CAPTION SATURDAY.

 

I need a caption for this pic.

 

For example: You remind me of Jeb. He was my best customer.  :)

 

 

Pic from flickrhivemind.net

Snow-filed.

So there is this tony little area just outside of Philly called Lower Marion. It's where Kobe Bryant played his high school ball, and it is the start of what is known around here as the Main Line. Which, around these parts, is the zip- code with the most dollars.

Anyway, as is always the case with these types of communities, a Negro sighting can quickly send the local police into action.

"Lower Merion's median income is $115,226, and the township of 58,000 is 85 percent white. Saldana, who grew up in the township, is Hispanic; her family hails from Peru. Her work as a translator takes her into constant contact with minority communities, and she thought she should make the incident public after her 10-year-old son's reaction to seeing the shovelers sitting in the snow.

"My son asked me, 'Are they in trouble? Did they do something wrong?' And I didn't know how to answer him," said Saldana, 49. "That question from him really left me perplexed."

The description she posted to the Lower Merion Community Network forum on Facebook prompted outrage, with more than 600 people commenting, many concerned about the incident's racial overtones.

The other shovelers questioned by police were also black, Walsh said.

Race had nothing to do with police conduct, Walsh said, and enforcing the ordinance, which requires any adult conducting door-to-door solicitation to obtain a permit, is commonplace. In the last year, police conducted 140 such stops, he said.

"There's a really good reason for that, because, business or not," he said. "Residents can be assured Lower Merion police have checked them." [Source]

I am not sure how many of you reading this live on the East Coast. But there is a long standing tradition here of folks going door to door and offering to shovel your snow after a big storm for a small price.

For those of you who don't think that racism and "color arousal" issues still persists in America, ask yourselves this question: Do you think if those folks going around and offering to shovel snow were from the majority population, they would have been held and told to sit in the snow, while the Gestapo police stood over them and checked them out?

If you do, I have a wonderful antique bell here in Philly with a slight crack on the side that I would love to sell you.

But I want to be fair, so I will give you the response from my friends in Lower Marion, Township.

"A woman who witnessed police interacting with two men her father hired to shovel snow Tuesday worried they were questioned because of their skin color."

No mam. The police have an explanation for what you saw.

"Anti-solicitation ordinances like Lower Merion's are common and cops say they are a useful tool.

The 1964 ordinance, most recently amended in 2009, restricts "sale of goods, wares or merchandise," including magazines, home repair devices and services and contributions to some groups. When the ordinance was written, door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesmen and magazine peddlers were common irritants.

The ordinance does not apply to teenagers or to religious, political or nonprofit groups. Anyone trying to make money by knocking on doors must acquire a permit, valid through a calendar year.
There are 18 approved permits in Lower Merion, said Mike McGrath, police superintendent.

"As far as profiling that's a bogus argument," said John Norris, police chief in Cheltenham Township, which has a similar ordinance. "It's all about public safety."

It helps protect people from criminals who pose as solicitors to case out burglary targets.
Legal experts agree the law serves a purpose.

"You also have to realize there is a history of fraud and other criminal activity associated with door to door salesmen," said Mary Catherine Roper, senior attorney with the Pennsylvania ACLU.
Police noted anti-solicitation ordinances are popular with the public.

Several lawyers, though, believed Lower Merion police may have stretched the ordinance beyond its intent. Jeff Garton, who served as town solicitor in several Bucks County municipalities, said such ordinances aren't typically designed to apply to services like snow shoveling.

Mark Portella, a Haddon Heights, NJ, attorney who represents clients accused of violating municipal law, said it was unfair to conclude police were profiling, but asked why the men were approached even though cops had received no complaints.

"It causes me some concern," he said. "They're just canvassing the neighborhood and they're going to ask them a question?"

The witness, Deborah Saldana, said police questioned the shovelers as they shoveled. Police say officers witnessed them soliciting. A picture posted by Saldana showed the two shovelers sitting in the snow while talking to police, but a township spokesman said the interaction was cordial.

