of Black girls, with emphasis on how media images are “instituted, established and controlled.” With appearances by Jada Pinkett Simth, Regina King and Chuck D of Public Enemy, amongst many others, The Souls of Black Girls seeks to uncover some of society’s less-known realities about color-coding and racialized-gender bias. By examining “historical and existing media images of women of color” the documentary asks if Black girls are “suffering from a self-image disorder as a result of trying to attain the standards of beauty that are celebrated in media images.”
The Souls of Black Girls Trailer:
AOL Black Voices Interview with Daphne Valerius:
Why I love The Great Jim Brown
By: Dr. Boyce Watkins
Founder – YourBlackWorld.com
www.BoyceWatkins.net
I got a phone call today. I get a lot of calls from “observers” (translation: supporters and haterologists), and I appreciate every single one of them. However, being as busy as I am, I usually don’t have time to call anyone back. I call my mama back and if my daughter would call me, she would be at the top of my list. I also call my grandmother. That’s enough to fill the free time at airports or on the way to the office. [...]
On this day, I had some free time. I was driving to the office and I had a message from a woman named Karen. Karen’s family is full of Syracuse alumni. Honestly, most calls and emails I get from Syracuse alumni are not all that favorable. [...]
But Karen was worth the investment because she was super duper cool. It also turned out that Karen is the daughter of the greatest alumnus in Syracuse University history, the great Jim Brown.
Jim was not amazing for what he did on the field. Yes, he had super human strength and was such an outstanding athlete that they changed the rules to find ways to stop him. But that doesn’t impress me, for black men have always possessed amazing athletic ability. [...]
What impressed the HELL out of me was Jim Brown’s COURAGE. That is what left his mark on the university, and that is what will leave his mark on the world [...]
More At The Boyce Blog
Poverty: Policies and Possibilities (Part 2 — Read: Part 1)
By: Shannon Joyce Prince
Contributing Writer – YourBlackWorld.com
Imagine a program that built a childcare center which gave teens construction work experience, used Department of Agriculture funds to pay poor women to cook for poor children, taught poor women to become day care teachers and run day cares, and helped poor women get their GED’s. Imagine this program also provided mortgage counseling and founded a health center that provided forty local women with jobs. Now imagine the program was run almost entirely by black welfare mothers. Such a program did once exist. It was called Operation Life. It was at its peak during the 70’s and 80’s and is detailed in the book Storming Caesar’s Palace by Annelise Orleck.
Operation Life was based on the principle that the poor themselves are the experts on poverty and many current successful programs make that adage their foundation. [...]
Another factor in reducing poverty is looking for creative solutions that solve multiple problems. [...]
For example, many poor neighborhoods have constructed community gardens in vacant lots. In Philadelphia, crime on some blocks dropped 90% after the creation of community gardens [...]
More At Your Black Life
ATLANTA – A Muslim woman arrested for refusing to take off her head scarf at a courthouse security checkpoint said Wednesday that she felt her human and civil rights were violated. A judge ordered Lisa Valentine, 40, to serve 10 days in jail for contempt of court, said police in Douglasville, a city of about 20,000 people on Atlanta’s west suburban outskirts.
Valentine violated a court policy that prohibits people from wearing any headgear in court, police said after they arrested her Tuesday.
Kelley Jackson, a spokeswoman for Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, said state law doesn’t permit or prohibit head scarfs.
“It’s at the discretion of the judge and the sheriffs and is up to the security officers in the court house to enforce their decision,” she said.
Valentine, who recently moved to Georgia from New Haven, Conn., said the incident reminded her of stories she’d heard of the civil rights-era South [...]
The way Donnell Herrington tells it, there was no warning. One second he was trudging through the heat. The next he was lying prostrate on the pavement, his life spilling out of a hole in his throat, his body racked with pain, his vision blurred and distorted.
It was September 1, 2005, some three days after Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans, and somebody had just blasted Herrington, who is African-American, with a shotgun. “I just hit the ground. I didn’t even know what happened,” recalls Herrington, a burly 32-year-old with a soft drawl.
The sudden eruption of gunfire horrified Herrington’s companions–his cousin Marcel Alexander, then 17, and friend Chris Collins, then 18, who are also black. “I looked at Donnell and he had this big old hole in his neck,” Alexander recalls. “I tried to help him up, and they started shooting again.” [...]
Herrington shouted at the other men to run and turned to face his attackers: three armed white males. Herrington says he hadn’t even seen the men or their weapons before the shooting began. As Alexander and Collins fled, Herrington ran in the opposite direction, his hand pressed to the bleeding wound on his throat. Behind him, he says, the gunmen yelled, “Get him! Get that nigger!”
[FYI: This is by no means "news" to those who consistently payed close attention to Katrina's latest developments. For more info on this, pls. visit: http://www.cwsworkshop.org/katrinareader/node/573].
Nearly a decade after the NAACP condemned a “virtual whiteout” in broadcast TV, the civil rights group said major networks have stalled in their efforts to further ethnic diversity on-screen and off.
Television shows of the future could be even less inclusive because of a failure to cultivate young minority stars and to bring minorities into decision-making positions, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said.
The effect on the country could be profound, Jealous said.
“This is America: So goes TV, so goes reality. We don’t think it’s any accident that before we had a black president in reality, we had a black president on TV,” he said, referring to the chief executive portrayed by Dennis Haysbert on Fox’s “24.”
A “critical lack of programming by, for or about people of color” can be traced in part to the lack of minorities who have the power to approve new series or make final creative decisions, said Vicangelo Bulluck, executive director of NAACP’s Hollywood bureau [...]
Would Sojourner Truth Want To ‘Lick The Rapper?’
By: Zekita
One morning while riding in my car I decided to venture away from my regular News programming on the radio and turned to one of our local Hip Hop and R&B stations. It wasn’t long before the commercial for some debt creating pay-day loan went off and my ears, mind, and soul was being violated by rapper lil’ Wayne’s song ‘Lollipop.’ As I listened in disgust to the monotony of his lyrics (similar to many I had heard in some contemporary rap songs today) about how some women wanted to ‘lick the rapper’ amongst other things, my eyes began to tear up from those degrading and humiliating lyrics. [...]
And then I thought back to the glorious African American women like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Nzingha, Yaa Asante, and Mary McLeod Bethune. I turned my thoughts to these women and I wonder. [...]
I wonder if Harriet Tubman feels like all 19 of her potentially deadly trips were traveled completely in vain. I wonder if Sojourner Truth still feels like a ‘woman’ [...]
