Cyber bully.

True story: I actually met Shaquille O'Neal at an Omega Psi Phi pool party in Baton Rouge, Louisiana back in the day. He and his frat brothers were having a good time and just living the college life.


He was the big man on campus at LSU at the time (both literally and figuratively) and I thought that he was a pretty cool guy. He took some time to shoot the s*** with my buddy and I, and  basketball aside, I remember thinking to myself that he was going to be successful in life no matter what he chose to do.     


Now, sadly, I have to rip the big guy.


Shaquille O'Neal did a cruel and boneheaded thing by making fun of a disabled man on Instagram. That is definitely not cool, and as a celebrity in the public eye it sends the wrong message. He should know better.


How would Shaq like to be this poor guy getting cyber bullied by a celebrity and his thousands of online followers? Cyber bullying is a serious issue, and bullying in general is a growing problem in our society. And, like racism, it should not be tolerated.


It's ironic that the NBA is all over the old bigot who owns the Clippers but allowed Shaq to be a studio host during their playoff games while doing this ignorant kind of crap.


Hopefully they will get with Shaq and insist that he apologizes or go back to being a law enforcement officer which apparently he loves to do. 


Finally, here is a story that I am sure that folks like former VP, Dick Cheney, will love:

"Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said she has tapped her public-safety commissioner to lead a state review of the botched execution of Clayton Lockett and an independent pathologist to declare a cause of death.

Fallin took no questions after delivering a brief statement on Wednesday afternoon, which began with a recitation of Lockett's crimes — he shot one woman and repeatedly raped another — and a summary of his failed appeals.

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"I believe the legal process worked. I believe the death penalty is an appropriate response and punishment to those who commit heinous crimes," Fallin said.

But, she added, the state needs to be "certain" its execution protocols are proper and so authorized what she called "an independent review."

OK Governor, you call it a "botched execution", but I call it torture, and here is why.

"CNN) -- A vein on an Oklahoma inmate "exploded" in the middle of his execution Tuesday, prompting authorities to abruptly halt the process and call off another execution later in the day as they try to figure out what went wrong.

The inmate, Clayton Lockett, died 43 minutes after the first injection was administered -- according to reporter Courtney Francisco of CNN affiliate KFOR who witnessed the ordeal -- of an apparent heart attack, Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton said.

That first drug, midazolam, is supposed to render a person unconscious. Seven minutes later, Lockett was still conscious. About 16 minutes in, after his mouth and then his head moved, he seemingly tried to get up and tried to talk, saying "man" aloud, according to the KFOR account.

Other reporters -- including Cary Aspinwall of the Tulsa World newspaper -- similarly claimed that Lockett was "still alive," having lifted his head while prison officials lowered the blinds at that time so that onlookers couldn't see what was going on." [Source]

As most of you know, I am against the death penalty, but even if you were for state sponsored killing, you have to question how the state of Oklahoma tortured administered the death penalty to Clayton Lockett. 43 minutes! That is not how government should be administering the ultimate punishment in a "civilized" society.  

BREAKING:

Apparently Shaq has apologized for making fun of the disabled person with a "genetic disorder" on his social network site.  

Mr. Goodell please pay attention. This is how a Commissioner should act.

Kudos to Adam Silver for acting decisively and relatively quickly to punish Donald Sterling. The NBA averted what could have been a very ugly situation.



Silver did what the previous owner, the gutless David Stern failed to do, and he should be commended.




Speaking of gutless, Roger Goodell should now confront the owner of the Washington D.C. football team about changing the disgraceful name of that franchise. 




This entire episode has been quite interesting. The public condemnation of an old racist caught being a racist has been unanimous (except for the usual racist suspects led by their television network), but I read two articles today which I thought were quite thought provoking.




The first one was from my twitter fam, Professor Rambo, writing on his fine blog, Question Authority.




Here is a snippet:




"Unlike all these morons working for and glued to the lamestream media, I’m not shocked, enraged, or horrified by the remarks made by Donald Sterling, the owner of the LA Clippers. This is the basic rundown:

Sterling calls girlfriend. Sterling tells girlfriend not to take pictures with Black men or bring them to the games. Girlfriend gets mad. Phone call is leaked. End of story.

What? Am I supposed to bitch and moan because of his racist opinions? This shit aint new to me. I live in this place called “The South”. You know, it’s interesting how the lamestream media works. Take something big, like affirmative action being banned in ANOTHER state for example. You know, the program that helps minorities with jobs and college admissions? Yeah, that thing. The media gave it a 30-minute segment before talking about that lost plane and its connection to UFOs. Think I’m lying? Check out last week’s headlines. Now, a fat slob who OWNS BLACK athletes telling his Kim Kardashien lookalike girlfriend not to take instagram pictures with black guys and WHAM!!!!!!!!!!!!! 24-hour air play, in depth analysis, interviews, CNN specials, Black in America documentaries, rallies, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton speeches, lamb sacrifices made to the Gods…well not that last one but you get the point. Why is it that racism that holds Black people back is taken lightly while someone’s comments are taken as the word of god? There is REAL racism and LIGHT racism. One stings and one kills. Our society was built upon the backs of slaughtered Africans and Natives. The definition of racism could pretty much be America. Racism has not gone anywhere, it simply hides in plain sight." [More]



The second one was from Mr. Skyhook himself:




"It's time to look at ourselves — and our collective moral outrage — in the mirror, says former NBA player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Moral outrage is exhausting. And dangerous. The whole country has gotten a severe case of carpal tunnel syndrome from the newest popular sport of Extreme Finger Wagging. Not to mention the neck strain from Olympic tryouts for Morally Superior Head Shaking. All over the latest in a long line of rich white celebrities to come out of the racist closet. (Was it only a couple days ago that Cliven Bundy said blacks would be better off picking cotton as slaves?