Police do not need a justification to engage in a conversation with people. McGrath noted the shovelers were not detained and were free to refuse to talk with officers." [Source]

Did I mention that the bell I would like to sell you has some great historical value?

One man's trash......

It is always somewhat of a culture shock for me when I visit my friends and in my in-laws in the South. They are just so polite down there. They will "yes mam" and "yes sir' you to death.

When you drive down the street you better get ready to wave at a total stranger. And someone you have never seen before in your life will think nothing of striking up a conversation with you for damn near an hour about damn near anything.

Honestly, it creeps me out a little bit.

First of all, an hour out of my time with even a close friend is tough enough. That's how much I value my time. And when you talk about a total stranger, well....

But I digress.

So this cultural divide and how we treat each other got me to thinking about my friend Mike Huckabee.  Him of the Beyonce fetish.

Mike just can't get over how "trashy" some of these women on the East Coast are.

"In Iowa, you would not have people who would just throw the f-bomb and use gratuitous profanity in a professional setting," Huckabee said during a radio interview on Friday. "In New York, not only do the men do it, but the women do it!"

"And you just are looking around saying my gosh this is worse than locker room talk," he continued. "This would be considered totally inappropriate to say these things in front of a woman and for a woman to say them in a professional setting, we would only assume that this is a very—as we would say in the south—that's just trashy!" [Source]

The poor guy should come to Philly.  The F- Bomb is actually a term of endearment here.

Anyway, he is taking some heat for his rather sententious stance on the fairer sex.

Most women, whether they like to curse or not, just don't like the idea of some holier- than- thou fraud ---who likes to sing about sex and all kinds of raunchy things with his friends--- lecturing them about whether or not it's cool to let a curse word slip every now and then.

It got so bad for my man Mike that his station mate over at FOX, Ms. White Santa herself, is giving him the business and letting him know in no uncertain terms that women have changed a little bit since he was sipping milkshakes at the five & dime back in Arkansas.

"I do have news for you before I let you go," Kelly jestfully told Huckabee on her show, "The Kelly File," on Wednesday night.

"We are not only swearing. We're drinking, we're smoking, we're having premarital sex with birth control before we go to work, and sometimes boss around a bunch of men," Kelly, who lives in New York, said."

She forgot to mention that they curse during "premarital sex" as well.

Not that I would know that. I am just repeating what others have told me....

Anyway, some words of wisdom for my friend, Huck: Let this go. You are running for president and this is not how you want to start off your campaign.

Those "trashy" women and their sisters hold the key to you ever getting close to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.





    







 

Praising Rock Hill, and searching for Coach Williams.

Let me start this post by doing the opposite of something I usually do, which is chase racism.

My fellow field hands, I will not be chasing racism tonight. Instead, I want to congratulate the people of Rock Hill, South Carolina, for confronting their racist past, acknowledging it, and taking the necessary steps to correct a historic wrong.

We need more of this in America. Just watching the people and their actions in that courtroom today said volumes.

More stories like this will make this jaded field Negro take another look at his outlook on racial matters in this country, and it will make him take a less misanthropic and cynical view of all such matters as it relates to our current society.

"Local prosecutor Kevin Brackett, who helped initiate the motion to clear their names, apologized to the men and said they deserved to be recognized as heroes.

He noted they did not want their arrests to be erased from public documents because they felt it was important that their actions be remembered.

"There is only one reason these men were arrested ... and that is because they were black," Brackett said. "It was wrong then, it’s wrong today."

Graham, 72, said after Wednesday's hearing that the group sought no "hero worship," either in 1961 or now.

"It wasn’t for any glory," he said. "We were simply ... students who were tired of the status quo, tired of being treated as second-class citizens."

Their case offers a lesson to young people in the ongoing fight for equality, a struggle not lost on the men, he said.

"Even though we were treated unjustly, still nonviolence prevailed," Graham said. "You think we’re going to sit down and rest now? No, no, no. We’ve got to lead by example." [Source]

The "Friendship Nine", like so many others who fought against injustice at the time, deserved better.