More At Your Black Brothers
Greek protesters pushed their way into television and radio studios 
Tuesday, forcing broadcasters to put out anti-government messages in a change of tactics after days of violent street protests.
A group of about 10 youths got into the studio of NET state television and turned off a broadcast of a speech by Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, station officials said. The protesters forced studio cameras to instead show them holding up banners that read: “Stop watching, get out onto the streets,” and “Free everyone who has been arrested.” No one was hurt, and no arrests were reported.
NET chairman Christos Panagopoulos said the protesters appeared to know how to operate cameras and studio controls.
“This goes beyond any limit,” he said.
In the northern city of Thessaloniki, protesters made their way into three local radio stations, agreeing to leave only when a protest message was read out on the air [...]
Obama Slam-Duncans Education
By: Greg Palast
Today, President-elect Barack Obama stuck it to you. He’s chosen Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education.
Who? Duncan is most decidedly NOT an educator. He’s a lawyer. But Duncan has this extraordinary qualification: He’s Obama’s pick-up basketball buddy from Hyde Park.
I can’t make this up.
Not that Duncan hasn’t mucked about in the educational system. Chicago Boss Richie Daley put this guy in charge of the horror show called Chicago Public Schools where Duncan turned a bad system into a REALLY bad system.
And Obama knows it. Indeed, although he plays roundball with Duncan (who was captain of the Harvard basketball team), State Senator Obama was one of the only local Chicago officials who refused to send his kids to Duncan’s public schools. [...]
So, if The One won’t trust his kids to Duncan, why is he handing Duncan ours?
More At Your Black Education
BAGHDAD — Calling someone the “son of a shoe” is one of the worst insults in Iraq. But the lowly shoe and the Iraqi who threw both of his at President Bush, with widely admired aim, were embraced around the Arab world on Monday as symbols of rage at a still unpopular war.
In Saudi Arabia, a newspaper reported that a man had offered $10 million to buy just one of what has almost certainly become the world’s most famous pair of black dress shoes.
A daughter of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, reportedly awarded the shoe thrower, Muntader al-Zaidi, a 29-year-old journalist, a medal of courage.
In the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, people calling for an immediate American withdrawal removed their footwear and placed the shoes and sandals at the end of long poles, waving them high in the air [...]
At a time when social-consciousness is at its peak, and millions of citizens around the world are scratching their heads to figure out how much of a foreign policy disaster the Iraq War was/is — especially in light of the shoe-throwing incident last Sunday — some of our more… ‘conservative-minded’ fellows still don’t get it. Of such is FOX News superstar-Negro, Juan Williams, who declared, last night, that dissenting Iraqis are petty “ingrate[s]” who don’t value the 2003-invasion, which has wrecked more than a million lives:
Who could have guessed that the great moralist, Newt Gingrich, who, last year, called Spanish the “language of… the ghetto,” is having second thoughts, and realizing ethical flaws, in the smear-tactics he helped commission.
Well, in a letter to RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had the following to say about the GOP’s recent attempts to tie President-Elect Barack Obama to the Pay-to-Play endeavors of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich:
From Politico:
I was saddened to learn that at a time of national trial, when a president-elect is preparing to take office in the midst of the worst financial crisis in over seventy years, that the Republican National Committee is engaged in the sort of negative, attack politics that the voters rejected in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles.
The recent web advertisement, “Questions Remain,” is a destructive distraction. [...]
In a time when America is facing real challenges, Republicans should be working to help the incoming President succeed in meeting them, regardless of his Party.
From now until the inaugural, Republicans should be offering to help the President-elect prepare to take office. [...]
The RNC should pull the ad down immediately.
Maya Rudolph’s return guest spot and Kenan Thompson’s role in a digital short were the lone African American appearances on “Saturday Night Live” over the weekend – other than musical guest Kanye West.
New York’s African American governor David Patterson was played by Fred Armisen, a cast member of Venezuelan, German and Japanese heritage who also plays President-elect Barack Obama.
Of the 90 or so actors to grace the “SNL” stage since its 1975 premiere, only eight have been African-American. And that’s an issue for “The View” co-host Sherri Shepherd.
In an AOL interview, she points out that there aren’t even enough African-Americans for a proper skit of her ABC daytime show. While Thompson portrays co-host Whoopi Goldberg, Shepherd’s character is simply left out of the sketch.
“Couldn’t they have gotten Maya Rudolph to play me?” Shepherd asked. “She is so awesome! They need more black people in their cast!”
“I agree with her,” Baron Vaughn, a black comic, told the New York Daily News. Diversity “doesn’t seem to be something that interests them [...]“
MAJORA CARTER, one of the city’s best-known advocates for environmental justice, was sitting on a picnic table in Barretto Point Park in the South Bronx under the intense lights of an NBC film crew.
On this late September afternoon, after a month of traveling, delivering speeches, serving as host of a Sundance Channel program and a Science Channel pilot, Ms. Carter was noticeably flagging. Yet her signature feistiness was much in evidence when the producer of the documentary for which Ms. Carter was being interviewed asked her to explain why global warming affects not just polar bears but people around the globe.
Ms. Carter responded by describing air pollution in troubled urban areas like Hunts Point, the South Bronx neighborhood where she was raised and currently works.
The producer rephrased her question, in response to which Ms. Carter snapped, “I don’t do that.” [...]
In just over a decade, Ms. Carter, 42, has vaulted from working as a volunteer for what was a nascent organization called the Point Community Development Corporation and knowing almost nothing about environmental issues to becoming a nationally known advocate for environmental justice [...]
An area high school student will be in a court of law next week to fight for her right to get back on the basketball court.
Jasmine Watson is one of the top basketball players in Michiana but right now she’s not playing anywhere, because of a high school transfer controversy. [...]
The IHSAA ruled it was done for primarily athletic reasons; a violation of state rules.
But Jasmine, her family, and their supporters, say there’s more to it than that. [...]
“A mother should have the right to make a decision on how to feed her family when faced with (tough) economic conditions,” said Gladys Muhammad with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Foundation. [...]
“The mom was unemployed. She lost her home to foreclosure, her husband was not there, and so she had to move to South Bend where she does have family she does have the best resources,” said Trina Robinson, President of the South Bend NAACP [...]
SNL’s Bigoted Paterson Sketch Falls Flat
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com
In a highly distasteful Saturday Night Live sketch, depicting New York Gov David Paterson as a New Jersey-hating, wandering, drug-loving, blind buffoon, many found comedic value. As the studio audience applauded and cheered, even with the Paterson-impersonator equating blindness with “something awful,” the mock-fest increasingly drew deeper into the well of immorality. However, others were not so amused – including the Governor himself. In a Press-Conference Monday morning, David Paterson commented that, while he can “take a joke,” the SNL spoof came off more as a “third-grade depiction of [blind] people and the way they look.” Paterson was concerned that SNL misled its audience into thinking that “disability goes hand-in-hand with an inability to run a government or business.” [...]
