A Hero

I have been very busy lately with other priorities and commitments to be able to blog on a number of issues. Next week I should be able to get back into the mix… but until then… let me share this inspiring speech by a true hero of African heritage (click here). I will comment more on this issue soon… until then remember it is the truth that will set you free!

Peace.

 

 

 

No Justice For Sean Bell

Is it really a surprise to people in the black community that the three police officers on trial for the murder of Sean Bell were acquitted?  In New York, New York of all places?  Is this not the same city where police sodomized Abner Louima, a black man in their custody, and then tried to deny it?  Is this not the same town where Amidou Diallo, a black man walking home with a bag of groceries in his arms, was gunned down for pulling out his wallet to identify himself?  Was it not too far from here where John White was found guilty for shooting a drunk white teen while trying to defend his family and his home from a mob of white kids?  Do we really need another example of the contempt the dominant community has against people from the black community?

Did anyone really think that the family of Sean Bell would be able to attain some kind of justice when there was no justice for Martin Lee Anderson, the fourteen year old black boy, who was murdered on camera by seven boot camp guards while the boot camp nurse looked on and approved everything they did?  Did anybody think there would be justice for a black man when we watched the tape of several New Orleans, Louisiana’s finest beating sixty four year old Robert Davis to the ground for the crime of asking a police officer for information and making the comment about the police department’s unprofessional conduct?

We all watched with horror and with sick fascination the tape of a boot camp guard holding a baton against Martin Anderson’s throat, keeping him up as his body surrendered its last bit of strength and tried to slump to the ground, while the other guards beat him.  We watched the police in New Orleans initiate the attack against Mr. Davis, wrestle him to the ground as they yelled for him to put his arms behind his back as the law enforcers held his arms in front of him, we could hear Mr. Davis saying that he would if they would just let him.  And yet, the judges and juries will say that they watched these videos and concluded that the black victim was actually a perpetrator who could have prevented the entire ordeal simply by doing what they were told.  Why would we expect anything different here?

Why do we act surprised to hear about this latest acquittal?  Did anyone really expect anything different to happen?  A police officer can expect to lose his or her job for inconveniencing the mother of the mayor’s wife by giving the woman a speeding ticket, but a police officer that kills an innocent black man in a case of mistaken identity is untouchable.  One of the police officers shot at the car Mr. Bell and his friends were in thirty one times.  He had to reload his gun in order to keep shooting.  It didn’t mean a thing in the judge’s eyes.  It was all understandable.

The dominant community continues to hound Barack Obama for the divisive but true comments of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright.  But are Mr. Wright’s comments more divisive than the actions of police officers that will shoot a black man, taking the time to stop and reload, thirty one times?  Are Mr. Wright’s comments somehow more divisive than a judge who will say that the testimonies from black witnesses are not credible because they have convictions?  These are the same judges that wouldn’t hesitate to come down on a black defendant with a prior conviction that confesses to a crime.  And then people have to wonder why people in the black community don’t bother to help the authorities solve crimes.

Many people in the black community continue to think that the best bet for our survival is to do our best to try and integrate, to live among the dominant society where people on a regular basis are acquitted of the crime of killing and abusing black people at any time for any reason.  In today’s socially charged atmosphere of racial disparity and discrimination it is a feat of the highest legal skill, experience, and knowledge to get a court to recognize discrimination in the business environment.  Now, the courts are making it just as difficult for a black person to get some kind of justice when we are gunned down when minding our own business.  We are convicted for trying to defend our homes from angry white drunks.  Our word means nothing in the court room.  But let one of us say goddamn America and black people are the ones being divisive.

People in the black community need to rethink our relationship with the dominant community.  The disparity between the two communities is getting wider and wider.  Police murder us in the streets and suffer no repercussions while black pastors are demonized for preaching about racial disparity in our communities.  Even when the most extreme forms of this discrimination is caught on tape it is dismissed as our fault because we didn’t prostrate ourselves in front of the cop fast enough or the police officer was having a bad day and had to release his frustrations on the black citizen or whatever.  We are in danger every time we come out in public from the very people sworn to protect the public.  The police and the courts are doing their best to protect the public from black people.