I am just glad that they are finally getting the treatment they deserve from the justice system and the people of South Carolina. 

Finally, a few days ago Louis Gohmert was so upset about the president having the audacity to mention race in his SOTU address, that he found it necessary to call out the president for being a racial "divider". He then went on to lament the fact that the president wasn't a uniter like his high school coach.

The folks at the Huffington Post --and some others--- assumed that he was referring to his high school basketball coach. Turns out,  there was no such black high school basketball coach at the time, and Mr. Gohmert was forced to amend his statement.

 "I am amazed that simply mentioning ‘my favorite coach in high school who happened to be black’ caused liberals to start asking about my high school ‘basketball’ coach. I did not mention the sport, but it happened to be my Junior Varsity FOOTBALL coach. I was a captain, played quarterback, thought the world of Coach Williams and loved the way he brought everyone together as a team."

OK, so here is the thing, as most of you know I am not a journalist; I am a lawyer. But something about this story bothers me a little bit. I am not saying that there couldn't be a black JV football coach at a public East Texas high school in 1969, 70, or 71; but let's just say that I have to get the Missouri treatment with this one: You have to show me.

I took it on myself to call the Mount Pleasant (Texas) Tribune, and I spoke to the sports editor of the paper. Since Mr. Gohmert attended Mount Pleasant High School, I wanted to know from the paper of record in that town if there was in fact an African America coach named Williams who coached the JV football team in the late nineteen sixties or early seventies.

The fellow was kind enough and he took my number. He also said that he would be getting back to me shortly. That was almost a week ago and I have still not heard from my friend from Texas.

Now again, I am not saying that Mr. Gohmert is lying being dishonest, but I would just like a little more confirmation of his story, since all of my Google searches have failed to produce definitive proof of a Coach Williams.

If any of you happen to see a link proving that there is in a fact a Coach Williams, please provide it in a comment after this post.

Hopefully he is still alive. I would love to speak to him to see what kind of teammate young Louie was.  













 

"Fitting the description" at Yale.

If you are a young Negro in America I can't imagine a better place for you to be than in a library at an Ivy League school.

If you are the parent of such a young Negro it must make you proud to have a child in such a position, and you must sleep pretty well at night knowing that your child will be safe and protected in the friendly confines of a very white, very elite, academic environment.

So imagine how shocked Charles Blow was to hear that his child almost got the Trayvon Martin treatment while walking out of the library on Yale's campus.

"As a noted memoirist and New York Times columnist who writes often about race, Charles Blow has spoken about the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, deaths that sparked a national debate over how police treat African-American men.

On Monday, Blow wrote about another young black man's encounter with police -- his son, who was allegedly held at gunpoint on the Yale University campus where he's a student.

 

Blow took to Twitter on Sunday, writing that he was "fuming" after his son called to tell him what happened Saturday -- that he was walking out of the library when university police "accosted" him and drew their weapons. Blow tweeted that his son was detained because he "fit the description" of a suspect.

 

Blow's son was released, and Yale has said that the real suspect was found and arrested later." [Source]

 

I feel your pain Mr. Blow. This is a little too close to home for you. Now when you write all those essays for the New York Times about racism in America you can truly write them from them from the heart. 

 

"Saturday evening, I got a call that no parent wants to get. It was my son calling from college — he’s a third-year student at Yale. He had been accosted by a campus police officer, at gunpoint!

This is how my son remembers it:

 

He left for the library around 5:45 p.m. to check the status of a book he had requested. The book hadn’t arrived yet, but since he was there he put in a request for some multimedia equipment for a project he was working on.

 

Then he left to walk back to his dorm room. He says he saw an officer “jogging” toward the entrance of another building across the grounds from the building he’d just left.

Then this:

 

“I did not pay him any mind, and continued to walk back towards my room. I looked behind me, and noticed that the police officer was following me. He spoke into his shoulder-mounted radio and said, ‘I got him.’