In addition to Governor Paterson, the National Federation of the Blind also faults Saturday Night Live with pushing the envelope on satire [...]
More W/ Video At Your Black Life
ELYRIA — Daniel Petric was so angry that his father would not allow him to play the violent video game Halo 3 that he killed his mother and shot his father, then tried to make it appear to be a murder-suicide, prosecutors told a Lorain County judge this morning in the boy’s murder trial.
Petric, now 17, had sneaked out of his house to buy the game. But his parents caught him as he came in with the game and took it from him. His father, Mark, put the game in a lockbox in the parents’ closet. He also kept a 9 mm handgun in the box, according to prosecutors.
Daniel Petric took the gun and the game out of the box, they said. [...]
“Would you guys close your eyes,” Daniel Petric asked. “I have a surprise for you.”
Mark Petric said he expected a pleasant surprise. The next thing he knew, his head went numb. He had been shot in the head [...]
Racial Gap In Colon Cancer Deaths Widening
Mysteries In Jennifer Hudson Murders Unraveling
Christian Missionaries Accused Of Preying In Morocco
Zimbabwe To Block Western Efforts At UN Security Council
ANC Dissidents Launching New Party Ahead Of South Africa Vote
Lawmaker Encourages Black Barber Shops To Provide Health Check-Ups
To anyone who lived through the media feeding frenzy of the 1990s, during which the nation’s leading news organizations spent the better part of a decade destroying their own credibility by relentlessly hyping a series of non-scandals, the past few days, in which the media have tried to shoehorn Barack Obama into the Rod Blagojevich scandal, have been sickeningly familiar.
Whenever reporters think — or want you to think — they’ve uncovered a presidential scandal, they waste little time in comparing it to previous controversies. Yesterday, CNN’s Rick Sanchez tried desperately to get the phrase “Blagogate” to stick — the latest in a long and overwhelmingly annoying post-Watergate pattern of ham-handed efforts to hype a scandal by appending the suffix “-gate” to the end of a word. [...]
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer announced yesterday that “some are calling this Obama’s first presidential scandal.” It isn’t. There is no evidence he has done anything wrong. This is not Obama’s first presidential scandal — but it shows signs of becoming the first media scandal of the Obama presidency. [...]
If that happens — if the media continue to behave as they did in covering Whitewater — they will damage the country. It’s really that simple [...]
In this fast-paced, sexually charged thriller, a newly appointed judge
is caught up in a gritty case involving a brutally murdered woman as
well as a blackmail scheme involving an overzealous femme fatale
determined to sleep her way to the top of Detroit’s society page. [...]
In one of the city’s most horrific crimes ever, a young single parent has been discovered decapitated in an alleyway, with her head located several blocks away. The police are stumped until the arrest of a drug dealer promises to reveal vital information about the case.
The only problem? The drug dealer won’t talk to anyone but Judge Mathis. [...]
Crossing paths with people from his past who have decided to benefit from criminal activity, Mathis stands up for the innocents who cannot defend themselves. From establishing a drug rehabilitation center to helping the youth through a mentoring program, Mathis is much more than a judge, for he once walked on the wrong side of the law as well [...]
It seems that as time changes, nothing seems to ever change as it relates to African American issues in our society. Growing up in the 1950s I often heard the refrain, that blacks were the last hired and the first fired.
That trend continues as National Public Radio, a liberal news organization, has just announced they are discontinuing the Program, “News & Notes, hosted by veteran broadcast and digital media journalist Farai Chideya. NPR cites the fact that the program received low ratings and did not attract the funding necessary from national sponsors. [...]
In addition the News & Notes, the station also eliminated the program “Day to Day”.
“News & Notes” was a one-hour daily program and was produced at the NPR West studios in Culver City, CA. A roster of respected experts contributed regular segments on a wide range of subjects, with input from the program’s audience [...]
Hip-Hop Emcee/Newscaster, Jasiri X, returns with his weekly Hip-Hop newscasts. For this week, current events include the failing economy, George Bush’s confessions, the ongoing Plaxico Burress fiasco, the Detroit 3 Auto-Bailout, Chicago workers sit-in, Clarence “Tom Us” questioning President-Elect Obama’s citizenship, and more:
Canyon County Commissioner Steve Rule is coming under fire for circulating an e-mail that compares Michelle Obama’s election-night dress to a black widow spider. [...]
Jill Kuraitis of New West.net obtained a printed copy of the e-mail, which 
Rule received from a family member then forwarded to 26 people from his county e-mail account on Dec. 2.
Kuraitis said the e-mail features a photo of a black widow spider next to a photo of Michelle Obama in a black and red dress holding her elder daughter’s hand at the election-night event where Barack Obama accepted his election as the next president of the United States. Featuring boldface and underlines for emphasis, the e-mail reads, in part: “The female has a very wide backside, is Black, and has a red hour glass shaped marking on her belly You can find this spider in: Closets, Wood piles, Under Beds And soonTHE WHITE HOUSE!!!!”
Kuraitis decried the message as racist. [...]
“I didn’t see it that way,” Rule told the Idaho Statesman. “I didn’t study the e-mail I just thought the markings on her dress was very similar to that of the spider, and I thought it was kind of funny [...]
Poverty: Policies and Possibilities
By: Shannon Joyce Prince
Reprinted From Black Agenda Report
“Poor people can use themselves as weapons against poverty.”
With the recession imperiling the nation’s well-being, poverty is on everyone’s mind regardless of their political orientation. Yet too often the poor are cast as ignorant and impotent pawns needing either a kick in the pants or a magical cocktail of resources and programs. The dialogue typically stalls around what “we” must do for or to “them” as though the poor lack ingenuity and agency.
In this commentary I identify four ideas that can be used to battle poverty: ending marriage penalties, deregulating selected industries, creating tax-funded social programs run by the poor, and creating community gardens. [...]
The problem often isn’t that the poor aren’t pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, but rather when they do so they are told they don’t have the appropriate credentials. [...] For example, many poor black women braid hair as a way of making money. However, as the National Center for Public Policy Research points out, many states have threatened these women with arrest because they don’t have cosmetology licenses; licenses that often demand taking courses that cost around $10,000, and frequently don’t even cover hair braiding in their curriculum [...]