Art of Deceoption by Charlie Gibson & George Stephanoloulos

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2008 US Presidential race

Art of Deception by Charlie Gibson & George Stephanopoulos

By Eddie Griffin

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

In prison, there are some good and honorable men who simply made a mistake in their lives. But then there are some of the vilest creatures on the planet locked up. Although God changed my life in prison, some of the meanest men in the world changed my attitude about sin. I was not one of them, had no desire to be one of them, and didn’t want them around me. If they asked me, I will tell them to their face that I could care less if they fell off the face of the earth. They were bad and were not about to change. And, I was as mad and as bad as they were.

So do not ask me about the death penalty. I have my own option based upon my personal experiences and what I learn from the scriptures. It’s not politics to me, because I saw men justifiably executed by their fellow inmates, and I would not even lift a finger to stop it. One man rapes another man, and the other man kills him. Justifiable death penalty, I say.

Now there is a question about who has the authority to speak on a subject, seeing that everybody has a butt hole for an option. If their idea stinks, it stinks. You cannot sell me.

Recently, the mass media got busted trying to brainwash the public. ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos tried to pull the wool over the public’s eye in the presidential debate, and then tried to sell the American public on the idea that presidential candidate Barack Obama was crying because of “tough questions”.

Yeah, riiiiight!

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Garbage-in, Garbage-out, Gibson puts the garbage-in and George Stephanopoulos takes the garbage out… like two trash men.

Men in prison may study the art of deception, but ABC News has made it a science.

But you can only fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. Them idiots you can fool all the time, they are a dime a dozen, but you cannot fool me, none of the time.

You may as well call ABC News “Cartoon World”. Here is the wily fox is standing behind a tree with a club in his hand, waiting for the innocent chicken to walk by. (In Cartoon World, it is sooo obvious). But when the fox is Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos and the innocent chicken is Barack Obama, Cartoon World turns into a Soap Opera, “As the World Turns” on its ear, brought to you by ABC News.

POST NOTE:

There has always been political “mouthpieces” that speaks for the kings and lords, explaining why there is divine rule in the land. They create philosophies of state and government and religion. But a funny thing happened in the revolution in medieval times. When the peasants chopped off the king’s head, there went the heads of his philosophers also.

 

HAT TIP to Will Bunch from Eddie Griffin

Four Thousand Funerals And A Wedding

*** This article was originally published back in September ***

It’s old news now that the Bush family is in the midst of planning a wedding. I don’t suffer the details so I couldn’t say much about which twin is getting married nor do I want to spend the minimal energy to try and find out. If such detail is important it is very easy to find. I don’t know who the lucky guy is. But I can tell you he is neck deep in conservative politics and is prime Republican Party material. There is talk about a white house wedding in the rose garden with white lace. I can imagine the guest list would read like a who’s who in US and world politics first, who’s who in the Republican Party second, who’s who in entertainment a close third, and pulling up the rear would be family and friends. I’m pretty sure my invitation will be lost in the mail. Who wants to be bothered with all that secret service security and all that intrusive background checks anyway?

But it occurred to me that while the Bush’s have their celebration of the legal union of a man and a woman there are thirty seven hundred sixty families across America that have planned or are in the midst of planning the funerals to celebrate a loved one lost in this war of American led aggression in Iraq. And by the time the wedding day actually takes place at least another two hundred or so service men and women would have paid the ultimate price. Let’s just round the whole kit ‘n’ caboodle to about four thousand by the time the wedding is done.

Why do we keep sending non-Bush family men and women to be killed in the war on terror? Because the sacrifice of the men and women who have already died would be meaningless if we didn’t throw a few more lives after them. And let’s not forget a few more hundreds of billions of dollars to boot. We have to sacrifice more because the sacrifice of the ones already sacrificed isn’t enough. We have to win. Otherwise we look like wimps to the rest of the world and we will continue to embolden an enemy that has already been emboldened by confounding an invading superpower for five years come March in what looks like a stalemate of military tactics. America has to fight our enemies there so we don’t have to fight them here may sound like a responsible plan. But for how long will this plan take? How many lives will this plan cost? How much of the national treasure must we continue to spend? Providing every American with adequate healthcare was assumed to be way too expensive an undertaking to even try. But a never ending war on its way to a cool trillion dollars is fiscal responsibility.