And only last June Paula Deen admitted using the “N” word?)

Yes, I’m angry, too, but not just about the sins of Donald Sterling. I’ve got a list. But let’s start with Sterling. I used to work for him, back in 2000 when I coached for the Clippers for three months. He was congenial, even inviting me to his daughter’s wedding. Nothing happened or was said to indicate he suffered from IPMS (Irritable Plantation Master Syndrome). Since then, a lot has been revealed about Sterling’s business practices:

• 2006: U.S. Dept. of Justice sued Sterling for housing discrimination. Allegedly, he said, “Black tenants smell and attract vermin.”
• 2009: He reportedly paid $2.73 million in a Justice Dept. suit alleging he discriminated against blacks, Hispanics, and families with children in his rentals. (He also had to pay an additional nearly $5 million in attorneys fees and costs due to his counsel’s “sometimes outrageous conduct.”)
• 2009: Clippers executive (and one of the greatest NBA players in history) sued for employment discrimination based on age and race.

And now the poor guy’s girlfriend (undoubtedly ex-girlfriend now) is on tape cajoling him into revealing his racism. Man, what a winding road she led him down to get all of that out. She was like a sexy nanny playing “pin the fried chicken on the Sambo.” She blindfolded him and spun him around until he was just blathering all sorts of incoherent racist sound bites that had the news media peeing themselves with glee.


They caught big game on a slow news day, so they put his head on a pike, dubbed him Lord of the Flies, and danced around him whooping.


I don’t blame them. I’m doing some whooping right now. Racists deserve to be paraded around the modern town square of the television screen so that the rest of us who believe in the American ideals of equality can be reminded that racism is still a disease that we haven’t yet licked.


What bothers me about this whole Donald Sterling affair isn’t just his racism. I’m bothered that everyone acts as if it’s a huge surprise. Now there’s all this dramatic and very public rending of clothing about whether they should keep their expensive Clippers season tickets. Really? All this other stuff I listed above has been going on for years and this ridiculous conversation with his girlfriend is what puts you over the edge? That’s the smoking gun?" [More]

Two articles from two men. One a talented blogger, and the other a Hall Of Fame basketball player. Both writing what we are all thinking: Why were we all surprised?

Looking for a few good men like Muhmmad, John, and Tommie.

It is ironic that on this day in 1967 Muhammad Ali refused to go to Vietnam because of his religious convictions. He was vilified at the time, but later hailed as an American hero and is now considered a sports icon.


Every player who straps on the red white and blue uniform of the Los Angeles Clippers should consider Ali's courageous stance, and they should dig deep in their souls to try and understand their current place in America's history.


We know we will never get a John Carlos and Tommie Smith moment, but we can hope for something in that spirit.


Their gesture last night while a good start did not go far enough. They should have boycotted the game altogether and refused to play for Sterling's team until the NBA takes a strong and definitive stance against him.


Anyway, the market will ultimately dictate what will happen to Donald Sterling, and apparently the backlash has already started. It should be interesting to see where this ultimately ends. We all know that America has ADHD when it comes to our current events. I suspect that in a few months Donald Sterling will be a footnote in what has been a sad couple of weeks for racial tolerance in America.


Speaking of racial tolerance, there is not a lot of it in certain parts of Europe.
The thing about an American racist is that he knows how to behave in public. (Not the Internet) Americans tend to be polite with their racism. Doing racist things in public is considered crass and boorish.  This has not quite caught on yet in Europe. People still do racist and ignorant things, publicly.


This latest incident at a soccer match in Spain involved Barcelona star, Dani Alves, and his reaction was classic. It's probably not how I would have reacted, but I respect the man's poise.


Take a look here.


The good news: Barcelona went on to beat Villarreal 3-2.

Advertising "their ignorance."

Poor Donald Sterling. This "color aroused" episode with his jump- off has really blown up in his face. Everyone from the President to Snoop Dogg is calling him out and condemning his actions.


The thing is, though, no one should be surprised. This is not an unusual way of thinking for men in the majority population of a certain age here in America. I am dissapointed at all the people doing like Inspector Renault from Casablanca who are "shocked" to see that an NBA team owner can be a racist.


The fact that Sterling held these views has been the worst kept secret in the sports world, and yet he was allowed to continue owning the Clippers and reach into his deep pockets to purchase high priced free agents and an equally high profile African American coach. (Please don't tell me that Doc Rivers didn't know about Sterling. He ---like the LA chapter of the NAACP---should be ashamed of himself.


I was having a debate on twitter about who of our latest news making racists was more dangerous. I thought that it was Sterling, others, on the other hand, thought that it was Cliven Bundy.


I picked Sterling because of the personal power and influence that he has. The others chose Bundy because of the dangerous people around him and the political influence that he (and folks like him) has.


I suppose that you could go either way.


It's interesting to note that Cliven Bundy's racism was sure to be exposed at some point. He is clearly not as sophisticated as Sterling and not as practiced at hiding his true feelings. Sterling's racism was revealed because he pissed off his lover. Bundy's was revealed because he just kept talking.