More At Your Black Politics
As the Obama transition team is filling out the rest of the President-elect’s cabinet, one name that pops to the surface is Rep. Sanford Bishop.
The Georgia Democrat is believed to be in the running for Agriculture Secretary, and his staff readily admits that he wants the post — though they say that no deal is “officially” in the works.
“The congressman would very much like to have the position if it is in fact offered,” said Bishop’s chief of staff Phyllis Hallmon. “But we have had no official interaction with the President-elect’s staff.” [...]
A blue dog Democrat, Bishop is also regarded as the most conservative African-American Democrat in Congress. He has long championed federal subsidies and price boosters for peanuts (understandably — they’re his home state’s biggest product) [...]
HONOLULU — Federal agents have arrested a Hawaii man after he allegedly threatened to attack and kill president-elect Barack Obama when he visits Hawaii on vacation this month.
Mark Miyashiro allegedly made the threats Dec. 3 to a doctor who is treating him for a schizophrenic disorder.
Miyashiro then allegedly made more threats when Secret Services agents interviewed and arrested him at his home in Kaneohe after the doctor notified authorities.
They also confiscated a Russian SKS assault rifle.
Miyashiro is charged with one count of threatening the life of the president or the president-elect. That’s punishable by up to five years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine and up to three years probation [...]
Black Colleges Face Whiteout
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
As the great unraveling of finance capitalism unfolds, lots of issues that were prime concerns in Black politics not long ago, are getting buried in the economic debris. [...] It is in times of general crisis that the enemies of identifiably African American institutions find new opportunities for mischief. Such is the case in Georgia, where efforts are afoot to dismantle at least two Black colleges: Savannah and Albany state universities.
Members of the Republican-controlled state legislature are using the economic crisis as a rationale to merge majority Black Savannah State with mostly white Armstrong Atlantic State University. Historically Black Albany State University would be forced to combine with majority white Darton College. Adding insult to injury, Darton College is only a two-year institution, a community college, while Albany State is a full university.
Modern-day racists have learned to cloak their anti-Black ideas in progressive-sounding language [...]
Listen To Commentary At Your Black Life
The White, White House Press Corps
By: Sam Fulwood III
Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign boosted-no, it actually created-the careers of a whole cadre of black political reporters.
Barack Obama’s historic capture of Oval Office? Well, not so much. [...]
A generation ago, as the peripatetic preacher crisscrossed the country to the chants of “Run, Jesse, Run!” black journalists-among them Gwen Ifill of The (Baltimore) Evening Sun, Julie Johnson of The (Baltimore) Sun and later The New York Times and ABC News, George Curry of the Chicago Tribune, Ron Smothers of The New York Times, Milton Coleman of The Washington Post, Kevin Merida of The Dallas Morning News and Kenneth Walker of ABC News-traveled along, reporting and interpreting the historic political campaign.
Nearly a quarter century later, Barack Obama made the same primary run, and it was not the symbolic stab at the White House that Jackson’s represented [...]
More At Your Black Politics
The Sports MCs Present: The Saturday Huddle
By: The Sports MCs
BASN
The approach of autumn leaves and pom – poms can mean only one thing: college football is back for another season of Pigskin Pimpin’.
And the prognosticators and perpetrators will, no doubt offer their take on which institution will get paid the most BCS money come January.
But what always seems to get lost in the sauce is the fact the machine that is college football keeps it crack – a – lackin’ for everyone; except those most responsible for its success – the student – athletes.
Enter the MCs.
In our endeavor to flip the script, we plan to show some of the inner workings of this machine – and hopefully address some big – picture issues that will get some of the capitalist pigs to move over in the trough — or least think twice before they oink [...]
More At Your Black Education
Burress and the Bloomberg
By: Dave Zirin
Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week: all Plaxico, all the time. There’s nothing like an NFL player shooting a hole in his own leg in a packed nightclub to become our latest walking, talking weapon of mass distraction. Why ponder the global economic meltdown, two wars, and rising unemployment, when millionaire black athletes like Plaxico Burress walk among us… with guns?
Don’t think that this is a defense of the New York Giants star wide receiver. Having a loaded gun in your pants, with no safety, in a crowded club, is about as smart as using a toaster as a bathtub toy. In fact, shooting yourself in the leg is really one of more preferable outcomes. Now Burress faces three and a half years in prison for carrying a loaded handgun in the city.
Right on cue, the moralists are slithering onto their soapboxes to hiss at the latest athletic bogeyman. Hypocrisy reigns supreme [...]
More At Your Black Sports
Hip-Hop Emcee/Journalist, Jasiri X, returns for a second season, with his weekly Hip-Hop newscasts. This week’s current events include, O.J. Simpson, Plaxico Burress , the Mumbai attack, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and more:
[For the week of November 23 - November 29]:
VIGALANTEE: Hunting for Souls
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com
Vigalantee (born Roger Suggs) is no stranger to the underground Hip-Hop scene. Born in Chicago, Vigalantee has always been a fan of Hip-Hop – though a critic, when necessary. In addition to his musical career, Vigalantee is also an arduous community-organizer and activist, whose youth program is touching many young lives across the city of Kansas. As the name suggests, Vigalantee is hunting for more than nice beats or dope rhymes. As a young man, trapped in between the perils of inter-racial animosity and intra-racial hostility, Vigalantee knows how critical it is for young Black kids to find worthy role-models in the communities that shape their destinies.
Vigalantee grew up in Chicago, and experienced, firsthand, the much-referenced tales of gang warfare. Concerned with the emotional toll this reality wreaks on a child, his mother sent him to a relative’s home in Georgia. Vigalantee describes this as the unraveling of another “extreme” living condition [...]
More At Your Black Brothers
CHICAGO – Gov. Rod Blagojevich ordered all state agencies Monday to stop doing business with Bank of America to try to pressure the bank into helping laid-off workers staging a sit-in at their shuttered factory. [...]
The sit-in began Friday and has fast become a symbol of the sour economy’s impact on labor. The workers have promised to remain inside the plant in shifts until they get assurances they will receive severance and vacation pay. [...]
Their plight has drawn support from President-elect Barack Obama, the 
Rev. Jesse Jackson and others. [...]
The laid-off workers are occupying the plant around-the-clock in eight-hour shifts, Fried said. About 60 were inside early Monday.
Obama said Sunday the company should honor its commitments to the laid-off employees.
“The workers who are asking for the benefits and payments that they have earned, I think they’re absolutely right and understand that what’s happening to them is reflective of what’s happening across this economy,” Obama said.
Workers at Republic Windows and Doors crowded into the small company lobby to hear the Rev. Jesse Jackson speak in support of their sit-in, which began three days ago.