So by the time the Bush family makes its tough decision over whether to use the Waterford or the Wedgwood crystal, four thousand families would have made the choice between the marble or the granite headstones for their family member. The Bush’s aren’t going to lose a daughter. They will gain a son in law. Mr. Bush is more than happy to leave the privilege of losing a loved one in the war on terror for the rest of America.

According to his just released book Dead Certain, Mr. Bush confesses that he spends a lot of time crying. He’s shed more tears as president than anyone would give him credit for. If Mr. Bush sheds a single tear over what happens to people it would be a surprise to me. People have died because of his actions and his lack of action. To compound the misery of the war in Iraq there is the war effort in Afghanistan that has been woefully mismanaged. On top of all this add the government’s lack of a response to Katrina. Two years later people are still living in trailers if they were lucky enough to get one at all. The only major business in gulf coast Mississippi that is thriving is the casino. Those people in southern Mississippi need some kind of hope to get out of their predicament. They will pull their faith in a slot machine because they can’t depend on their government.

I hope Mr. Bush can shed a tear or two for all the people who continue to suffer with any kind of medical coverage. Someone had the nerve to say that everyone in America gets medical coverage whether they can pay for it or not. But the truth is that people are only guaranteed to get only emergency treatment, the most expensive form of medical care available. For many people, the emergency treatment comes too late to make a significant difference in their life. It is a classic example of a stitch in time saves nine. Only this time it’s more like preventive medicine, over time, saves lives. But who cares? Mr. Bush may care enough to say that he cries at night or whenever, but he doesn’t care enough to do anything about it. In fact, Mr. Bush is actively working to prevent the expansion of the number of children who would qualify for medical coverage under a federal program. In the president’s eyes, right next to all those crocodile tears, it would encourage too many people not to pay the full cost of insurance and would undercut the insurance industry’s profits.

Of course Mr. Bush sheds a lot of tears as the president. Sometimes I want to cry too just from looking at him. But it takes a lot more than just a claim of tears to make up for his sorry performance. Just ask some of the families that have lost a loved one or suffered a loss because of his incompetence or lack of compassion or concern for profits. So whatever tears may fall at the wedding for Mr. Bush’s daughter, I hope people remember all the tears that have fallen in well over four thousand funerals across America.

Assimilation Can Be A Wonderful Thing

Assimilation into a society can be a wonderful thing. Being able to be who you are in appearance and thought, and to be respected as an equal by the greater social community, is a heavenly concept. When people who are visibly different from the dominant majority of members of the community and are truly free to make the choice to keep their ethnic cultures, appearance, traditions, heritage, and spiritual beliefs and are truly welcomed and embraced, then assimilation that respects who we are individually and permits us to remain true to ourselves is a very wonderful thing.

But American racial assimilation does not follow the idea that the ethnicity of the black culture needs to be respected. Assimilation in America is far from being a wonderful thing. Racial assimilation here requires the black minority to leave his or her ethnicity behind as they modify themselves to become what the dominant culture feels is an acceptable black racial identity.

Black people who are strong in their black affiliation are regularly minimized and ridiculed by elements of the dominant community as ineffective leaders while black people who promote principles of cultural assimilation or racially generic identities that minimize black affiliation are marketed as people who have the courage to be independent thinkers. The implication is that black people who think about black issues are run of the mill and nothing to be proud of while black people who can put their blackness behind them are something new, different, and should be an inspiration to other black people.

White people who have embraced their white identity are rarely condemned by the dominant community even when they promote blatant hatred and/or violence. A former secretary of education promotes ideas of aborting all black babies if you want to reduce crime. This man with pretty blatant racial insensitivities can reach the upper echelons of government and suggest ideas of black genocide. How many black people promote the same idea but with white babies and have achieved such a career? Bureau of Justice Statistics prove that white people commit far more crime than black people and therefore it would be far more effective to abort all white babies. The idea of aborting white people is so abhorrent it cannot even be mentioned but the idea of aborting black babies can be hypothesized without fear of retribution.

A white district attorney can go on public record promising black children that he will destroy their lives unless they submit to dominant culture authority and quit making trouble for white children regardless of the fact that white children may have initiated the trouble by hanging racially provocative nooses from trees. A white woman can make it public that she doesn’t want black people buying her clothing. A white television pundit encourages white people to have babies in order to protect the white privilege. A white man tells his son to dump his black girlfriend if he wants to stay in the family business and the dominant community protects his right to be racist behind closed doors while he promotes segregationist behavior that extends far beyond their closed doors and private conversations. A white comedian can get on stage and let loose with one of the most intense displays of racial hatred and animosity and his friends come to his side saying he was only having a bad day.