Finally, just a quick thought before I go. I was wondering, why aren't these guys considered "thugs"?

When "jungle fever" goes wrong.

It was revealed publicly today what many of us already knew: The owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association is a virulent racist.


We know this thanks to his "Blackxican" (thank you tweeter fam for that word)girlfriend who taped a lovers spat between the two.




"But Field, how can he be a racist if he has a half Latina and half Black girlfriend?"




This is not an easy question to answer. It's a sick and complicated pathology that seems to dog the racist. (Please note the racist trolls that flock to this, a black blog.)




Remember Frazier Glenn? He was the Klansman and white supremacist who shot up a Jewish center in Kansas, recently. Well it seems that ole Frazier was caught and arrested "mid-act" with a black male prostitute. Then there is our friend Thomas Jefferson. He had a serious thing for his slave, Sally Hemings; he even fathered some of her children.




Anyway, this is not Sterling's first  go round with the racism rodeo. He was fined millions of dollars by the feds for housing discrimination and former NBA great, Elgin Baylor, sued him a few years back. In the lawsuit it was alleged that he (Sterling) was a racist and a sexist as well.




The NBA did nothing back then and the racist owner continued to own his team and his "million dollar slaves" that went with it. Now, unfortunately for the NBA, the chickens have come home to roost, and in the middle of what have so far been wonderful playoff games, this embarrassing revelation has come to the fore. So now the NBA is forced to address Donald Sterling.




The saddest part of this sordid episode is the behavior of the black coach Sterling hired, Doc Rivers.  Rivers who now coaches for Sterling-- and previously played for him--- said that he had no idea that Sterling had those kinds of views about black people. Yeah right! He must have had his head up his ass for the past ten years. Or, he was too busy cashing Donald Sterling's checks to notice.




Poor Rivers left Boston and came to this. Talk about "jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire."




The next few days will be interesting. The usual suspects are out threatening boycotts and marches etc. , but it won't make much of a difference. The NBA will fine or suspend Sterling, and the folks who write and spin these things will write the obligatory letters of apology.




But those Negroes who continue to cash the checks will keep doing it, and Sterling will keep his team of Negroes. Even if he doesn't respect them and continues to see them as less than equals.




“We’re playing. We’re playing Golden State, and Golden State is our enemy right now. … We heard about all of the boycotts and all of the other stuff. That’s all stuff we could do. We choose to play. … The biggest statement we can make as men – not as black men, but as men – is to stick together and show how strong we are as a group. Not splinter. Not walk. It’s easy to protest. The protest will show in our play.”


Sorry Doc, the only thing that your "play" will show is that you still work for Donald Sterling.




*Pic from TMZ.













 

When the narrative blows up in your face.

It's amazing to watch the talking heads over at FOX News try to distance themselves from Cliven Bundy. They are running away faster than Usain Bolt at the London Olympics.


(The poor man's daughter is really upset that FOX News jumped ship on her dad.)


Still, they can't seriously believe that we didn't know that they were all on board with lionizing the tax cheat and bigot all along.


I agree with media critic, Bill Weir, who declared that the decision to "canonize" Bundy and make him a "John Waynesque" figure came from the top of the FOX News chain.


As the official republican news network, they have to do better. You can't just go around "lionizing" bigots and expect us Negroes (or N-I-G-R-O-E-S according to Mr. Bundy)not to notice.


Rand Paul certainly notices, that's why he is calling for republicans to expand their tent. Rand believes that the white-out under the republican tent is too strong.
 
"Paul, according to CNN, also talked about making the Republican party “bigger” and much more inclusive, saying that unless Republicans “broaden their message” to reach more people, winning future elections is going to be a bit of a problem.

“You go to a Republican event and it’s all white people—not because we’re excluding anybody, but because we just haven’t done a good enough job encouraging people to come into our party.”  

Well, it's not "all white people", I bet this Negro and others like him would be there. (Jason, you are a modern day slave catcher. You would take a bullet for Bundy, but he would just as soon see your black ass hanging from a tree.)


Anyway, I have to give Bundy credit; at least he is consistent with his ignorance.


He has now invoked the name of Martin Luther King to justify his twisted view of history and his unique form of social engineering.

"Chris Cuomo: 'Are you a racist?'


Cliven Bundy: 'No, I'm not a racist. But I did wonder that. Let me tell you something. I thought about this this morning quite a bit.'


CC: 'Please.'


CB: 'I thought about what Reverend Martin Luther King said. I thought about Rosa Park taking her seat at the front of the bus. Reverend Martin Luther King did not want her to take her seat in the front of the bus. That wasn't what he was talking about. He did not say go to the front of the bus and that's where your seat was. What Reverend King wanted was that she could sit anywhere in the bus and nobody would say anything about it. You and I can sit anywhere in the bus. That's what he wanted. That's what I want. I want her to be able to sit anywhere in the bus and I want to be able to sit by her any where in that bus. That's what he wanted.


He didn't want this prejudice thing like the media tried to put on me yesterday. I'm not going to put up with that because that's not what he wanted. that's not what I want. I want to set by her anywhere on that bus and I want anybody to be able to do the same thing. That's what he was after, it's not a prejudice thing, but make us equal.


understand that Martin Luther King's message was one of peace and freedom,' Cuomo said in reply, adding, 'when you suggest that you were wondering if blacks were better off as slaves, that's the opposite of freedom and very offensive to people. I think you probably know that.' He probably does not. Bundy continued (once again, emphasis ours): 

'I  took this boot off so I wouldn't put my foot in my mouth with the boot on. Let me see if I can say something. Maybe I sinned and maybe I need to ask forgiveness and maybe I don't know what I actually said. But you know when you talk about prejudice, we're talking about not being able to exercise what we think and our feelings. We're not freedom — we don't have freedom to say what we want.  

