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Your Black News Headlines: 12/18/2008
Your Black News: Hawaiian Man Arrested For Threatening To Kill Obama
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 [...]
Your Black News: President-Elect Obama Aims For 2.5 Million Jobs In 2 Yrs.
US president-elect Barack Obama Saturday announced plans to create 2.5 million new jobs as he forged ahead in his bid to shore up the flagging economy ahead of his January inauguration.
The job stimulus would take place over the next two years, Obama said in his weekly radio address, as he prepared to reveal the members of his economic team early next week, according to media reports.
Expected to lead Obama’s team as Treasury secretary is New York central banker Timothy Geithner, 47, who would be tasked with overseeing the 700-billion-dollar bailout package as the world’s largest economy is staring at recession.
With Congress on recess as of Friday, Obama outlined in broad strokes his plan for a broad stimulus package to lift Americans out of economic peril fueled by sweeping housing foreclosures and job losses.
Obama, who has vowed to make the economy his priority when he takes office from President George W. Bush on January 20, said the effort should produce 2.5 million new jobs by January of 2011.
“We’ll be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jumpstart job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy,” Obama said [...]
Your Black Politics: Is Barack Obama Wrestling With Self-Hatred?
Black Rage, Barack’s Redemption
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com
After much deliberation, I’m convinced that President-Elect Obama’s disturbing perspective of the African-American community is not motivated by malice or cowardice, but simply a result of his upbringing. In other words, his distinctly condescending attacks on Black consciousness are merely a product of the overwhelming, disproportionate influence his White mother and White grandparents had on him. In contrast, Michelle Obama, raised by Black parents and nurtured in the womb of Black America, is prone to persuade a more empathetic view of the African-American community. It is virtually impossible for Barack Obama to have emerged from the loving arms of a woman who, “once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe,” and not have inherited some of such Negrophobia, which has cast dark shadows on Black male psyche. In Just Walk on By, Author, Brent Staples wrote of the degree of “lethality nighttime pedestrians” attribute to certain Black males who fit the kinds of cringe-worthy stereotypes which Obama’s grandmother (God rest her soul) must have expressed constantly. The impact of this on the young Barry cannot be overlooked [...]
More At Your Black Politics
Your Black News: Lawsuit Claims Election-Night Hate-Crime By Chicago Police
CHICAGO (AP) — A lawsuit filed Thursday alleges that while a huge Chicago crowd celebrated the election of the first black U.S. president, some white city police officers committed hate crimes against a black family cheering Barack Obama’s victory from home.
The federal lawsuit claims several officers discharged pepper spray on members of a family celebrating Obama’s win outside their home on the city’s West Side last week.
After some of the family members fled into the home, the armed officers knocked down the door and shouted profanity-laced racial insults before leaving, according to the suit.
The eight plaintiffs include Niger Arnold, 31, of Chicago, and her four children, who had been visiting relatives at the home.
“Chicago looked very good on national TV that night. For many people, it was the beginning of a new era in America,” attorney Gregory Kulis said. “Obviously, some Chicago police thought otherwise.”
The lawsuit, which seeks $50,000 in damages, claims use of excessive force, unlawful search and seizure, battery, and a hate crime. It cites only the unnamed officers and does not name the Chicago Police Department.
A separate lawsuit filed last week by Kulis claims Christina Ballard and Cornelius Voss, who are black, were driving home in Chicago with family members on election night when white officers in unmarked cars drove alongside the vehicle.
That lawsuit alleges that after some of the children cheered for Obama through the open car windows, the officers discharged pepper spray and yelled “white power” and the N-word [...]
More At The Associated Press
Your Black Education: If I Was President: Black Celebrities Answer
What if our best and brightest were president? GOOD videos seeks to answer this question in a series of mini-docs with several activists and “community-minded” celebrities. What if Van Jones, Danny Glover, Majora Carter, Mos Def, MURS or Wyclef was president? To hear them tell it, the world would look entirely different. Perhaps Sen. Obama’s staff should be paying keen attention to their proposals:
Watch their campaign ads at: Your Black Education
Your Black Education: Mississippi Students Banned From Speaking About Obama
PEARL, MS (WLBT) – Teachers are prohibiting students from talking about President-Elect Barack Obama. WLBT’s newsroom has been flooded by calls and emails from angry parents in several cities. These parents say their children were threatened with suspension if they said Obama’s name or wore clothing that supports him. [...]
