WHITE DUDE KILLER…no hoodie for him

So if white folks are looking for the boogie-man, seems they need to stop looking at 'Home-boy' from the 'Hood', and first start looking across town in areas where this little rich kid Rodgers comes from, or even in their own homes! Think about it?

This Rodgers case is yet another example of how white male privilege allows white dudes like him to literally commit and get away with murder! Turns out this young Rodgers joker sent emails to his folks and posted You-Tube videos ranting and raving about his deadly intent. His folks were so concerned that they actually called the cops on his ass. Well…they went to his crib and interviewed him for a moment, but found him to be polite, clean-cut, and well-mannered…..meaning good white boy. So apparently, these same cops never got around to asking him if he had or owned any guns, and what were all of those crazy, ranting videos about! 

This sounds just like Jeffery Dahmer, who two Black women called the cops on, explaining that a young, very injured Asian kid, just 16, was running butt naked down the street trying to escape. So what did the white cops do when they stumble upon Dahmer? They let him tell some bullshit story about some imaginary lovers quarrel. Damn! But, we know what those cops would have done, if Dahmer been Black and the running kid was white! 

And they let child-killer Zimmerman buy guns even after he kicked his ex-girlfriends ass and even assaulted a lady cop. Damn! And then let him keep the same gun he murdered Trayvon with, which he used just a couple of months later to threaten his ex-wife. 

The powers that be apparently got a heads-up about Virginia Tech killer Cho, even from well known Black Prof Nikky Giovanni. But he was still able to just walk across the street from campus and buy (2) two hi-capacity Glocks, and a shit-load of ammo! Damn, again!

And then there's the KKK racist dude that just shot and killed (3) white Christians thinking they were Jews. Hum? This dude was convicted in connection of an infamous murder beef in which some of the victims were white. How in the fuck can a dude who is effectively a damn convicted murderer of white people even, able to buy guns & ammo??! Hum again?

 Yet too often time and again, our young Black boys can't even walk out the damn house and down their own street to school or the grocery store without the cops throwing them up against the wall to be stopped and frisked. I've got my own stories of being stopped by the cops…both as a teenager and a grown ass man, with their hands on their guns. A few times they even pulled their guns and made me get down on my knees. Yet not once was I committing, or even about to commit a crime. (Not that time)

WE BLACK MEN ARE GOOD!

A couple of weeks ago I ran into I ran into an old retired professor friend of mine who I’ve always loved and respected. Whenever we see each other, we always talk about how students nowadays are not as engaged in politics, and how they have a different level of respect for their professors, and also how they have higher expectations of themselves. As usual I agreed and probably threw some random statistic that was swirling around in my big head at her to explain, possibly, how we found ourselves in this situation. I recently mentioned a murder in my building (something I’m still trying to figure out two weeks later) and how it really didn’t surprise me that this happened within the confines of my “nice” building.  And then she made the jump to talk about Black-on Black crime and “why it’s always the Blacks against Blacks.”

Lately, I’ve grown weary have to explain my hyper-Blackness to people. Dammit, can I just be?

Meanwhile…………the main story line for Black males in this country is you are under a certain age is that you are guilty until proven innocent and that you are automatically presumed less than and are required to defend your humanity and your citizenship at all times.  Remember the conversation regarding the Seattle Seahawks Richard Sherman as it relates to race? Throw in him being a brown skinned dude, with dreadlocks, and he was loud as hell.... that made him a threat?  Richard Sherman’s loud mouth to the wrong white dude could have easily gotten him killed just as Jordan Davis’ loud music got him killed….literally!

This has also to do with the problem white society has with historically Black colleges and universities.  Nobody has a problem or even cares about historically Black public schools…the Thurgood Marshall’s, the Martin Luther Kings, the Adam Clayton Powell’s,  and Frederick Douglass elementary and high schools that occupy our dark inner cities. Wonder why there have never been questions about the need for their existence?  Likewise, nobody questioned the need for the Mormons to create Brigham Young University or why Jews send their children to Brandeis. But let somebody talk up for historically Black colleges and universities, then suddenly all hell breaks loose in this supposedly post-racial society and you’re accused of being a reverse racist.

BUT PLEASE NOTE THE PATTERN HERE……
Now, all of a sudden, there’s a problem with Black colleges: historically Black colleges and universities; why do you need Black only television networks: Black Entertainment Television; Black power movement; Black liberation theology….it’s the fact that it says Black. Tell the truth, it makes some white people uncomfortable, no matter how liberal they say they are, to see us Black people self-identify as Black. I’m Black.  Deal with it.

It’s bothersome as hell to me because no one person raises an eyebrow on St. Patrick’s Day when everybody of Irish heritage comes out of the woodwork. Even still beyond nationalities, no one raises a funk about folk of Latin descent celebrating their own, but as soon as the actual word “Black” has to be attached to a name, a title, or anything then suddenly society shifts the narrative placing a negative association to it, and if it is a Black male, criminalizing it. This shit is illustrated by my old professor friend when I disproved just that because you see Blacks on the news committing crime doesn’t mean whites aren’t.  She didn’t even want to accept that as even a possibility, only wanting to focus on the fact that these were violent crimes, murders and drug related crimes. She even said to me, “well hasn’t it been long enough” when I attempted to trace some of these problems back to Reconstruction.  Really, I didn’t even know where to start.