 

“I faced forward again, presuming that the officer was not talking to me. I then heard him say, ‘Hey, turn around!’ — which I did.

“The officer raised his gun at me, and told me to get on the ground.

 

“At this point, I stopped looking directly at the officer, and looked down towards the pavement. I dropped to my knees first, with my hands raised then laid down on my stomach.

 

“The officer asked me what my name was. I gave him my name.

 

“The officer asked me what school I went to. I told him Yale University.

“At this point, the officer told me to get up.”

 

The officer gave his name, then asked my son to “give him a call the next day.”

My son continued:

 

“I got up slowly, and continued to walk back to my room. I was scared. My legs were shaking slightly. After a few more paces, the officer said, ‘Hey, my  man. Can you step off to the side?’ I did.”

 

The officer asked him to turn around so he could see the back of his jacket. He asked his name again, then, finally, asked to see my son’s ID. My son produced his school ID from his wallet.

 

The officer asked more questions, and my son answered. All the while the officer was relaying this information to someone over his radio.

 

My son heard someone on the radio say back to the officer “something to the effect of: ‘Keep him there until we get this sorted out.’ ” The officer told my son that an incident report would be filed, and then he walked away."

 

Mr. Blow's son will be fine. He has a father who has a national platform to speak out against what happened to him. 

 

Think of the countless other black men who have been subjected to similar indignities because they "fit a description". 

 

Fortunately for young Mr. Blow he will not end up like this guy, or this one, but it's not because he doesn't "fit the description."   

 

 

Two pictures and stories worth a thousand words.

So this is how race works in America.

Got it.

(h/t to my twitter fam, @BigleyBradley for this image.)

 

American hero?

I am going to start this post by remembering my wife's brother in law, Joseph Barnaba, and some of the good times that we shared together.

I would always look forward to visiting Louisiana and hanging out with Joseph while our wives (Mrs. Field and her sister) hung out. This was before he was called to duty in Iraq and did a couple of tours during the height of that brutal campaign.

When Joseph came home from Iraq we all saw that he had changed. Unless you have lived through it, it's hard to explain to you the changes that some returning veterans go through. He would try to smile but his eyes were not smiling. He would look through you instead of at you, and you always got the sense that his mind was back on the streets of Ramadi or some other part of that god- forsaken country.

Joseph couldn't stay away from his comrades, and against his wife's wishes he went back for another tour. Sadly, it would eventually cost him his life. And it cost my sister in law, my wife, and his family; immeasurable grief.

 I took a few paragraphs to write about Joseph because I want to weigh in on this controversy surrounding the movie, American Sniper, and I want you to understand where I am coming from as it relates to this issue.

Unlike some of my friends on the left, I am not going to trash this movie and everything it stands for. Primarily because I think that we owe it to our fallen soldiers like Joseph to have a conversation about PTSD and other problems facing returning soldiers and their families. In my opinion this movie has generated such a buzz that it is causing us to have that conversation.

I wish we could have had it with Hurt Locker, (a better movie in my opinion) but that's just me. Better late than never I guess.

"Michael Moore        ✔ @MMFlint   Tomorrow's Sunday School (1) What Would Jesus Do? Oh, I know what he'd do -- hide on top of a roof and shoot people in the back!"

I do, however, believe that there is a certain amount of right wing flag- waving that goes on with movies like this that is a bit unsettling. Movies like this are embraced by FOX viewers and the chattering class over there for all the wrong reasons. Not because it shows the horrors of war, but because it gives us a chance to cheer on our good ole USA, as we send our young men and women off to die in misguided campaigns that are drawn up in Washington primarily for political reasons.

And then there is the man who the story is based on, Chris Kyle. From all accounts he was a racist and a lunatic. He was a man, it is alleged, who bragged about murdering looters during Katrina, and who, in his own words, "Loved  killing savages."

To be sure, this is one of the reasons that the right has embraced this film. To them the world is black and white, and if you are not with the USA you are against it. Kyle represents everything that is "good" about America to right wing false patriots for all the wrong reasons.