“These workers are to this struggle perhaps what Rosa Parks was to social justice 50 years ago,” Jackson says. “This, in many ways, is the beginning of a larger movement for mass action to resist economic violence.”
Jackson says he came to the factory to show his solidarity for the workers, who were laid off Friday as their company closed its doors. Company officials say they had to close because the Bank of America denied the company’s request for $5 million credit. [...]
Bank of America received $25 billion in federal bailout cash, which Republic workers say obligates it to support the company.
“We’re going to have a self induced depression because we are trying to change our economy from the top down,” says Jackson. “It must be changed from the bottom up.”
Jackson says if the change doesn’t happen soon, the consequences will be dire [...]
As President Bush prepares to move into his new Dallas home at the end of his term, neighborhood residents worry about having him close by. [...]
But the exclusive Dallas community the Bush family will soon join has a troubled history of its own.
Until 2000, the neighborhood association’s covenant said only white people were allowed to live there, though an exception was made for servants.
Enacted in 1956, part of the original document reads: “Said property shall be used and occupied by white persons except those shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant.” [...]
The neighborhood is home to many famous people, including former presidential candidate Ross Perot and Mark Cuban, the billionaire businessman and Dallas Mavericks owner [...]
WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be the next Veterans Affairs secretary, turning to a former Army chief of staff once vilified by the Bush administration for questioning its Iraq war strategy.
Obama will announce the selection of Shinseki, the first Army four-star general of Japanese-American ancestry, at a news conference Sunday in Chicago. He will be the first Asian-American to hold the post of Veterans Affairs secretary, adding to the growing diversity of Obama’s Cabinet. [...]
“When I reflect on the sacrifices that have been made by our veterans and I think about how so many veterans around the country are struggling even more than those who have not served — higher unemployment rates, higher homeless rates, higher substance abuse rates, medical care that is inadequate — it breaks my heart,” Obama told NBC [...]
Jamie and Gladys Scott have been wrongfully convicted of armed robbery and received double life sentences each. No one was murdered or taken to the hospital during this robbery, no one was even injured. The transcripts state that 9, 10 or 11 dollars was stolen. Witnesses confessed during the trial, that the sheriff coerced and threatened them to lie on the Scott Sisters. They have been in prison now 14 years.
The transcripts state that one witness ( a teenager) testified that the sheriff told him he would be sent to Parchman (the notorious Mississippi Prison), to be made out of a woman (raped by men) if he did not lie on the Scott Sisters. He later wrote an affidavit swearing that Jamie and Gladys had absolutely nothing to do with this robbery [...]
Tiny wooden cabins line the dirt road once known as Slave Street as it winds through Friendfield Plantation.
More than 200 slaves lived in the whitewashed shacks in the early 1800s, and some of their descendants remained for more than 100 years after the Civil War. The last tenants abandoned the hovels about 30 years ago, and even they would have struggled to imagine a distant daughter of the plantation one day calling the White House home. [...]
Their documented passage begins with Jim Robinson, Michelle Obama’s great-great-grandfather, who was born about 1850 and lived as a slave, at least until the Civil War, on the sprawling rice plantation. Records show he remained on the estate after the war, working as a sharecropper and living in the old slave quarters with his wife, Louiser, and their children. He could neither read nor write, according to the 1880 census.
Robinson would be the last illiterate branch of Michelle Obama’s family tree.
Census records show each generation of Robinsons became more educated than the last [...]
Race Matters MORE in the ‘Age of Obama’
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be misled. Race still matters, even in the age of a bi-racial president. In fact, I submit that Race matters more at this transitional period in our multi-cultural society. The presidential campaign of President-Elect Obama sought to vehemently sweep Race-consciousness under the rug, but little did they know, that this stubborn, inextricable faction of our existence would not surrender without a fight. [...]
Without Obama’s permission, Race resurrected itself early on in the 2008 presidential campaign. It began when White journalists first took it upon themselves to question Obama’s blackness. [...] Shortly after, the “gotcha media” would find some legitimate dirt that could reduce Obama to a sheer spectacle. Unbeknownst to 60% of Black folks, they had, all their lives, committed a crime worthy of the death penalty: attended a Black church which advocated self-love, self-control, self-respect, and self-help [...]
More At Your Black Life
The harebrained lawsuit demanding disclosure whether President elect Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen or not was laughed out of New Jersey 
courts in October. A few weeks later Supreme Court Justice David Souter gave it just as short shrift. He denied a stay to get Obama removed from the ballot in that state. But that didn´t end the matter. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas saw to that. He took the almost never heard of step of reopening the issue by agreeing to put the matter to a conference vote. [...]
But Thomas´s legal meddle on the Obama birth certificate non-issue fits perfectly in with his jaundiced interpretation of law and its practice and his private vow to get revenge on his liberal tormentors. Obama is the latest would be victim. He almost certainly stirred Thomas´s personal ire back in August. Obama was asked at a joint church gathering with Republican rival John McCain at the mega Saddleback church in Lake Forest, California which justice he wouldn´t have nominated to the Supreme Court. He didn´t hesitate. He named Thomas. And he told why [...]
HAVERSTRAW, N.Y. (AP) ― A white teacher attempted to enliven a seventh grade discussion of slavery by binding the hands and feet of two black girls, prompting a complaint from one girl’s mother and the local chapter of the NAACP.
After the mother complained to the school, the superintendent said he was having “conversations with our staff on how to deliver effective lessons.”
“If a student was upset, then it was a bad idea,” said Superintendent Brian Monahan of the North Rockland School District in New York City’s northern suburbs.
The teacher apologized to the 13-year-old student and her mother during a meeting Thursday that also included a representative of the local NAACP. But the mother, Christine Shand of Haverstraw, said Friday she thinks the teacher should be removed from the class [...]
The Georgia NAACP called for an investigation of the Clayton County Commission on Tuesday after the board voted for 311 historic African-American graves to be moved to another cemetery.
The Clayton County Commission voted unanimously to issue a permit to College Park recycling company Stephens MDS to relocate the graves to make room to expand a landfill. The cemetery is inaccessible and had not been visited for years before news of the possible move was announced, company officials said.
Edward DuBose, president of the Georgia NAACP, accused the five commissioners of a conflict of interest. According to DuBose, all of the commissioners have previously accepted campaign contributions from Stephens. “I’m calling for an investigation of each of the county commissioners,” DuBose told the commission. “This board sits on about $7,000 of this company’s money. We want to look to see if you were too connected to the financial contributions that were given by the company.”
From AJC
Odetta, the singer whose deep voice wove together the strongest songs of American folk music and the civil rights movement, died Tuesday. She was 77.