I don’t feel the need to defend my gender, my race, my ethnicity, or my Blackness.  I shouldn’t have to hear victims family members automatically go into defense mode when a Black boy gets killed.  It’s something fundamentally wrong when young Black boys have to get two “The Talks” when being raised in this country.  While white boys are being told about the birds and the bees by their parents, Black parents are telling their Black sons about how to act when pulled over by the police, or how to be unassuming when you walk into the store so that you don’t get accused of shoplifting just because you “look” suspicious.  My black skin alone makes me a suspect.

Let that sink in for a moment: my black skin automatically qualifies me as suspicious when I walk into a store.

When I started riding the bus by myself for the first time, one of the first things my mother told me was that I need to be careful how I carry myself because I was big enough that people might think I’m older than what I really am.  That was my mother’s code word for saying “You’re a black kid who’s 11, but you could pass for 15 and people may automatically criminalize you for no reason just because you’re a Black boy”, in 1968!  This is a reality for many Black folks in this country. This is a second America that white privilege has wondrously insulated many from having to ever visit or live. Hum?

I am Black and beautiful–at the same time.  To be Black in this country is being seen as “other” at best, and “less than” at worse, but ultimately such a self-identification automatically marginalizes our existence. But I ask the question, why do we live in a country where being pro-Black is seen as being anti-anything else?  Why does one’s self-determination, self-identification and self-definition as Black become something negative and even criminal at times?

This is what racism has produced.  Systems were in place for so long that there is no author of racism.  None! There is no wizard behind the curtain operating the levers on some of this de facto racism. While I do honestly believe there are members of the 1% that make these power play moves that directly affect us Blacks when it comes to for-profit management of the education system as well as the prison industrial complex, and the likes of the Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch’s owning large news media, they are merely responding to the sentiments that many white people hold. They feed on those fears to generate large profits from the fear-mongering.(FOX NEWS)

The parallel with the character Radio Raheem and Jordan Davis are almost scary!  Radio Raheem, the character from Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing,” through a series a  unfortunate events ended up killed by the police in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood on a hot summer day because he didn’t turn down his music.

HEY LADIES..YOU CAN'T BE FINE ALL OF THE TIME!

I know that Beyoncé is a talented ass multitasker. How do I know this? Who else can sell over 1 million records without one fuckin ounce of promotion while at the same time being a mother and wife? Yeah, me either. Through the recent events captured on an elevator security camera and released to the word, we caught a quick peep of the less-than-fabulous part of her life, or maybe just the real part. Hum? In the video seen around the world, we saw her younger sister, Solange, attacking and yelling at her husband, Jay Z. A security guard has to hold back a deliriously mad Solange, while Beyoncé barely attempts to do any damn thing. 
This lil fight ended with Beyoncé leaving the event with her sister, and Jay Z taking a different car, and a whole lot of unanswered questions. But to some folk, the strangest part of the whole scene wasn't the brother-in-law/sister-in-law feud, but the fact that Beyoncé just stood her ass right there. It was the fact that a couple of minutes after the fight seen around the world, she walked out like nothing had happened.

 And in the days following the fight, Beyoncé was sittin courtside at a Brooklyn Nets game with her husband, happily in love. I’m really not a huge fan of Beyoncé, but I found it odd as hell!  In the middle of all of this shit, she just sat there and pretended that everything was OK? Now let me be perfectly clear: B never said "I'm fine," but in my opinion, her sexy ass smile did. So what the fuck is really goin on here? Was this just a random family feud that ended with hugs and kisses, or was that video a personal look into a larger issue that is cunningly being covered up for the sake of the family and their image? Hum, again! I think the family has other issues. 

In a world where celebrities and fakers sell their souls for a few dollars and Instagram "likes," Queen Beyoncé has always set herself apart by keeping her private life private! With her fame, and her music telling girls to "run the world," and her partaking in initiatives such as "Ban Bossy," she has calculated to empower women and mothers. Sayin that, at what point does keeping her life private and saving face in the midst of all of this turmoil stain her message to women? I believe it does, since it tells women everywhere that no matter how messy your life may be, you must act like you got this down…. as usual. As women and mothers, you Black women are expected to deal with issues at home, privately, and never let the world know the truth, because you fear being looked upon as weak or pitiful. 

Were you too tired to feed your children that meal of whole-wheat pasta that you promised yourself you’d make, so you bought pizza instead?

 Did you leave your iPhone on top of the car (again) because your brain ain’t workin today? 

Did you go to work and pretend you hadn't just had a fight with your man?

 Are you seeing a therapist, but lying about where you are from 7 to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays?

 Do you have no problem pretending in public that you don't care about what you weigh, when in reality every time you take a bite, you think about how you need to stop taking bites?