If I call — if I say 'negro' or 'black boy' or 'slave,' I'm — If those people cannot take those kind of words and not be offensive, then Martin Luther King hasn't got his job done yet. They should be able to — I should be able to say those things and they shouldn't offend anybody. I didn't mean to offend them.'"

Cliven, you are allowed to say those things, just not publicly. The folks over at FOX News can't support you when you do that. They agree with your views and your politics, but that has to be just between the two of you.


*Image courtesy of eurweb.com


 


 

The Bundy two step.

So Cliven Bundy finally went off on "the Negro". The poor guy just couldn't keep his racist and bigoted views hidden any longer. It was just a matter of time before his views about "the Negro" became public. Of course we "Negroes" knew how he felt all along. We know exactly where guys like this are coming from.


Now let's see how FOX News and all his apologist picks at all the fleas from lying down with this racist deadbeat and tax cheat.


The guy owes the government over a million dollars and has the nerve to say that it is "Negroes" who are getting over on the government. Unbelievable!


Anyway, as is to be expected, some republicans and right wing-nuts are already distancing themselves from a man they were calling a "patriot" just a few days ago. (BTW, I love how Glenn Beck called out Bundy but embraced a similarly bigoted and ignorant, Phil Robertson.)


You have to love it; because nothing scares a racist more than another racist revealing what they really believe, publicly.


"Conservative media titan Sean Hannity, formerly one of Nevada rancher Clive Bundy’s strongest advocates, expressed his vehement disgust Thursday with the latter’s remarks on slavery


Bundy’s comments “are beyond repugnant to me. They are beyond despicable to me. They are beyond ignorant to me,” Hannity said during his radio show.
He then turned his anger toward Democrats who would use Bundy’s comments to attack conservatives.


“They want to say that conservatives are racist. Conservatives hate women,” Hannity said. “Conservatives want old people to die, granny over the cliff. They want the young people to fend for themselves. They want to poison the air and poison the water.”


“People that for the right reasons saw this case as government overreach now are branded because of the ignorant, racist, repugnant, despicable comments of Cliven Bundy,” he said.


After playing a clip of Bundy trying to clarify what he meant, Hannity said: “Just turn it off. I don’t want to hear it anymore. It’s obnoxious, ignorant.”  


Oh what a difference a day (and some daylight) makes.

It's all about the walk.

Mrs. Field has some "must haves" that every man should have in his repertoire to be considered sexy. One of them is his walk. It never fails; she always notices the walk.


"That Denzel sure has a sexy walk." Or, "Love me some Idris Elba, but that walk isn't cutting it." And on it goes.


I think you all know where I am going with this post. If you guessed the latest comments  about the president from republican 2016 presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, go to the head of the class.







Mrs. Field thinks that president Obama has a sexy walk. And before you say she is partisan and cannot be objective in how she views sexy, for the record, she thought that W had a sexy walk as well. "I know you don't like him, but you have to give it to President Bush; I love that cocky confident walk of his."


President Obama has a way of running up and down the steps of those presidential flying machines. You have to believe that if he ever fell it would be breaking news on FOX and they would show nothing but that fall 24/7on their Obama obsessed network.


Maybe that's what has Donald Trump so pissed off. He is waiting for that Gerald Ford moment and it won't come.


Now I know that a lot of you Negroes are going to cry racism. You think that this is yet another white man trying to stereotype a black man and make him in his image of the pimp caricature.  


But you Negroes need to embrace it. Ignore Donald Trump.--- The man has something living on his head for crying out loud!--- When Donald Trump makes ridiculous statements like this, it only diminishes his brand and the political brand he represents. Just like the birth certificate fiasco, it shines a light on just how petty and totally out to left field these people are.


"The way President Obama runs down the stairs of Air Force 1, hopping & bobbing all the way, is so inelegant and unpresidential. Do not fall!"


"Of course it's unpresidential". At least when we compare it to the other presidents we have had. But give us a chance, we never had a brother (albeit a half one) in this position before.


Hopefully, a walk like this will soon become the norm. I know that Mrs. Field will like it.



 


  

The affirmative action fable.

If you listen to some folks, America's slow march to a "color blind" society took another giant step today.


The Supreme Court, in a 6-2 ruling, is making sure of it by declaring that voters in the state of Michigan can ban race from being considered by that state's flagship university in admissions. (I see you Uncle Clarence)


Personally, I would have no problem with this concept if America's history was a little different. Sadly, though, we know that is not the case. We know that the history of this country is such that she is not quite ready to put everyone in a similar situation and expect that we are going to have equal results.


This is not only true when it comes to race; it is true when it comes to poverty as well. I have no problem with a college or university using things such as economic background, geography, and race to create a diverse student body. Unfortunately there are some folks in the majority population who always default to us against them (the them being those black folks) when it comes to this particular discussion.


When we talk about affirmative action, we often think of those Negroes with their "hands out". I suspect that this is why the Supreme Court decision today was so popular in certain circles.