Imagine how long a black district attorney would stay in his job if he went on stage before an audience of white children and promised that he would make their lives disappear. Imagine the response if a black television pundit told black people to have babies so that they could impact white privilege. Imagine if a black man with a television show was recorded telling his son that if he wanted to stay in the family he had to dump his white girlfriend using colorful racial epithets for white people in the process.

In order for black people to be welcomed to the dominant culture fold, they must promote the concepts that prevent black people from being able to embrace their black identity. Black people who promote the idea that black people are solely responsible for the plight of the black community are given credence by the dominant community which is overwhelmingly white. The dominant majority has a near endless supply of black surrogates ready to espouse a philosophy that encourages the obliteration of black community consciousness and/or identity. A black person who encourages other black people to detach themselves from their blackness cannot honestly say that they are concerned about the welfare of the black community.

It has been suggested that the key to the success in the black community is to conform to the expectations that the dominant community has for the black community. Black people need to become what the dominant community expects of people in the black community. Black people need to adapt to the parameters that the dominant community says defines what is acceptable for black people’s appearance and behavior. And all too often, black people who have adapted these parameters and have embraced them as gospel are quick to judge other black people who choose an identity that may push or even exceed the established boundaries.

Women who don’t take the steps to straighten their hair or who make the choice to wear clothing or accessories that suggest a connection to their African heritage and men who choose to wear their hair long and/or locked are not professional enough in many working environments. Before these people can even demonstrate their qualifications, experience, and/or education they are dismissed as unacceptable. And yet, the workplace would be one that touts an environment that welcomes cultural diversity. However, the welcome is only for those cultural conformist that stand ready to meet the standards set forth for black people by the dominant group. This is the type of assimilation that doesn’t welcome diversity but cultural abandonment.

Assimilation that requires conformation to the expectations of the dominant culture is not respectful of true cultural diversity. Those who dare not conform are frowned upon and ridiculed. Black people who embrace black culture are not generally welcomed in the typical corporate American environment. This is the type of assimilation that black people should learn to detest at each and every opportunity. The black community doesn’t need black people telling us on a regular basis that we have to submit to the establishment’s rules for what is acceptable black appearance and acceptable black behavior. Black people should already have their identity.

For those black people that wish to conform to the dominant community, it goes without saying that that is your prerogative. But it should be the prerogative for other black people to make the choose to define themselves for who they are without having to match the expectations of the establishment. When black people who define themselves are welcomed in the dominant community without having to pretend to be something else, then we have a meeting of cultures that everyone can appreciate and tolerate. This type of assimilation is truly a wonderful thing.

17 to Life: A Black Boy Memoir

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black boys

A. My Story of Becoming a Man in America

B. Rhapsody in Black

Grim Reaping

Racism can be defined as the belief that some people of a particular race are inherently superior, ethically, spiritually, physically, intellectually, ambitiously, and/or culturally, to others races and therefore is entitled to dominate. Racism has created significant and profound racial tensions and conflicts in virtually all aspects of American society. White domination over blacks has been institutionalized and supported in all branches and levels of government, in all forms of business, in all forms of education and in all forms of social interaction by denying blacks their civil rights and opportunities to participate as equals in political, economic, and social communities.

Racism has an overwhelmingly wide variety of ways to manifest itself. It is not always as blatant as black people being forced to the back of a bus or white people being permitted to enter through the front entrance while black people have to enter through the rear. Racism is not limited to issues of separate and unequal that just so happen to fall along racial lines. Racism will also rear its ugly head, or its attractive one depending on one’s point of view, in cases of obvious disparity that happens to fall along racial lines as well. This type of racism is just as obvious as the more blatant form with signs that say white only or no blacks allowed. But without the obvious signage that connects the dots for many, it is far easier to dismiss this form of racial discrimination as just an accident of social happenstance.