Why are you ladies like this? Like it or not, I don't know why you women are shocked. You all do the same thing Beyoncé did. And you do it every day. She has her image, her family and her career to maintain. You other ladies ain’t any different. 
You women are constantly surrounded by examples of "perfect" women feeding you false examples that are impossible to achieve. In reality, shit happens, and life is full of failures and lessons learned. How are you supposed to look up to a celebrity like Beyoncé who brushes these life lessons under the rug and walks away with a forced smile?

It's conflicting that all of you women shout "girl power" from the rooftops while at the same time wearin the same fake smiles. 
You know what I would've fuckin loved? If Beyoncé had gone off! Completely off! Boy, if we'd been able to hear that damn audio. If Beyoncé had cursed out Solange or Jay Z or, better yet, the press waitin outside! I would've said, "Finally!" In "Pretty Hurts," a song on her newest album, Beyoncé sings, "We try to fix something, but you can't fix what you can't see. It's the soul that needs the surgery."  Damn!! The question is: When do women drop the frontin and admit what's really wrong? OK, in the real world, that might mean talkin about your less-than-perfect marriage or a less-than-perfect career or just admitting, "No, everything ain’t fine, actually." 

When was the last time you heard that from a friend? Probably never, because as much as folks look in awe as Beyoncé pretends that everything in her life is fine, most people do the same thing every day, programmed to just keep going and keep smiling your ass off. Why do you women feel like you have to maintain perfection, especially Black women? Is it the media comparisons to keep up with? Is it the fact that you were taught to always hold it together, even when it's all falling apart? When do you Black women drop the pretense? When do you Black women stop thinking that allowing yourselves to feel is weakness? When do you stop saying "I'm fine"?

#BRING OUR GIRLS BACK ……..IT JUST AIN’T FOR ME…..here’s why!!

All of you who read my posts and follow my blog (www.phillipnorton.blogspot.com) know that I’m not against online activism. In fact, I believe in it, and have always been moved by the power it wields. Yea, I have played a part in various Internet campaigns and have seen the power that lies in us Black Americans when we’re aligned to create change from behind our computers. It felt good to lend a hand and to know that my small financial contributions made a difference sometimes.
 But I think (hash-tag) activism should be used with caution, especially when it comes to issues affecting our beloved Black community. Sometimes, it risks contributing to a false sense of accomplishment while hiding the full picture of what’s really taking place in the hood. That's why, after one post, I stopped participating in the crusade, which was designed to draw attention to the dilemma of the 200 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the Boko Haram (I like that name for some reason?) last month.
 I worried that this was becoming one of those situations in which folk feel an unfounded sense of accomplishment. This campaign has been going on for weeks, and it's become agonizingly clear to me that while the hash-tag has drawn out all kinds of attention, the news coverage ain’t enough to make a difference to the people at the center of this sickening story….the Nigerian girls who have not been brought back and who, despite all of the hash-tag tweets, remain in severe danger. The kidnappings are still an international focus of discussion, but the focus of America’s reporting on the plight of the girls has fallen off quite a bit. In fact, by the time all of the fake ass celebrity attention and major media outlets got on board with the story, more than two weeks had passed. A popular attitude in the Black community is that we have to work twice as hard for equal results. 
I think a version of that idea really applies here. When it comes to pushing for justice we have to be especially deliberate. Social media activism might not be as powerful as you think it is when it comes to concrete results, when we Black folks are dealing with situations that call for more than just raising awareness. Get it?
  My crazy and selfish concern isn't that it's hopeless, but that it’s making us feel as if the job is done; therefore keeping us from taking a course of action that may be more effective in the long run. I particularly worry about how the #BringBackOurGirls campaign will turn out when I think of some examples from the past: The United States Supreme Court has torn apart Affirmative Action, and George Zimmerman got off. Hum? Considering these outcomes, I had to make sure I was honest with myself about the fact that a hash-tag might not do too much to help with the return of the girls. But what the hell would help? What are our options? That's a question I challenged the Angry Black Man to answer. Doing "something else" don’t mean picking up and moving to Nigeria or sleeping outside the embassy. One quick ass way to make a difference in the conditions that led to this calamity would be to take some time to learning more about abductions in Nigeria and in other areas of the world, so that those silly comments and tweets are based on your personal research, not just second hand demands.
 I'd personally rather see real social change in Nigeria than temporary, hash-tag attention. We know that never lasts long, don’t we? Plus, the other remarkable thing about the Internet is that we don't need the main stream media to be our middleman. Hum again! I'm very concerned that this cause…..the value of the lives of girls, is now being even further watered down, with the Twitter discussion going off into who gets the credit for the campaign. And credit should be the furthest thing from anyone's mind. I do congratulate Twitter users for getting the media's attention, and I’m thankful that so many folks care about this issue. 
But I'm also careful not to let myself become satisfied. For me, that means skipping the hash-tag and focusing on understanding and learning about why this shit happened, what is essential to fix it, and how we can make sure it doesn't happen again. I’m out!!

CHILD SUPPORT...the long and winding road!!