We forget, of course, that white women are the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action, and that many successful small businesses got that way because of affirmative action.


"Justice Anthony Kennedy said voters chose to eliminate racial preferences, presumably because such a system could give rise to race-based resentment. Kennedy said nothing in the Constitution or the court's prior cases gives judges the authority to undermine the election results.


"This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it," Kennedy said.


In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision tramples on the rights of minorities, even though the amendment was adopted democratically.


"But without checks, democratically approved legislation can oppress minority groups," said Sotomayor, who read her dissent aloud in the courtroom Tuesday. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with Sotomayor in dissent."


Justice Sotomayor must have not gotten the memo: There are no more "minorities" in America. In the new "color blind" America we are all one. *sarcasm off*








  

Monday stories.

Today was an interesting news day to say the least.


A few stories got my attention.


I will start with the story of these alleged drug dealers just outside of Philly.


Drug dealers and Philly you say, Field, what's so unusual about that? Well......


"ARDMORE, Pa. (AP) — Two prep school graduates sought to use their sports connections and business acumen to establish a monopoly on drug sales to high school students in the affluent Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia, authorities said Monday.

Neil Scott, 25, and Timothy Brooks, 18, recruited and supplied dealers with marijuana, cocaine, Ecstasy and hash oil to sell to teens at five high schools in the tony bedroom communities, authorities said.

A four-month investigation revealed the pair also hired students at Haverford, Gettysburg and Lafayette colleges to peddle drugs at those Pennsylvania schools, authorities said.

Scott and Brooks are graduates of The Haverford School, a $35,000-a-year institution where both played lacrosse. They tapped their sports and social networks to help further their enterprise, officials said.

"'hey were using very traditional business principles,' Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said. 'To take those skills and turn it into this kind of illegal enterprise is very distressing."' [Source]


I swear these "urban" youths can be such a bad influence.


Another story is out of California where this fifteen year stowaway hid in the  the wheel well of a 767 and flew five hours to Hawaii.  I still don't believe it.


How did he survive minus 45 degree temperatures flying at 38,000 feet? How did he breathe? How did he avoid getting crushed by the wheel when the landing gear was going in and out?


And let's not forget security concerns. How did he get on the damn plane in the first place?


Maybe my friend Pilot X will have some answers for me.


Hey, I love Hawaii as much as the next guy, but I can guarantee you that I don't love it that much to hop in the wheel well of an airplane and spend five hours in the friendly skies.


Then there is this horrific story out of Nigeria that the main stream media seems to be ignoring.

"CHIBOK, Nigeria — Some 234 girls are missing from the northeast Nigerian school attacked last week by Islamic extremists, significantly more than the 85 reported by education officials, parents told the state governor Monday.

The higher figure came out a week after the kidnappings when the Borno state governor insisted a military escort take him to the town. Parents told the governor that officials would not listen to them when they drew up their list of names of missing children and the total reached 234.

The discrepancy in the figures could not immediately be resolved.

Security officials had warned Gov. Kashim Shettima that it was too dangerous for him to drive to Chibok, 130 kilometers (80 miles) from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital and birthplace of the Boko Haram terrorist network blamed for the abductions." [Source]

Can you imagine if this incident had happened in....oh, anywhere but Africa?


Finally, all these accidental gun death stories involving children got me thinking about the NRA and all their money.


Guns are readily available and dangerous, so why can't the NRA encourage--- and promote--- sensible gun ownership?


The last time I checked there is nothing in the Second Amendment that discourages them from doing that.


Oh well, it's almost time for The Blacklist.

No more Hurricane, and some folks need an image makeover.

Let me start this post by saying R.I.P. to Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. My man had some skills in the ring, but lost 19 years of his life due to racism and an unjust system of justice at the time.

Anyway, speaking of racism, apparently there are some folks in the media who are concerned about the klan rebranding themselves and changing their image.

"Somebody had to ask it: can the Ku Klux Klan rebrand itself as a civic organization to make its message more palatable to a subsection of the American public that digs racism but rejects violence?

Whoops, that was a typo. Nobody had to ask it.


Nonetheless, in the wake of last Sunday’s shooting at a Jewish Community Center by a KKK member, some organizational brethren attempted to distance themselves from alleged shooter Frazier Glenn Miller, insisting he had “gone rogue” and did not represent the modern KKK that eschews violence and bills itself as sort of racist Elks Lodge. Apparently taking these tools at face value, CNN actually asked marketing experts if the KKK could shed its cross-burning past.


To the marketing experts’ credit, their answer was a resounding no. And to the article’s credit, further down it becomes an informative piece on the splintering of hate groups that often as not spend their time fighting each other as they do their various race wars.


Nonetheless, the world could have done without these insights:

From a sheer marketing perspective, the lack of central leadership poses more problems for the KKK if it’s serious about revamping its image. Just look at the Catholic Church, Ries said. 

“The KKK doesn’t have a Pope. Look at what that guy has done. You have to have a leader like that to make people believe a change has happened,” she said.   

Without a clear leader, marketing experts said, crafting and conveying a spin-friendly message is impossible.

The point is that the KKK doesn’t have a spin-friendly message. Isn’t it?" [Source]


Unbelievable! You know that cable news is running out of s*** to talk about if they are throwing out topics about how the klan can change their image.


Speaking of changing their image, the right-wing should consider doing that as well.