The cause was heart disease, said her manager, Doug Yeager.
He added that she had been hoping to sing at Barack Obama’s inauguration. [...]
[Odetta In 2005, "House of the Rising Sun"]:
Her voice was an accompaniment to the black-and-white images of the freedom marchers who walked the roads of Alabama and Mississippi and the boulevards of Washington in quest of an end to racial discrimination. [...]
Born in Birmingham on Dec. 31, 1930, Odetta Holmes spent her first six years in the depths of the Depression. The music of that time and place — in particular prison song and work songs recorded in the fields of the deep South — shaped her life [...]
A Wal-Mart employee in Long Island, New York died after being trampled to death by a mob of shoppers on Friday, the traditional first day of the holiday shopping season. The 34-year-old worker Jdimytai Damour was killed after a crowd of 2,000 broke down store doors and ran over him shortly before the store”s schedule 5 a.m. opening. Four shoppers were injured in the stampede. Nassau County police were trying to determine what happened during the stampede, but said it was unclear if there would be any criminal charges:
Essence may have scooped Vogue, sort of, in being the first women’s magazine to put Michelle Obama on its cover since the presidential election, but the Time Inc. title did so by relying on archival images. Essence’s January issue is dedicated to President-elect Barack Obama, with essays and commentary from Maya Angelou, Bill Cosby, Chris Rock, Gwen Ifill and other notable African-Americans:
Michelle Obama may be the pride of the South Side, but her undergraduate years at Princeton also helped shape her worldview.
A new biography, Michelle (Simon & Schuster), by Washington Post reporter Liza Mundy, delves into Obama’s years at the elite university, in particular Obama’s senior thesis, “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community.”
“The question of what upper-income blacks owe to the less fortunate was a major preoccupation,” Mundy writes. [...]
Her thesis found that when African Americans are at Princeton as students, they tended to identify more with their race, but after graduating, less so. Obama, now 44, pledged not to forget the black underclass [...]
More At Your Black News
The Gift of Canibus: Hip-Hop and Anti-Intellectualism
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com
“History is a weapon being used against us/
Humanity has been abused before but few remember/
… Turn the radio and TV off, think for a second/
Technology is a blessing but it’s also a weapon/
A weapon of mass destruction giving global instructions/
Teaching us how to hate but does it in a way that we love it/
Take my beloved rap music, erase the beat/
Consumers act like they’re afraid of intelligent speech/”
- Hip-Hop artist and philosopher, Canibus, in One Ought Not To Think.
Canibus, like the herbal supplement, Cannabis, is as subjective to the user, as the value of Hip-Hop music is to the listener. In the course of this essay, I, a Canibus fan/student, seek to make a case for the artist otherwise known as Germaine Williams. Though a marginalized figure, Canibus is an Emcee; an artist; a lyrical scientist; a philosopher; an educator; a history lesson, and an infinite source of inspiration to those wrestling with dominant forms of anti-intellectualism being wielded against music lovers. I personally believe Canibus to be a rare mineral resource in an industry engulfed with misogyny, homoeroticism, opulence, hollowness, illiteracy, and cronyism. Since 1996, Canibus has struggled to keep Hip-Hop’s demons at bay. But, truth be told, that struggle remains a contentious one, even till this day. To be sure, Canibus is not a name fluttered on the lips of Black and Brown kids; but perhaps this reality further reinforces my claim, that his wit, perspicacity and voluminous vocabulary is perceived more as a threat, than an accomplishment, in the Hip-Hop realm of existence. Canibus teaches us in – perhaps his most lucid track to date – Poet Laureate II, that Hip-Hop music’s demise lies in its inability to grapple with the ongoing battle being waged between the quest for power, and a declining zeal for poetically-inspired rhymes [...]
More At Your Black Education
It has been 20 years since the first World AIDS Day drew attention to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Today, with some 33 million people living with HIV, World AIDS Day and events like the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa, taking place in Senegal, December 3-7, remain “extraordinarily important for those who are trying to fight AIDS in this world,” says Shanta Devarajan, Chief Economist for the World Bank’s Africa region.
AIDS is increasingly seen as not only a health problem, but society’s problem, says Devarajan. “We need 
all the resources and all the mechanisms that we have in society to fight AIDS.”
HIV/AIDS Increasingly a Development Priority
Finance ministers and heads of state in hard-hit Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Uganda President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, are increasingly making the battle against HIV/AIDS a top priority, he adds. South Africa has rolled out one of the biggest antiretroviral (ARV) treatment programs in the world. [...]
While HIV prevention efforts are paying off, with behavior change noted particularly among young people. For every two people in Sub-Saharan Africa gaining access to treatment, five become newly infected. This ratio must change [...]
“Outta My Way, I’m shopping at Wal-Mart.”
That actual bumper-sticker sums up the attitude of the only thing worse than Wal-Mart in our culture: Wal-Mart shoppers.
The killing of a Wal-Mart worker this week during an early morning crush of customers at the retailer’s 
Valley Stream, Long Island store has given the company a Black Eye from Black Friday.
Law enforcement officials are reviewing the video tape of the incident for possible criminal charges, but Wal-Mart corporate attorneys are no doubt looking at the video to determine the extent of the company’s legal liability in the case. The retailer may be more preoccupied with how to prevent a multi-million lawsuit from the family of the dead worker, than how to prevent another Black Friday death. [...]
The 2,000 or so Wal-Mart shoppers at the Valley Stream store were merely lab rats responding to a stimulus. When the door opened, they went after the cheese [...]
(WHAS11) -It’s considered the ceremonial kickoff to the online holiday shopping season, and if you like to stay away from the crowds, you might be more of a Cyber Monday person than a Black Friday person. [...]
The Better Business Bureau recommends you focus your shopping with reputable merchants.
The BBB also warns you to use caution when shopping online. Scammers are out there waiting to take advantage of eager consumers.
And always make sure the site is secure.
Double check for the “https,” most importantly the “s”.
That means you are in a secure site for your personal information.
The BBB also recommends you pay with a credit card, because under federal law the shopper can dispute the charges if the items never arrive.
Also, make sure your computer is up to date with the latest anti-virus protection.
Strategies For Overcoming The Holiday Blues
By: Dr. Gloria Morrow
The holiday season can be the loneliest time of the year, especially during the month of December. Even though the research refutes the notion that the highest rate of suicides occurs in the month of December, many people do experience the Holiday Blues because of the loss of a loved one, exhaustion, separation from family and close friends, feelings of failure due to unmet goals and expectations, significant changes and increased stress. Some may even experience the Holiday Blues because they cannot afford to go Christmas shopping.