No matter where I’m at or whomever I speak to, when I bring up the subject of ........child support, this always leads to some hot ass conversation no matter how calm we address the shit! If you speak with fifty people about this emotional and very personal subject, you will probably get fifty genuine responses where each person feels theirs is right. In addition, if truth were told, they’re all probably right according to their personal situation and bad experiences. Hum ya say!

This is what makes this subject that has raged across the beauty shops, barbershops, and bootlegs all around the country, flaming hot! Everyone should agree that our children need to be supported on so many levels; money has to be there as the oil in the engine of their lives.

The real problems come when some State employee must decide how much money is sufficient to provide for our children’s upbringing and basic care. You see….since everybody’s financial situation is completely different, all of these factors will definitely influence everybody involved… money agreements and lines in the sand will be drawn. Not only is this shit very complicated, but also it’s some very emotional stuff to say the least. Perceptions have a lot to do with how much heat is presented into the legal proceedings.

 I’m gonna play around with a few possible scenarios to let you get an idea of how deep this shit can go as if you really don’t know!

Let me first state that all of our children are innocent no matter what situation brought them into this world, and by no means am I saying that one child is to be favored over the other! I am merely trying to paint a picture of the hidden agendas and viciousness that happens in the name of getting a decent amount of money to give that child a fair shot at a good life. Whew! Now that I got that shit off my chest, I’m gonna get down to the nitty- fuckin -gritty…

you have some mothers who rant and rave non-stop about how their baby daddy is a no good, sorry ass motherfucker right in front of the children. The very same children that she is attempting to turn against their father.

You have some dead-beat/sorry ass dads that because of some silly hatred refuse to work because they don’t even want to pay one damn dime of child support to his children’s mother.

Now we are to the notorious ex, the same ex who can’t stand the fact that her child’s father has moved on with another woman, which most times is an upgrade for him, and is using every legal trick to punish him because of her jealousy of his new life without her.

You also have the brother who is mad as hell that his ex has moved on and will try to influence his children psychologically in order to get back at her because everybody knew he was an abusive control freak!

Then you have the hoochie mama who has now become an independent booty contractor who will bring a life into this world expecting to get paid by the government and the unwilling father who didn’t have a problem being a sperm donor who just got caught up cause he wasn’t planning on sticking around anyway! You know, it gets crazier and crazier!!

 But all the while the children are made to feel like a commodity in the hustle game, a game that their little minds just can’t understand, but they can pick up the clues and they just know something ain’t right about it. Remember, our children are not stupid! No matter what the personal internal shit of a person’s child support case, I can imagine that it’s not only painful as hell, but also damn embarrassing if the child’s parents don’t act in a dignified manner. I believe what creates a lot of the hate between former lovers is that both feel that their best years were wasted on a lot of bullshit! Being horny as hell and having a shot or two of yak can turn two people into mortal enemies after promising each other the world while deeply engaged in sex! That’s right! Sex is really a drug, and there are a lot of sex heads out here! Believe that! Trust me, everyone who is down at the child support court at each others necks used to get along quite fine! Don’t they have a child or two…….or three? We all need to take a little more time to know each other and really make sure that we are ready to start a family because at the end of the day the main one that should not have to deal with our bullshit is your child. We sometimes seem to forget this and actually compound the problems for them because when they look back on their childhood the only thing they will remember are the nasty words shouted over their heads back and forth that robbed them of their childhood. Have a little more consideration about how you communicate in front of your child! The effects can be downright devastating and set them back at having a shot at a successful life. Not that they couldn’t achieve a prosperous future regardless of the circumstances because many have overcome, but it would be so much better if they didn’t have to deal with your collective issues in the first place!

MY ONE MAN WAR AGAINST FOX NEWS

I know FOX NEWS just don’t outright spout KKK shit and white supremacist racism…..but, its lame ass anchors and their racist opinions, as well as the way the channel structures its stories, just reinforces the status quo, of America as a white/Christian nation. Hum? 

They give an open voice to, and tolerate bullshit offensive comments that expose a naturally racist, ignorant mindset. They always tend to characterize us Black folks and Hispanics as lazy and greedy, and always get real defensive when the subject of institutionalized racism comes up! Yea, they do!  Check this out:  they take the side of George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case, sayin its reverse racism.

 They see the statistic showing that marijuana use among whites and Blacks are the same, yet us Black folk are more likely to be arrested for drug use, and good ol FOX NEWS changes the direction of the debate to ignore the reality of a system that is stacked against Black people. FOX NEWS intentionally mischaracterizes Muslims and will always jump to talking about terrorism whenever a story involving a person who happens to be Muslim is brought up.

They believe that Barack Obama is not an American citizen, and continually refuse to acknowledge that their suspicion was not based on anything substantial but his skin color; a subject no other President had to put the hell up with! Shit, there are plenty of other examples that would take me forever to go into. But consider this shit: FOX NEWS so-called 'liberal' Bob Beckel, a panelist on the most racist show on television (The Five) says the most racist shit too, and FOX NEWS allows it. Hell, I’m pretty sure they encourage it.