Chris Kyle didn't save America; he is not Super Man. Chris Kyle was one of many soldiers who volunteered to serve their country and did their job in a time of war. Some, like Joseph, paid the ultimate sacrifice, and some are still with us suffering with whatever demons attached itself to them in Iraq.

So I don't blame Michael Moore when he speaks out against the movie and the false narrative being created around Chris Kyle. Michael Moore has every right to speak his mind and give his opinions about a movie that he finds troubling. Good men like Joseph Barnaba died for him to have that right.

CAPTION SATURDAY.

 

I need a caption for this pic.

 

Keep it clean people.   

 

 

Pic from Aktual.Az

White Privilege for Dummies.

The next time a white person tells you that they don't benefit from racism, click on The Field Negro blog and go to this post.




I know it's just a cartoon, but some of you reading this know exactly where it's coming from.

We all love when that one white guy declares that he never benefited from "white privilege" because he has worked hard all of his life and he never received any special treatment in America because he is white.

It's an easy default position, because the typical white person does not want to believe that he or she could be in a position to reap societal benefits because of his or her race.

For this poor soul I recommend a book called The Heart Of Whiteness by Robert Jensen.

It might not cure you, but it will at least help you to understand what your problem is.

*Cartoon by Barry Deutsch

The bread-lady and her family had some help.

 Man I wish I could stop talking about the bread-shoe lady, but, like Sarah Palin before her, this

republican matron has some issues.

The bread-shoe lady declared that her family was poor and had to pull themselves up. They weren't like those urban dwellers who depend on the government and refuse to work. No sir, the bread-shoe lady and her family were hard workers who had nothing handed to them.

But then....

"Joni Ernst, the new Republican senator from Iowa who delivered the GOP response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech Tuesday night, called in her address for cuts in government spending and described how her views grew out of her own “simple” upbringing, one in which her family diligently watched ever scarce penny, to the point where she owned only one pair of shoes.

But an investigation of public records by the Washington D.C.-based District Sentinel online news site showed that between 1995 and 2009, Ernst’s family received nearly a half-million dollars in government handouts, payments targeted toward subsidizing farms with taxpayer funds.

“I had only one good pair of shoes. So on rainy school days, my mom would slip plastic bread bags over them to keep them dry,” Ernst described in her State of the Union rebuttal Tuesday.

“But I was never embarrassed. Because the school bus would be filled with rows and rows of young Iowans with bread bags slipped over their feet. Our parents may not have had much, but they worked hard for what they did have.”

The address sounded many of the same themes used by Ernst in her election campaign in 2014, one which featured an advertisement depicting Ernst castrating a pig, as she declared that because her family learned to “live within our means,” the federal government should “do the same.”

But the District Sentinel investigation showed that Ernst’s own father, Richard Culver, received $38,395 in taxpayer handouts, almost all of which went to corn subsidies. The Iowa senator’s uncle, Dallas Culver, made out even better, soaking up almost $370,000 in federal agriculture subsidies.
The total subsidies enjoyed by members of Joni Ersnt’s family came in upwards of $460,000.

Ernst failed to mention her own family’s reliance on government assistance in her speech touting the virtues of self-reliance. According to Media Matters for America, no major media outlets that covered her speech made note of her family’s willingness to benefit from government spending, at the same time that Ersnt called for the new, Republican congress to “cut wasteful spending.”

CNN, for example, highlighted Ernst’s “hardscrabble upbringing,” while NBC News told how the 44-year-old Joni Ernst “brushed aside the president’s call for higher taxes on the wealthy, vowing that Republicans would cut wasteful spending and propose meaningful tax reforms.”

The Wall Street Journal even criticized Joni Ernst for not calling for enough cuts to “wasteful spending,” noting that her outspoken opposition to “federal government subsidies” was a big factor in earning her election to the Senate." [Source]

I am not surprised that our cowardly press didn't call out the bread-lady, but what is surprising is just how shameless she is.