This year has been particularly difficult for many people in the African American community because of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the massive loss of life, property, jobs, and familiar surroundings. Therefore, it may be harder for people to handle the stress of such events, especially around the holidays [...]
New York Giants receiver has told the team that he accidentally shot himself Friday night, a league official told ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio.
The incident happened at the Latin Quarter nightclub on Manhattan’s East Side. The club is a sprawling 15,000-square foot, two-story restaurant and club located in the Radisson Lexington Hotel. Katia Laine, a manager at the hotel, told The Associated Press that police officers had been to the club.
Burress went to the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, where he stayed overnight. He was released from the hospital Saturday afternoon.
A league official told Paolantonio the bullet went through the skin and muscle tissue of Burress’ right thigh, and did not hit any major arteries, and there were no broken bones.
The Giants, in a statement Saturday afternoon, said Burress suffered a wound to his right thigh. The team did not specify in its statement how the shooting occured [...]
The State of Mississippi versus Jamie Scott and Gladys Scott: My First Encounter with Justice Denied
By: Nancy R. Lockhart, M.J.
http://www.freewebs.com/nlockha/index.htm
Originally Appeared In Black Commentator
While driving the moving truck from South Carolina to Chicago, Illinois in July of 2005, many things ran across my mind as I took the solo trip. I pondered receiving the Master of Jurisprudence degree from Loyola University School of Law and later a career as a governmental regulatory compliance manager. It never dawned on me that I would receive a brutal education in social justice; an education that would prove to be more valuable than sheepskin from any institution. This would become an education that re-directed every thought flowing as I drove that big truck from South Carolina. I left Chicago with the Master of Jurisprudence and absolutely no desire to follow my original dreams.
I secured a position as a Community Services Consultant with Rainbow/PUSH Coalition while completing my studies. I will never forget the frigid, Chicago morning when I opened a letter from Mrs. Evelyn Rasco, a mother and widow. She told the story of her daughters, and said she had written Rainbow/PUSH for 11 years, without a response. She redirected her strategy this time and wrote Congressman Jackson in a plea to get the letter to his father’s (Rev. Jackson) office. The letter was hand delivered [...]
GREENBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — The New York Knicks needed Stephon Marbury to play, then suspended him a game and docked him nearly $400,000 in salary Friday after claiming he refused.
The disgruntled guard insists he never told coach Mike D’Antoni “no” and plans to appeal.
Just another chapter in Marbury’s turbulent tenure with his hometown team.
D’Antoni wouldn’t go into specifics of their conversation that took place before Wednesday’s loss in Detroit, though he made it clear he asked the point guard to play because the Knicks were short-handed.
“I don’t want to get into it, guys. I think I already told you, I asked him to play. We just asked. You’re a coach, and we needed him to play,” D’Antoni said after practice Friday. [...]
Marbury will not be paid when he sits out Saturday’s home game against Golden State and will lose an additional game’s pay for Wednesday’s actions [...]
CLEVELAND (AP) — LeBron James reacted strongly to Charles Barkley’s comments that the Cavaliers star isn’t showing respect for Cleveland fans and his teammates by discussing his possible free agency following the 2010 season.
“He’s stupid. That’s all I’ve got to say about that,” James said Friday night before the Cavaliers’ game against Golden State.
Barkley made the comments on TNT’s NBA studio show and Dan Patrick’s radio show.
“If I was LeBron James, I would shut the hell up,” the Hall of Famer said on Patrick’s show. “I’m a big LeBron fan. He’s a stud. You gotta give him his props. I’m getting so annoyed he’s talking about what he’s going to do in two years. I think it’s disrespectful to the game. I think it’s disrespectful to the Cavaliers.”
James, under contract for two more seasons, was bombarded with questions about his future when the Cavaliers visited New York to play the Knicks on Tuesday night [...]
It had turned into a bit of schtick at Patti LaBelle’s concerts: She would tell the crowd about an impending reunion of Labelle, the group in which she and fellow singers Sarah Dash and Nona Hendryx scored a smash hit with “Lady Marmalade” (1974) before breaking up in 1976.
“Every time Patti performed at a show,” Dash said, “she’d say, ‘Oh, we’re going to have a reunion,’ and people would just go absolutely berserk.”
After awhile, however, Hendryx decided to call her on it.
“Nona said to Pat, ‘You should probably stop saying that if it’s not going to happen. Don’t play with our audience that way,’ ” Dash said.
Now they’re no longer playing. After recording a tribute to civil-rights activist Rosa Parks, “Dear Rosa,” in 2006, Labelle has followed through with “Back to Now,” its first album of new material in 31 years [...]
About 100 people gathered before dawn Tuesday for a candlelight vigil and prayer service on the second anniversary of the fatal police shooting of an unarmed man on his wedding day that sparked outrage in the black community.
The Rev. Al Sharpton and Sean Bell’s fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, led the memorial on the street in Queens where the 23-year-old black man was killed outside a strip club on Nov. 25, 2006 after leaving his bachelor’s party.
At precisely 4:10 a.m. — the time of the shooting — the mourners rang a large bell 50 times to mark the number of bullets fired at the Bell and two of his friends, who were seriously injured.
After laying wreaths and flowers, the group marched half a mile to a church, where Sharpton held a prayer service [...]
[Eddie Jordan reviewing the 2007-2008 season in May]:
Eddie Jordan Fired… But Why?
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com
On Monday, Nov. 24, The Washington Wizards fired veteran coach, Eddie Jordan, who helped transport the Wizards to the playoffs four years in a row. Over the last few days, however, many fans/sport columnists, pundits, and even coaches have expressed their regret over this brash and unexpected decision. Here are a few reactions:
We’ve all seen this movie before: A general manager stocks his roster with a dysfunctional mixture of players, but since he’s the one who procured the players he thinks they’re better than they really are. Eventually the team loses, and the coach is canned – because it’s easier to fire the coach than to fire the players, and because the GM is certainly not going to fire himself. This is approximately what happened to Eddie Jordan in Washington. [...] Since he’s been in Washington, Jordan has done a magnificent job with this team even though Arenas and Etan Thomas have been periodically down and out – repeatedly leading them into the playoffs.
- Charley Rosen from MSN Sports
More Reactions At Your Black Sports
Native American Heritage Month
By: Julian Wolfson
November is Native American Heritage Month, a month dedicated to recognizing the culture and traditions of Native Americans, as well as their contributions to the U.S.
One of the most significant days this month will be the celebration of the first national annual Native American Heritage Day on November 28, which was created when Congress passed a resolution on January 3, 2008.