THEIR WHOLE NETWORK BUSINESS IS THEIR TOTAL DISLIKE OF BLACK PEOPLE

Just take the time to watch FOX NEWS, and not just the foolishly simple ass minded talk shows that downright lie to their own audience everyday about anything having to do with Black people, always judging us harshly and unfairly. Then there is of course the hatred for the President, it’s great to disagree politically but the personal stuff is way too much, and I know the conservative people out there know this to be true!!!

EDUCATION IS NOT THE ANSWER

Black folk say: “We need to get more educated, that’s our problem! We don’t get the resources the white schools get….but if our children would only study harder….if we would do a better job at turning off the television more often…. then they could learn and get ahead.” To me, this mixes up some important truths with some very wrong conclusions.

The truth is that this system has consistently denied a good education to Black children and continues to do so today, just like the execution of slaves who taught other slaves to read.

Today, the majority (remember, I said majority) of our Black children in public education are confined to prison-like inner city schools which get much fewer resources, the true history and dynamics of our society are covered up, and this leads to little or no attempt to instill critical or creative thinking.

These schools send Black children the message, in ways spoken and unspoken, that there is no real future for them in this society. And the real crime is that many Black youth then end up buying into the system’s lies that they’re inferior, leading our kids to turn off their own potential to learn, and in doing so, turn away from the wider world of knowledge and science.

Suppose every single Black child somehow got an education that enabled them to think critically and to master the skills involved in different kinds of mental labor.

 Would millions of today’s Black’s then be able to get good jobs and climb out of poverty? Hell no! Even if you could somehow eliminate discrimination, so long as the system of capitalism is in effect, people are employed only if some capitalist can make money off their employment. See what I’m sayin?

 By that standard, when there is a demand for technical jobs, those jobs are being shifted to you know where….where people work for next to nothin. The capitalists know this shit of course, and that’s one big reason that they’re not providing a good education for the Black children in the inner cities.

 In essence, they don’t want to raise the expectations of Black people too high. They fear the hell out of a world in which millions of Black people have knowledge and skills, and therefore expect to get a decent job and a better life.

Many old school political operatives of the ruling class recall very well the experience of the 60’s, when Black people’s hopes and expectations were raised, and then dismissed. This resulted in the massive explosion of righteous anger and rebellion among Black people, particularly our youth, and today the ruling class has a deep fear that again raising expectations would be far too socially explosive.

 Still, unless and until there is a concentrated effort, backed up by Federal power, to actually overcome inequality and white supremacy in every scope of life, not only will educational systems themselves continue to reinforce this shit, but no amount of education will overcome and destroy it.

Even today, when somebody Black succeeds against all odds in getting a good education, the discrimination remains in full effect. Education alone is not enough; it will take a revolution, in which the rule of the exploiters and oppressors is broken and state power is put into the hands of our people, to thoroughly uproot white supremacy. 

One of the key features, and necessities, of our new society will be to encourage this creativity and critical thinking among our people, developing their potential and enabling them to increasingly contribute, in many diverse ways, to the development of society, and the emancipation of humanity. As part of building the revolutionary movement, we must fight non-stop against the savage inequalities of today’s education system.

 And the revolutionary movement itself must educate our people in the real history and dynamics of society, in science, and in the scientific method of critical thinking. But education alone, of whatever kind, cannot solve the problem. Education as “the way out” turns people’s eyes away from the real problem and even leads them to blame themselves when it turns out to be yet another false hope. Don’t be mad at me.

THE BLACK FACE OF UNEMPLOYMENT

Urgent chronic mass unemployment and underemployment in the Black community is deteriorating the condition of the unemployed, actually exposing some our people to recurring or permanent Absolute Black Impoverishment. Absolute Black Impoverishment is when the living standards, education, and thought processes are lowered dramatically. I think that the majority of Black folk’s standard of living is determined by their living and working conditions. It takes in everything from how long it takes to get to and from work, to the cleanliness of your home, to childcare, etc.
Our living standards are determined by how much money we make and the relation to the value of that work, how long we work each day, how hard we work, healthcare, bills, wars, police, and the threat of lay-offs or shorter hours. Along with the cut-backs and elimination of some social programs, unemployment in the Black community has become an integral part of the absolute impoverishment in the Black community. When a Black man is denied a job, he feels stripped of his manhood and his most valued need…the need to work usefully in life. Most Black men live off of their one and only commodity, which is labor power. When a Black man in the community is prevented from doing this, he is condemned to deprivation, indignities, homelessness, and sometimes starvation.

The struggle for employment is having a drastic effect in our community. It is perpetuating the breakdown of the Black family, the whole structure! A lot of brothers who are unable to find work, now have to leave home so that their wives or significant others can qualify for assistance (welfare). Our children that grow up in these welfare situations now leave school because they have no incentive or because they don’t have enough to eat or good clothes to wear. So, they go out looking for jobs with no formal education, only to find a more negative situation than their fathers faced. So, they turn to petty crime, selling a lil weed, lil crack, prostitution, and the cycle continues.

This high unemployment has meant destitution for thousands and thousands of Black families. There are clearly elements of racism in this culture of unemployment, notably, education and immigration.