For years, white people have been spreading propaganda that black people are the bane of white people’s existence by characterizing black people as the epitome of every negative social ill. Black people have been described as lazy, shiftless, and immoral with a sex drive that could make rabbits look celibate. So many people now believe this tripe that we as a national community can justify black people not being offered opportunities for education and employment as black people not wanting to take advantage of opportunities. Black people don’t have the aptitude to be anything but the most basic of employees. Black people must be thoroughly controlled because of our penchant for unethical behavior. And because we as a nation are quick to support this thinking that promotes black people as inferior we will justify the resulting racism as little more than the way things are.

The practice of racism is an attempt to make true artificial barriers that defy nature and the natural. A society that tolerates racism as just the normal course of business cannot and will not survive itself. A society works best and is healthiest when it is completely and thoroughly healthy. A society needs all of its parts strong in order to be its strongest. Like the proverbial chain a society is only as strong as its weakest link. And through a series of manipulations that have lasted for centuries the black community is no where near as strong as it should be. Crime and poverty are allowed to fester throughout entire segments of many large inner cities. Drugs and blight dominate the black community. The raw potential of so many people has been diminished significantly.

Is it true that black people are lazy and shiftless? Is it true that black people are hell bent on criminal and unethical behavior? Do black people have the ability to raise strong black families? Do black people have the ability to successfully run global corporate conglomerates? It really depends on the black person in question. Like any other race of people the behavior of black people runs the gamut. Not all black people are thugs and criminals. Not all black people have the talent or ability to achieve executive status in corporate America. What is important is to find where each individual black person lies within our social structure.

While it has primarily been the norm that the social ills of the black community are unique to the black people, an open and honest look at the social happenings will show that, in many respects, the black community is no different than any other. Black on black crime may be out of hand. But so is white on white crime. It is only the black children that are perceived as committing more crimes and are getting out of hand.

But white children are also committing not only more crimes but they are committing more intense crimes. White children are taking guns to school and shooting anything that moves. White children hang nooses in an attempt to provoke racial animosity. However, when black and white children are engaged in school fights, the local authorities and district attorney are so moved to arrest black children and charge them as adults for second degree attempted murder while white children go free. And then we are surprised to hear about a gang of white girls video taping themselves beating another white girl senseless. Will these girls face second degree attempted murder? Chances are good that they won’t. And this is just another prime example of the racial disparity that plagues our nation. White people make the choice to prosecute black people for attempted murder and black crime statistics will show black people are more likely to attempt murder. White crime statistics will not be so influenced.

For people to minimize racial disparity as whether or not black people ride in the back of a bus or black people cannot sit at a food counter is truly ridiculous. To say racism is a thing of the past thanks to the passage of civil rights laws is to take the most naïve appreciation of this issue. Nobody says murder is a thing of the past because some law says that it is now illegal. The disparity that black people suffer is not a simple abstract of some black behavior. To make general statements that black people are lazy and don’t deserve jobs or to say that black people don’t have an education and therefore don’t deserve a job is more examples of the racial disparity we tolerate and allow to flourish. And in the global economy a nation that makes the choice to retard such a large segment of its population will reap what it sows.

Dr. Boyce Watkins, Bill Cosby on Good Morning America

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Bill Cosby, bullying, responsibility

By: Boyce Watkins

www.boycewatkins.com

 

I recently appeared on an episode of Good Morning America about a judge in Atlanta named Marvin Arrington. The show renewed my skepticism of mainstream media, and helped me remember why I love Bill Cosby so much.

Apparently, Judge Arrington was fed up with seeing one black defendant after another in his courtroom, and surely to the liking of Bill Cosby, Arrington took matters into his own hands. Judge Arrington took the unprecedented step of dismissing all of the white attorneys from his courtroom and holding a private session with the black defendants.

During the session, Arrington gave the defendants a piece of his mind, preaching values we can all agree with: hard work, good behavior, and human decency. He topped it off by reminding these men that they are destroying the black community with their behavior and that they just need to stop.

When Good Morning America called to ask me what I thought about Arrington’s actions, they spent more time asking me about Bill Cosby than Arrington. I was confused, since they apparently think I don’t like Bill Cosby. That’s not true. I have a lot of respect for Bill Cosby, but it is my respect for human empathy that leads me to share my point of view, even if Bill Cosby does not agree. I truly believe Bill Cosby cares for black people, even if he has a unique way of showing it.

Get the full read.