While this month is intended to commemorate the achievements of Native Americans, it also provides an opportunity to reflect upon many of the issues that are important to the Native American community.
One of the biggest concerns for Native Americans is education. As reported by the National Center for Education Statistics, 15.1 percent of Native Americans ages 16-24 years old were high school dropouts in 2006. This stands in stark contrast to the national high school dropout rate of 9.7 percent [...]
More At Your Black News
A Bonus by Any Other Name Still Stinks
Rep. Elijah Cummings
I am beginning to understand why companies like AIG are so committed to spending hundreds of millions of dollars on sports sponsorships. It’s because they like playing games. Since it seems that the executives at these companies did not get the memo, I am here to tell them that the fun and games are over.
I was shocked upon learning — just one day after being told that top AIG executives would be forgoing bonuses this year — that the company’s executives will be receiving ‘cash awards’ as ‘retention payments.’ AIG can dress this money up in fancy names, but no one is fooled. A bonus by any other name still stinks. [...]
AIG just doesn’t seem to get it [...]
Fueled by rising unemployment and food prices, the number of Americans on food stamps is poised to exceed 30 million for the first time this month, surpassing the historic high set in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. [...]
“We soon will have the most food stamps recipients in the history of our country,” said Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, a D.C.-based 
anti-hunger policy organization. “If the economic forecasts come true, we’re likely to see the most hunger that we’ve seen since the 1981 recession and maybe since the 1960s, when these programs were established.”
The Agriculture Department is set to release the new numbers as early as this week. Agency officials declined to confirm the figures but outlined them in a briefing last month for advocates and administrators of state food stamp programs. Breaking the symbolically important 30 million mark comes on the heels of government data showing that 11.9 million people went hungry in the United States at some point last year [...]
When Brenda McElmore showed up to get her hair dyed at a local JCPenney salon in Downey, Calif., she probably didn’t expect to hear “no.” Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. According to McElmore, the receptionist at the front desk told her, “We don’t do African American hair.” McElmore says she was “astonished” to be denied service strictly because of her race.
After writing several letters to JCPenney about the incident, a representative responded with an apology, explaining that the “salon’s receptionist did not feel [the salon's employees] had the technical proficiency to perform the service required.” McElmore was not satisfied with that answer. “If you only want color — I’m not asking for a perm or a style or anything else — it doesn’t take a special person or a special skill to do that,” she said during a press conference last month [...]
Three years since Katrina and the government continues to fail us. Malik Rahim has spoken out with courage, asked the difficult questions and built viable community alternatives. He is a strong organizer who acted while the politicians waited. Now he wants to take his courage to Congress.
After Hurricane Katrina, Malik founded Common Ground, an organization which:
Malik is in a winnable race for U.S. Congress in Louisiana’s 2nd District. The Louisiana Secretary of State changed the elections calendar after Hurricane Gustav, so the general election for that seat is on Dec. 6.
“We still have one more Congressional election within our grasp,” writes Cynthia McKinney, legendary former congresswoman from Georgia and this year’s Green Party presidential candidate [...]
Ludacris “Theater of the Mind” (Island Def Jam)
For some odd reason, Ludacris feels the need to prove himself on his latest studio CD.
“Theater of the Mind,” the rapper’s sixth album, is full of trash talk as to why he is rap’s “MVP.” But talk is cheap.
Ludacris is not only a platinum rapper, he’s also a major success in film, TV, on the Web and even in the food industry (the rapper opened a Thai restaurant in Atlanta). He’s also known as one of the game’s best lyricists.
But he disappoints on “Theater of the Mind” by trying constantly to prove it with boasts that are boring and empty, devoid of the cleverness we’ve come to expect from Luda [...]
The concept isn’t difficult to grasp. Kanye West’s mother died suddenly one year ago, and a few months later, the superstar rapper and producer broke things off with his fiancé. West spent two weeks in Hawaii recording what he calls a “pop” album.
The production is minimal and chilly in a way that recalls Junior Boys or early Depeche Mode. The basic beats were created using the old school Roland TR-808 drum machine.
The vocals — overwhelmingly sung, not rapped — have almost uniformly been processed by the pitch-correction software AutoTune. All this is intended to create a sombre soundscape that reflects West’s emotional state, and on paper, the math is simple and appealing. In actual practice, however, things go horribly wrong [...]
Sources tell ABC News that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will be staying on in the top Pentagon job, for at least the first year of the Obama administration. “It is a done deal,” a source close to the process tells ABC News.
Gates, while a registered independent, has served numerous Republican administrations. President George W. Bush nominated Gates to replace the Donald Rumsfeld after the 2006 midterm elections, when the war in Iraq was spiraling out of control.
The former Eagle Scout is expected to be rolled out immediately after the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend as part of a larger national security team expected to include Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, as Secretary of State; Marine Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.) as National Security Adviser; Admiral Dennis Blair (Ret.) as Director of National Intelligence; and Dr. Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
As CIA Director for President George H.W. Bush in 1992, Gates conveyed to incoming President Bill Clinton that he wished to stay on in that role. Clinton did not keep him on, replacing him instead with Jim Woolsey.
From ABC News
From Democracy Now!
Your Black Life: Lisa Powell: Believe In Your Child
Tags: Black Children, Black Family, Caitlin Powell, Caitlin's Corner, Children, Early Childhood Education, Education, Kids, Lisa Powell, Parents, Your Black World, YourBlackWorld.com
Lisa Powell: Education: A Road Map for the Future
By: Tolu Olorunda
YourBlackWorld.com
Lisa Powell is the mother of Caitlin Powell. Caitlin, as you many know, is a YourBlackWorld.com family member, whose exceptional talent is inspiring thousands of kids and parents across the country. At just 10-years of age, Caitlin Powell is a role-model, motivational speaker, writer, telecaster and singer. Alongside taking advanced-courses in school, she is also the host of her nationally-syndicated webcast, “Caitlin’s Corner TV,” which helps motivate students toward academic success. Caitlin has a rare gift, and her mom is the first to acknowledge that; but it takes the diligence, skill, dedication and patience of a parent, to help nurture raw talent into a resource of enlightenment and inspiration. [...]
Lisa Powell says she first noticed an “excitement” in Caitlin at a very young age, which always took everything she did “to the next level.” Being her first child, she always “set goals” for Caitlin, because she wanted to see her “be the best that she could be.” As an experienced social worker, Powell knows the dangers of “pushing kids too hard,” or not “pushing them hard enough.” Finding the right balance, between those two tangents, was the key to success in raising Caitlin. [...]
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