Her family got almost half a million dollars from the government and she sits there on her high horse and tells us stories about how hard they had to work.

The truth is that while she is calling for cuts in the safety net, she was using government subsidies to get where she is.

Finally, I am glad that president Obama is acknowledging that there are sill biases in our society while discussing the relationship between police departments and minorities.

"YouTuber GloZell asked President Obama about police and minorities today, and the president said it’s important to admit “there are still biases in our society” and sometimes cops might target young black males just by the virtue of what they look like.

GloZell told Obama she cut all of her husband’s hoodies off because she’s worried about what could happen to him. Obama assured that the “overwhelmingly majority of police officers” do a good job and do it well.

That being said, the president said statistics show black males are seen as more threatening. Obama argued the solution is to improve training, citing the way he fought against racial profiling when he was in the Illinois state legislature." [Source]

Some of you Negroes wanted him to spend more time talking about Eric Garner and Ferguson in his SOTU address, but that was not going to happen. The fact that he mentioned them at all was noteworthy.

Although when you see stories like this and this taking place in America, you have to wonder if he didn't need to say more.

The president gets "dark and ugly", and the bread-shoes lady responds.

Before I start this post I want to apologize to the folks at MMTC who are hosting the Broadband Social Justice Summit , for not making it down to Washington, today. I really wanted to make it but sometimes the judicial system doesn't cooperate with our day to day plans.

Hopefully I will make it down tomorrow. I really want to get a shot at roasting my man David Honig.

So anyway, I caught the president's address to the nation last night. Overall I thought it was decent, but I particularly loved the shot he took at the wingnuts  when they tried to throw him shade by way of some snark.

This is from Politicus USA:

“I have no more campaigns to run.” Insert rude Republican clapping. But Republican thuggery is no match for President Obama’s quick wit and brain. He responded off the cuff (not in his prepared remarks), “I know because I won both of them.”

 

Oh, snap.

 

This response brought down the house with happy Democrats cheering and liberals everywhere breathing a sigh of relief that this President was taking Republican rudeness no more, and in fact reminding them just who won two national elections with a mandate.

 

All of this caused Republicans everywhere to commence whinging, how dare Obama not be nice to them! He said he wanted to be bipartisan and then he had the nerve to defend himself against their unstatesmanlike rudeness. (Let us not forget the unprecedented rudeness and disrespect behind the earlier GOP outburst, “You lie!”)" [Source]

 

Of course wingnuts and their friends were not pleased, and they have been whining about it ever since.

 

Glenn Beck took it a step further by letting his racism flag fly. According to Mr. Beck the president showed his "dark and ugly" side last night by getting all....well, black.

 

It works like this: When you, as a black man, do things that displease some folks, you are pretty much acting black. Which, in their world, is not a good thing.

 

One republican congressman actually dug deep in his history to find a black man that he liked. And who, in his book, is the opposite of the very "divisive" president.

 

"He said he’d thought that once Obama was elected president, “that issue” would be “behind us.”
Gohmert expressed a wish that Obama were more like his black high school basketball coach.

“But unlike my favorite coach in high school, who happened to be black, he has been more divisive — when I had a coach that brought us together as a team like never before,” Gohmert said. “I thought this president would do that. He has divided more than united, so that’s been heartbreaking.” [Source]

No Mr. Gohmert, what's been heartbreaking is that folks like you have no clue that we really do live in two Americas. Closing your eyes and pretending that we can all get along because you had a basketball coach (how convenient) who you thought was very non-threatening is not bringing people together.

I also saw one of the five republican responses as well. I think it was meant to be the main one.

It was delivered by some woman named Joni Ernst. I listened to her for five minutes and found myself nodding off. She had that soothing monotone kind of voice that should only be used by customer service people who work for large corporations.

Anyway, she actually said at one point that she had t cover her shoes with bread wrappers (bags) because she only had one pair and didn't want it to get wet.

I call bullshit.