For skilled workers, Blacks are less educated and less skilled than whites and Asians; and for unskilled positions, illegal immigrants are having a gigantic effect on Black unemployment. You will find this in construction and in the food service industries. And, of course, in agriculture, Hispanics are it! In unskilled labor, there is a language barrier, but also a stereotype that Hispanics are better workers than Blacks. Now that our joblessness has remained so critically elevated, it is time we start challenging longstanding ideas about what it takes to find work in the modern-day economy.

CONDOLEEZA RICE IS NOT QUALIFIED TO SPEAK ON CIVIL RIGHTS

Contributed by Mel Reeves.......

 Protesters forced former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to withdraw from a commencement address at Rutgers University, in New Jersey, last week. However, demonstrators were unable to prevent Rice from speaking to a University of Minnesota audience, three weeks ago. The author was among the opposition. “All the hard work in the world would not have opened the doors for Rice if there had not been a Movement.” There are myriad reasons why Condoleezza Rice was a bad choice to speak at the University of Minnesota on “Keeping Faith with a Legacy of Justice: the 50th Anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.” The first is that it would be downright hypocritical. 

Rice is not an expert on Civil Rights; in fact, her life and her career are all a reflection of her disdain for civil rights. Neither Rice, nor her family believed in the efficacy of the struggle for the rights of black people to be free of Jim Crow racism in the United States. And her record as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State from 2001-2008 in the Bush Administration indicates that she is not qualified to talk about “rights” human or civil. She spent her entire career in Washington dedicated to separating so-called enemies of the US from their civil and human rights.

 According to Rice, the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t necessary, legal segregation (Jim Crow) would have worked itself out and ended on its own, or collapsed under its own weight. In a Washington Post interview years ago she said, “I felt that segregation had become not just a real moral problem, but it had become a real pain in the neck for some [white] people, People had begun to make their own little accommodations." Really, Dr. Rice? White southerners, out of the kindness of their hearts, were going to give up the political, economic, and social advantages that Jim Crow segregation had granted them? Her statement recalls what we in the black community used to call “educated fools.” Clearly Rice, who grew up in Birmingham in the middle of the Civil Rights struggle, has a revisionist idea of those times. “According to Rice, the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t necessary.” Condoleezza has bragged that her family didn’t march because her father didn’t think he could turn the other cheek. But that’s a poor excuse, because not all of the marches called for direct confrontation with authority.

 The Rice family could have gotten involved in the Movement, but they chose to sit it out. I think the truth is, her dad and her family thought they were above marching, like many other black middle class folks who sat out the movement, but didn’t hesitate to walk through the doors opened by people they looked down on. Her father Rev. Rice, the pastor of a Presbyterian church in Birmingham, disparaged civil rights leader and fellow preacher Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth’s efforts, calling him “misguided” and his congregation “uneducated.” The Rice’s were from the black bourgeoisie, a class that on some level benefited from segregated society; they were “somebody” in their apartheid circles. 

They had acquired education and a few dollars and had a certain measure of comfort with White Supremacy and, unlike their more working class brethren, were somewhat shielded from the economic blows of Jim Crow segregation. Yet, ironically, while Rice’s family sat out the protests, their daughter directly benefited from them. All the hard work in the world would not have opened the doors for Rice if there had not been a Movement of brave folks, who did have the courage to turn the other cheek for the bigger prize. But she has had the nerve to say publicly that “she should have made it” no matter the obstacles. She has been quoted saying, “My family is third-generation college-educated, I should've gotten to where I am." Clearly this fits the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” philosophy that has made her a darling among the enemies of black progress, namely conservatism. Three cheers for the sister who took the South’s bowel movements and made fertilizer all by herself! But as a columnist said in a Huff Post article about 10 years ago, “We will never know where she ‘would’ have ended up, if there had been no Rosa Parks, no Dr. King, no Southern Christian Leadership Council, and no March on Washington….” “Her father disparaged civil rights leader and fellow preacher Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth’s efforts, calling him “misguided” and his congregation “uneducated.” Of course the other way to assure that doors would be open is to do the bidding of US Imperialism, which Rice served so well in her former posts as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State.

 The truth is, she is not a beacon of the Civil Rights Movement but, rather, an embarrassment. She became an apologist and supporter of unjust war, directly responsible for the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the war on Iraq. She was also an apologist for torture, becoming one of the first White House officials to go on record supporting any form of torture. Don’t take my word for it look it up, it’s in the record. And by the way, she has done nothing to enhance the civil rights or careers of fellow African Americans, but has simply enhanced her own career. And accepting $150,000 to speak on a subject and a movement she philosophically disagrees with makes her a pimp. The truth is she has behaved worse than a common criminal. Most well raised children have sense enough to apologize when they have done wrong – and she has done plenty wrong – but she hasn’t shown an ounce of remorse. She has no guilt and no shame. Rice won’t even admit that she was wrong to give the ok to torture or wrong to invade a country and kill and destroy and wreak havoc on false pretenses (for oil). Pray tell what does this woman have to add to a discussion about rights? If she had any decency she would have turned down the invitation!