Although when you have folks like Antonin Scalia calling for "revolt"  against the government if you don't like paying taxes, and conservative media declaring that the Clintons are so powerful that they can make babies at will to score political points, it might be pretty hard for them to seem normal.

Negroes (and other minorities) wanted.

I am genuinely curious to know more about the republican strategy to lure minorities into their tent. Apparently they feel that their strategy has been having the desired effect of late.




I just read an article with anecdotal incident after incident of minorities choosing (or considering) the republican party over the other one. It's all, of course, very interesting, and it makes for good political debate and dickering back and forth.



But, at the end of the day, we all know the deal: Negroes will support the other party in overwhelming numbers.




"We been drinking the Democratic Kool-Aid for 40 years and I don’t see no change,” African-American Republican “convert” Bob Israel told a local ABC News outlet.


Not merely African-American voters but officeholders are backing off traditional Democratic support.




“'I am sure we will hear the moans and groans from our Democrat friends regarding our decision in this endorsement and support of a Republican,' said former four-term East St. Louis Mayor Carl Officer after announcing that he has formed a SuperPAC backing the GOP candidate for Illinois governor.


'However, we ask them to consider whether we do not need a totally different approach for all Illinoisans to have a chance to carve out their share of that American dream.'


Good governance is good politics, and the Republican effort to chip away at the Democratic Party’s monolithic minority support will require a shift in the party’s political priorities. But if they are successfully able to appeal to minority voters, expect the Democratic Party’s loyalists to react rather strongly, although not disproportionately, to the scope of the threat to their party’s electoral viability."




I am all for changing the flavors of my "Kool-Aid"; I just don't want my new drink to have poison in it.

The soapbox is yours.

I am not going to post anything tonight because I want you field hands to do some thread jacking.


But first, I have a couple of questions for you.


The first one is for you black folks who come to the fields:


What do you think about Pharrell's comments to Oprah about being "new black"?


Is he speaking truth, or is he just another rich black person with no clue about what's going on in the real America?


This is what someone commenting over at Bossip had to say:


 "I like Pharrell and I really appreciate that he thinks outside of the box but I think PR wise he needs to leave the subject of race alone cause things can get really inflammatory when you try to sanitize or "package" the black experience to caress and absolve white folks eardrums of their legacy of hatefulness. The insulated blacks that are living that life and are blessed to be in his position are always kowtowing and pandering to the notion that white folks don't have zero, zip, zilch to do with why our communities are so torn and well…it's such a disgraceful lie. Whites have had a 400 year head start, jim crow,
institutionalized racism and have used colorism to keep blacks pressed through divide and conquer tactics. These are the facts so China "exotical" Pharrell can have a boy bye!"  Ouch!


The second question is for you white readers:


Do you believe that teacher Gil Voigt should have been terminated for his comments to a black student about president Obama? 


I am interested in all of your thoughts.




*Pic from Jarvez.com

Get your mind right.

I am going to try and post about Andre Johnson (AKA Christ Bearer) and the unfortunate situation with his...ahhm.... johnson, but it is going to be hard.


First, let me say that depression is a serious and growing problem in America.


Too many people focus on their physical and neglect their mental health. This is a mistake. And folks should recognize when someone they love is suffering from mental problems.


Mr. Johnson survived, but we just lost a beautiful young blogger due to her struggles with depression.


One can only wonder why someone in Andre Johnson's life didn't see the signs that led him to do the unthinkable.

"The Wu-Tang Clan-affiliated rapper who cut off his penis before leaping off the second-floor balcony of his North Hollywood apartment has lost the appendage for good, according to a report.


Andre Johnson — who raps under the name Christ Bearer — was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after he apparently flayed himself during the bizarre suicide bid early Wednesday, TMZ reported.


But doctors were unable to reattach the severed penis, the website reported." [Source]


Lord have mercy! I am trying but I can't do this. I am in pain just thinking about it.


Anyway, the young man is in stable condition, and even though he won't get his johnson back, at least he will live. Living being a relative term at this point.


You Negroes in America need to take note:


"Studies done by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) show that African Americans and whites experience depression differently. Black Americans are less likely than whites to have a major depressive disorder (MDD), said NIMH, but when they do, it’s more severe and less likely to be treated. Add to that the stigma around mental illness, and you have a recipe for tragedy. Among blacks who experienced MDD, the rate of chronic depression was 56.5 percent, compared with whites with MDD, who experienced chronic depression at a rate of 38.6 percent.


According to a recent Washington Post report by Tara Bahrampour, more African Americans are seeking help for mental illness. Said Bahrampour:

Many people, regardless of race, have a hard time talking about mental illness. But for many African Americans, the topic has carried particularly negative connotations — to the point where it’s easier to talk about drug or alcohol addiction than depression or anxiety. In 2008, whites received mental health treatment or counseling at nearly twice the rate of blacks, and whites received prescription medication for mental health-related issues at more than twice the rate of blacks, according to the 2010 National Healthcare Disparities Report. 

But African Americans’ acceptance of therapy has been rising in the past decade, providers say, particularly among the young and those with more education and in those urban areas with large black populations.  

There have been no large-scale studies about the recent shift, but providers interviewed said they have seen it in their work and in their communities.

Still, barriers of stigma and distrust aren’t easily overcome.


“There’s some shame and embarrassment,” Damian Waters, a marriage and family therapist whose clients are predominantly African American, told Bahrampour. “You’ll tell someone that you went to the doctor, but you won’t tell that you went to the counselor or psychiatrist. Also, there is the idea that their faith should carry them through, though often their problems are larger than that.”