“It’s like they’ve taken their rights way,” said Natalie Taylor. She decided not to show her face because she is afraid of retaliation against her son who attends Pearl Junior High School.
“He told me he was warned by one of the teachers before school started that he could not mention the name because he would get in trouble,” said Taylor. [...]
“Racism at its best, that’s really what it is,” said Paula Loften of Magee. She has two children in the Simpson County School District in Magee. She is angry that students are not allowed to wear any clothing that supports the new President-Elect.
“One student was sent home to change because she had on a Barack Obama T-shirt and on the back it said “yes we can,” said Loten [...]
More At Your Black Education
Your Black Scholar: An Open Letter To Barack Obama — Alice Walker
An Open Letter to Barack Obama
By: Alice Walker
Dear Brother Obama,
You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear.
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I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters.
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I would further advise you not to take on other people’s enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise [...]
More At Your Black Scholar
Your Black Politics: Min. Farrakhan Says Obama Would Herald ‘New Beginning’
Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan says President-elect Barack Obama has a God-given capacity to handle what Farrakhan calls the “horrible burden” Obama will face as the nation’s leader.
Farrakhan says Obama will be helped by “God and people of good will.”
The 75-year-old spoke Sunday at Mosque Maryam, the Chicago-based movement’s headquarters. The address is called “America’s New Beginning: President-elect Barack Obama.”
Farrakhan says he stayed quiet about his support the past few months out of fear it’d hurt Obama’s campaign [...]
Video & More At Your Black Politics
Your Black Power: Will He (President Obama) Stand Up For The Righteous Cause?
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer – YourBlackWorld.com
In light of Sen. Obama’s historic win on Tuesday night, certain perspectives must be taken into consideration in order to avoid being taken for a 4 year ride, which provides nothing, having promised NOTHING! In the long and winded 20-month battle for a seat at the table of presidency, Sen. Obama has often conducted himself with an unimpeachable level of dignity, grace and humility. Nevertheless, there have been times when the Good Senator has fallen short of those ranks. In fact, he has, throughout the course of his presidential bid, played the 90% hand that fed, clothed, nurtured and made him: The Black Community. Whilst many Black progressives seem quite comfortable with being snubbed – in exchange for a Black presidency – not every card-carrying member of the Black Community appreciates the Illinois Senator’s disposition on the issue of Race. They are fully aware of the tightrope which needs to be walked for a Black man to transport himself to the pedestal of history, but many see a tension between overt opportunism and the potential for a progressive Black president. In my humble judgment, there are ten issues of concern to the Black Community on which Sen. Obama has failed woefully in the course of his political career and this historic campaign:
More At Your Black Power
Your Black Politics: If Harriet Tubman Were President — Dr. Lenore Daniels
If Harriet Tubman Were President
By: Dr. Lenore Daniels
If Harriet Tubman were elected president of the United States, the Underground Railroad would become a modern-day institution in which the “wretched of the earth” here in the U.S. would be gathered together to rise from beneath the heels of their enslavers. These citizens would form local committees to review what is best in the U.S. Constitution as well as review the Iroquois Constitution and the Black Panther education and food distribution programs. Freedom would take on a new meaning and the word “reform” would be removed from the lexicon of all languages. “Economically poor,” “liberal,” democrat,” “republican,” “fundamental Christian,” and “conservative” would not represent anyone. And we would come up with a flag that would represent all the people and not be used to intimidate those of us who still do not feel welcomed.
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If Martin Luther King were president, funding for wars would cease. Troops would return home. A new institution to train and/or re-educate negotiators and mediators would recognize the importance of a culturally/globally literate neighbor-consultant in the world [...]
Your Black Politics: Obama May Appoint Black Conservative As Agriculture Secretary
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) [...]
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