Do Black Athletes have Fathers????

Note: I ain’t married. I don’t have any daughters. A woman gave birth to me. I don't hate women. I don't hate single mothers. I don't hate women who have to go it alone because some man was too much of a bitch to stick around and raise his own damn kids. This post ain’t about any of that shit.

 It's about the white media's obsession with perpetuating a stereotype of Black men as absentee fathers. If you can't draw the distinction between the two, please close the motherfuckin browser right now because this is post ain’t for your ass!! Here I go………Tuesday, Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant accepted the NBA's Most Valuable Player Award and gave an over-the-top emotional speech about his mother. You probably have already seen it. If not, it was some touching shit! Had me in tears… I think any human being with a soul would concur.

 So was the poorly disguised Cadillac ad/tribute by NFL QB prospect Teddy Bridgewater to his single mom. And yeah, who can forget Lebron James tribute to his mom a couple of years ago? And of course, we spent the entire damn March Madness listening to the story of Shabazz Napier's mother, and seeing the camera cut to her every 4 motherfuckin seconds. Showing Napier and showing his Mom happened so much during UConn's run to the national title that it damn near bordered on some creepy type shit. And it made me wonder: What exactly is the white media's fascination with showing Black athletes raised by single mothers? Is there some ulterior motive at play here? Hum, you say? That level of adulation/obsession ain’t ever shown when Black athletes have two parents, and it's damn near never given to white athletes, unless they happen to be the parents of a family of players like them lazy Zeller brothers. What the hell is up with that? Is the whole "Momma we made it!" angle just a trick, or a slick ass journalistic shortcut? Or is there something more devious at play here? Hum, again? 

When 56% of Black kids (which ain’t an ideal number) are being raised in households with two parents (married or otherwise) it's hard for me to believe they can't find more examples of kids whose fathers were actively involved in their lives. Here's where the shit really gets tricky: I can't help but notice a serious double standard in all of these stories. Many of the women in these stories had other children by other men that they never married. These women are hailed as saints who helped their children beat the odds and achieve their dreams, even if in some cases those women weren't always present and had their own issues. It's hard for me to find any scenario in which a man who made poor judgment calls and had a shit load of kids by women he didn't commit to would be heralded in an equally favorable light. I've never, ever seen that. What about you?? What about that shit????????????????

BLACK ON BLACK CRIME? BY WHO'S STANDARDS?

I’m angry as hell, not only with the violent crime that’s taking place here in Indianapolis, but our response to it. Yea, our response! I’m gonna give you some Angry Black Man 101. "Black-on-Black crime" is a myth, a socially accepted lie made up to introduce confusion, fear, and anti-Black sentiment. The term, along with the word "homeycides", summons this belief that we Black folks are inherently dangerous and the crime that occurs within our beloved Black community is an epidemic. 

The media, the politicians and the police don’t sensationalize "white-on-white crime.” I hope I don’t have to explain why! I found that most crime happens when: 1. A very serious need arises, 2. A helluva opportunity presents itself to fulfill this very serious need, 3. Proximity, or access to a person, place or thing, provides a helluva opportunity to fulfill this very serious need. HUM ya say? Hell, crime sure doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Our identities are informed by our privileges and the oppressions we face. Crime works in the very same way.

 The intersection of social problems (generational poverty, the school to prison pipeline etc.) and systems of oppression (white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism) are undeniable factors ain’t they? Some folks say that poverty isn’t an excuse for crime. I agree a lil. However, to analyze Indianapolis crime fairly and accurately, I used an intersectional lens. Economic status, race and crime are linked in ways we have to understand before we can even try to reduce and stamp out violence in this city. “When you have what you need, opportunity and the means to sustain yourself and loved ones, you don't have to fight for it dammit!” As a street warrior, educator and speaker, I’ve met hundreds of young Black kids. All of them have dreams and determination. Ya see, it’s my hope that their circumstances will no longer dictate their potential. It’s easy for us to uplift and value those whose lives align with positive stuff. And in the same breath, we condemn and demonize young teenage killers….who commit heinous crimes, but we fail to ask ourselves the hard questions. Hum? “How do our children become so hopeless that they easily take the life of another person?

 What can we do to prevent these same circumstances from producing even more violence?” As a society, we often measure those we deem beneath us (in this case, Black youth) by some damn imaginary scale of goodness to determine whether they’re acceptable enough to be considered and treated as human. We decide a person's worth based on our own experiences and values! Truth! But what we don’t realize is that when we dehumanize others, we become inhumane our fuckin selves. Violence does not end by discarding "bad" people in favor of "good", law-abiding citizens. 

The cycle continues….. Dehumanization is violence. The anger with crime in Indianapolis is well justified. We Black folk must channel our collective emotions and resources….not into discarding our young and entire sections of this city….but into fighting a society that fuels a cycle of hopelessness so powerful that crime seems like the only option for a young brother. Only then can we build safe Black communities, restore hope and thrive, together. I’m out!

THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

After the decision by the United States Supreme Court concerning Affirmative Action was announced, a whole lot of articles have been written for and against it. This post will do neither. It is about time for our community to get off the merry-go-round of lies that have been peddled to us for way too many years and start working on our own rules for success and full access to the supposed American dream dammit!! The continuing debate about affirmative action has been nothing but a thick ass smoke screen of bogus sounds bites and numbing silence that has ignored the truth in order to paint a false picture.

Affirmative Action has been the favorite whipping post of many people (especially white conservatives) for years.

 It has to be the beauty that continues to be looked on as the beast. Much of the debate around affirmative action has been centered on the bullshit red herring of racial preferences. It’s the height of hypocrisy that white America loves to cry and whine about the racial preference card when it comes to college admissions and/or government contracts when resources are directed their way every day based on race and historical advantages. These advantages based on race occur every day but have roots in yesterday. The access to a strong network based on family and neighborhood ties that were built over generations where us Black folks were intentionally excluded from competing in those areas is a preference based on race ain’t it?

Wealth passed on from generation to generation that was gained in large or small part due to slavery, segregation, and/or discrimination of Black folks is a preference based on race. It don’t matter that that same discrimination is illegal as long as the fruits from the past discrimination are still ripe to help give white folks an advantage. Affirmative Action is not about reparations to us Blacks for past discrimination. It is not about handing out preferences based on race (although society already does a good job against us). It’s about eliminating the racial, gender, and ethnic preferences that are still a big part of our society today. It’s actually about merit. Merit is not what your momma or what your daddy or your granddaddy did. It is not how well a silver or bronze or gold or platinum spoon fits into your mouth. It is about you!! What have you done on your own?

Very few people stand on their own. Most of “us” stand on the shoulders of the people that came before us, so if your father’s or grandfather’s or mother’s or grandmother’s shoulders were bent due to the weight of the inequality of their time, then you may not be able to reach as many stars as someone without that disadvantage. Get it?

 When a child that grew up in a good to elite school system with plenty to eat, little to fear in traveling to and from school and enough resources to pay tutors to prepare for the SAT and/or ACT has good grades and great test scores is it nature or nurture? The same can be asked about the child that has average grades and scores but grew up in a mediocre school system where failure is not only expected, it is embraced and yet this student is able to surpass all expectations.

Is that nature or nurture? Who is really more impressive? Hum? There is a wealth and opportunity gap in this country and there always will be. Whereas the wealth gap is real, the opportunity gap may not be completely justifiable; and the problem is that both gaps are in large part based on racial preferences. The wealth gap numbers speak for themselves and are shocking as hell. The opportunity gap may be a lot smaller than it was a hundred years ago but it still exists and it exists in part due to lack of opportunity for us that are still a part of our society today. Those gaps continue for many reasons, the least of which is institutional racism that still exist today. Yet, those gaps based on very real racial preferences are masked by the lies of omission (we never discuss these truths) and/or the excuses given to distract from the tower of inequity built upon an elitist system that is inherently racist. Dammm!! The driving assumption behind the attack on affirmative action is that undeserving and unqualified Black students are given admission to elite universities solely based on their race, gender, or ethnicity. The funny thing is no one can seem to define what is “qualified” or who is the most “qualified.”

Who most deserves admission into a highly competitive, highly selective, and highly ranked state university? Does the student with access to the most money and therefore the best equipped to provide resources to the university deserve to be admitted first? Should the admission hierarchy be based on the student’s prior achievements, even if those achievements may be as much a function of being born into a family with resources as it is the student’s internal drive? Should it be based on a student’s demonstrated track record of overcoming obstacles and barriers to his/her success? Should it be based on the student’s likeliness of success in college? Should it be based on being able to provide a unique perspective in the pursuit of higher learning than most of the other student body?

 Should it be based on all of the above?

No one seems to be willing to step up and answer those questions. Instead we are left with the elitist fiction of social Darwinism that only the students that have the numerically best grades, test scores, and activities have earned the right to admission in the small number of “elite” schools that are the only repository of knowledge. A convenient talking point and definition of who is qualified that will always favor the wealthy and empowered, while also dodging the reality that a big part of the formula to evaluate who is most “qualified” is flawed and skewed to their advantage. A big part of the current system of evaluating students for admission to college is flawed. It is flawed in large part due to the dependence on standardized tests that are not good predictors of likelihood of success in college, but the tests are very good at giving an advantage to children with resources and disadvantaging Blacks. Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

The bottom line is this. Our community has to stop accepting the lies of the past and start thinking for ourselves. We have to be clear about our own paths to success. We have to build, maintain, and reinforce our own networks to build our own wealth and power (which includes funding and attending HBCUs). We can no longer be slaves to the majority’s definition of what is a relevant school or what constitutes “qualified.” Texas, Florida, and Michigan just love the hell outta their college football and basketball teams, which are over represented by Black folks. I wonder if the coaches from those schools found as much mistrust and animosity from minority star high school athletes during the recruitment process as affirmative action has faced over the years if all of a sudden the value of diversity in the student body at these universities would start to be discussed. Crazy idea? Most first steps towards revolutions are.