Yes, always remember, "Faith alone without works is dead".

The second time around for Hank.

Hank, I told you that this was going to happen. If you think you got the business from the racists in America when you were chasing the Babe's record, wait until you hear from this new crop of bigots.




"The Atlanta Braves received a bevy of angry, racist letters this week after an interview baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron did with USA Today.


A few days ago, Aaron, the senior vice president of the Braves, told USA Today:


 “Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he’s treated. We have moved in the right direction, and there have been improvements, but we still have a long ways to go in the country. The bigger difference is that back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts.”


That set off a firestorm of mail to the Braves, including a letter from someone named Edward. (USA Today only referred to those who sent letters by their first names.) The letter, which included racial epithets, said: “Hank Aaron is a scumbag piece of s—.”


“The Braves have been besieged by hundreds of letters, e-mails and phone calls deriding Aaron for comments he made to USA TODAY Sports,” the newspaper said. Sportswriter Bob Nightengale continued: 

Marion calls Aaron a “racist scumbag.” Ronald won’t attend another Braves game until Aaron is fired. Mark calls Aaron a “classless racist.” David says that he will burn Aaron’s I Had A Hammer autobiography.
Sheer racism, exposed in vile letters directed to Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, have poured into the Atlanta Braves offices over the past week."  [Source]

The irony is, of course, that *buy(by) showing their ignorance and bigotry they are confirming everything that Aaron said in his interview. "Racism? There is no racism. That is a thing of the past in America you trouble making, Nigger."




I give Aaron credit; he had to have known that he was going to open Pandora's box by going down this road. Telling the truth about racism is never going to be popular with certain people. My inbox reminds me of that fact every day.




Finally, I rarely do this, but I am going to try and give my right-wing friends some advice:




If you are serious about reaching out to African American, stop treating the same recycled black leaders who have been propped up by the main stream media as our official spokespeople.




Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson stopped being relevant to most black folks years ago. Yet you people on the right just won't let them go as your racial bogeymen.




Unfortunately Don Lemon took the bait, hopefully he learned his lesson.


 

The lawbreaking Rancher and his anarchist friends.

Cliven Bundy is an anarchist and lawbreaker who should be arrested and thrown in jail. He has been illegally trespassing on federal land with his cattle since the nineties and now he owes over a million dollars to Uncle Sam.


He refuses to pay it. He is wrapping himself around the flag, and thanks to FOX News  and right wing pundits he has been praised in some circles as a true American patriot.


Why? He is no different than the "welfare cheat" who gets food stamps for children that he or she does not have, or who gets cash assistance from the department of welfare while working under the table.


Saturday he was surrounded by tea party types, nut job militiamen, and white supremacists, while he dared the federal government to come and take his cattle.


Well they should, and if some of these losers masquerading as patriots get hurt in the process well then so be it. You can't just shake your d^*k at the law and expect to get away with it. If you give these anarchist an inch they will want a yard.


The welfare rancher has already exhausted all of his legal remedies, and the court has ruled against him. But still, he refuses to obey the law and pay his fines. I mean the guy declared that he doesn't recognize the federal government for crying out loud. (At least not this version of it with the Negro in charge.)


"They have faith in the Constitution," he told KDWN-AM in Las Vegas on Monday. "The founding fathers didn't create a government like this."


They didn't expect American citizens to steal from their government, either.


Unfortunately, that is what Mr. Bundy is doing.










  

Mr. Miller's dream for America.

“White men have become the biggest cowards ever to walk the earth. The world has never witnessed such yellow cowards. We’ve sat back and allowed the Jews to take over our government, our banks, and our media. We’ve allowed tens of millions of mud people to invade our country, steal our jobs and our women, and destroy our children’s futures. America is no longer ours. America belongs to the Jews who rule it and to the mud people who multiply in it.”
– U.S. Senate radio ad, 2010


“Our forefathers were absolutely right to be racists and to discriminate in favor of themselves. That racism and discrimination insured racial security, prosperity, and racial survival and procreation. ZOG and the Jews-media tricked us and shamed us out of our racism shame that has weakened us and divided us as a people, therefore cowards, unwilling to resist Jewish enslavement and genocide.”

 – “Cowardice is the White Man’s Survival Strategy!” Miller’s website


Frazier Glen Miller sounds like he is auditioning for a right- wing radio talk show or a prime time show on FOX News. Sadly for Frazier, though, he will be spending the rest of his useless and miserable life in prison.


Still, there are more Frazier Glen Millers out there. Most of them are cowards who comment anonymously on blogs, but every now and then one of them decides to act out his hateful fantasies. Sadly, the end result is what happened on Sunday.


This all reminds me of an interesting article I read today that was written by Michael Tomasky for the Daily Beast.

"Some time back, whenever a big racial controversy erupted, I trained myself into the habit of reading about it at FoxNews.com, just for the unbelievable comment threads. Let’s put it this way: If my friends and I went out to a bar and started playing a “let’s write the racist FoxNews.com comment thread” drinking game, our efforts couldn’t begin to approach what I read there.

I wasn’t alone. Liberal websites started feasting on these threads. And so, a couple of years ago, Ailes & Co. got wise. Stories about race were, at least in my disheartened experience, closed to comments.

Fox acted, I recall, back in February 2012, when the thread on Whitney Houston’s death made even many conservatives a little jumpy. Here’s a taste: “Whitney is just an inferior lo w life ni gg er that needed to go, no tragedy, no loss…” “Any death is a tragedy you heartless bastard…” “not nignogs their death is a plus…”

Well, at least there was that person in the middle there! But these threads were poisonous, and they didn’t appear just on Fox. They’ve been all over conservative websites and have bled into some mainstream ones, too. Lord, the things I read in comment threads on North Carolina newspapers’ sites in their stories about the “Moral Monday” protests. Believe it or not, conservative readers, I don’t go flinging the r-word around loosely. But these comments, hundreds, thousands of them, were just thuggishly racist. Nothing else to call them.

Beyond these, we have numerous instances of low-level (and sometimes not so low-level) Republican Party officials—Republican Party officials—making racist jokes about Obama. Here’s a little chrestomathy of some of them. If you follow the news closely, you know that hardly a…not quite a week, but let’s say hardly a fortnight goes by that some local GOPer doesn’t show up in the news explaining that he “didn’t mean any harm” in sending that email to friends showing watermelons piled up on the White House, and he’s sincerely sorry “if it offended anyone.” Often, of course, it’s something more malevolent than that.

And now it’s supposed to be controversial when Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) says, as he did Sunday on CNN, that “to a significant extent, the Republican base does have elements that are animated by racism”? Please. You have to be living a life of willed ignorance and denial to take issue with what Israel said. (The link above, by the way, is to the FoxNews.com story; if you scroll down you will indeed see the inevitable and darkly amusing sentence “Comments are currently closed for this article.”)

...We should not, then, even be debating whether what Israel said is true. Sadly, we shouldn’t even be debating why Republican politicians won’t discuss it. My little hypothetical above showed why. None of them has the stones to. Some, Rand Paul and others, talk a little in general terms about how the party needs to “change” and “modernize.” But to spell out what that change and modernization would involve, in racial terms? No one will confront that." [Source]


They will not change. There are too many Frazier Glen Miller types out there who won't let them.  
 




  

It's good to be black.

In the world of Britt Hume and other white republican males, nothing beats being a black man in America. To them, being black is the only reason Barack Obama became and Harvard educated lawyer and became president of the United States, and it is the only reason that Eric Holder became the highest ranking law enforcement official in the country. It's a twofer, and it drives right-wing white men of a certain age, crazy.


“This strikes me as kinda crybaby stuff from Holder,” Hume said. “My sense about this is both Eric Holder and Barack Obama have benefited politically enormously from the fact that they are African American and the first to hold the jobs that they hold.”


RELATED: O’Reilly: Eric Holder Uses Skin Color ‘As a Shield’ to Avoid Criticism


“To those two men, race has been both a shield and a sword that they have used effectively to defend themselves and attack others,” Hume continued. “It is depressing at this stage in our national life, after all we’ve been through on this issue and given the overwhelming consensus of civil rights, that this stuff is still going on.”


Black folks who have busted their butts in academia and in their work life, and who have achieved a relative amount of success in America, have heard this all before. When folks like Britt Hume and George Will make these pronouncements, we know just where they are coming from, and it is not a good place.


I agree with Hume that this is all "depressing", but I think it's depressing for a different reason. It's depressing because if it was left to them and people like them, civil rights would be at pre 1965 levels in this country.


Let's face it, quite a few of these people would rather live in North Korea, or have a former KGB agent as their president than this Negro.


Finally, a scary story that is still breaking out of Kansas.

"An anti-Semitic gunman killed three people during a shooting spree at a Jewish community center and a senior home in a Kansas City suburb, authorities said.


Cops busted the triggerman, dressed in a white T-shirt and green jacket, outside a nearby elementary school. The man spewed anti-Semitic hate speech as officers led him away, local media reported.


"Heil Hitler!" the unkempt, elderly man yelled." [Source]


In the days to come we will hear more about this shooter and his motivations.


It should be interesting.


*Britt Hume's pic from whotalking.com

The downfall of the "religious right" and hypocrisy in American politics.

Let me start this post by saying rest in peace to blogger Karyn Washington. She was a young sister who did some extraordinary things in the blogging world, and she started a movement to empower young girls of color.




She will be missed.




I agree with this author that the religious right and those who want a theocratic form of government here in America might be losing the culture and political wars to the more practical and secular minded among us.




I am sure that most people as individuals still consider themselves spiritual in one way or another, and they believe in a higher being or force guiding their lives. It's just that most people have a problem with politicians trying to dictate to them how and who they should worship. Folks are sick of politicians moralizing to them while doing the exact opposite (I see you Vance McAllister) in their own personal lives.




Folks are sick and tired of politicians passing laws to benefits those who already have far more than the rest of us while ignoring those who are truly in need in our society, and making foreign policy decisions based on their own personal religious convictions.




Damon Linker on W's second inaugural address:




"The speech was a crude expression of American parochialism and pious self-congratulation — the kind of address you'd expect from someone who believed toppling Saddam Hussein was a sufficient condition for creating a functioning democracy in Iraq, and who thinks that presidential rhetoric can rise no higher than paraphrasing the lyrics to "Onward Christian Soldiers." It was the speech of a simple-minded man leading a simple-minded administration."


Amen! And the "simple minded" politicians who subscribe to this simplistic and dogmatic code of morality are still around and still wreaking political havoc today. 


The good news is that they won't be around much longer, because, thankfully, like organized religion, their better days are behind them.