This, to me, is just another republican trying to sound a populist tone. I am not sure when it became cool for republicans to try to tell us how poor they were at one point in their lives, but it's getting old.
I wish they would just go back to being real republicans again.

But back to Ms. Ernst's shoes.

My twitter family was making fun of her, but I actually felt bad for the woman.

"@Kat4Obama @Sophia_Moseley @LesaPamplin @fieldnegro Yup, just grab yourself a stick of butter and a pot of jam, and you're all set.

 

@Sophia_Moseley @LesaPamplin @AFarray @fieldnegro They're loafers. :D

 

See? People buying that imported, seeded bread loaf slide with their free money. @LesaPamplin @Loki4Us @AFarray @fieldnegro

 

21h21 hours ago

@PeskyJski @fieldnegro @LesaPamplin LOL. It is always good to have a good laugh...and bread shoes that will now sell more than Jordans.

 

21h:

I CAN'T TAKE IT!!! #BreadShoes She must have been on the #LittleRascals with Farina! RT @LesaPamplin: @fieldnegro pic.twitter.com/lhEkHY5EHu"

 

You people are co cold.

 

Bread-shoes lady, I got your back. 

  
 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

A "Light Girl" and a house Negro.

I think some of these black celebrities need to just take a moratorium from making public statements that have anything to do with race for awhile.

I think I speak for all Negroes in America when I say that I am sick of ignorant black "celebrities". (I see you Stacey Dash)

Just this past week we had Amber Rose [in pic] making a fool of herself by making her clueless declarations about Creoles.

"With my family, they feel like they're more superior or better than an African American because we're Creole and we have culture and that's something I battle with most of my life," she explained in a sneak peek of Light Girls airing Monday night. "It's more of the older people in my family." [Source]

Amber, here is a little news flash for you: You are not Creole. Your daddy is an Italian from South Philly and your mamma is African American.

And, for the record, African- Americans "have culture" as well.

I am not doubting that your family has colorism issues, but don't blame it on them being Creole.

Besides, they might have dissed you at your wedding because they just didn't want you hooking up with this particular Negro.  

Still, as bad as Amber Rose is, she has nothing on this Anthony Mackie fellow.

"The lack of Oscar support for "Selma" has made headlines, but Mackie plays down the idea that the Academy Awards voters were being discriminatory. “People are just tired of being bombarded with race right now,” says the actor. “So everybody is shying away from certain topics and certain movies.”

He goes on to remark, “If you look at all the movies and actors that are nominated, they all gave damn good performances. Me specifically, if thats something I want, I have to step my game up. I have to do better movies and I have to act better.” Mackie does admit that black actors are at some disadvantage for certain roles. “Hollywood believes that there’s no market overseas for black actors,” he explains. “They say that about Denzel Washington, they say they have no foreign value. If we’re not financing and doing our own stories, we can’t expect to see ourselves come award season.”

But Mackie may be generating the most controversy with his take on the topic of police violence against young black men. He tells the outlet, “Like my nephew wanted to grow dreadlocks. I’m like fine, I’ll sit you down and I’ll watch ‘The First 48′ with you and everybody you see on that show, that’s doing something wrong, they’re black dudes with dreadlocks. So, do you want to be seen as part of the problem or do you want to be an individual?”

“Let’s just say you have locks and you walking down the street,” says Mackie. “The police pull you over and say you fit the description of somebody. You start yelling and arguing with the cops. Next thing you know you pressed up against the wall going to jail for something you’re not even involved in just because you look like somebody and you don’t know how to handle yourself.”' [Source]

For his next role Anthony will play a butler in an antebellum mansion.

Unfortunately he will not be eligible for an Oscar for that role. This is because in order to do that you actually have to be acting.

Dallas the "survivalist" and Hugh the superintendent.

Lots of people worried about terror these days. Over in Europe the entire continent is on high alert because of the threat of radical Islamic terrorists

Thing is, though, we have quite a few domestic terrorists in this country. We choose not to focus on them because these terrorists look like the majority of Americans and they do not pose a threat to said majority.

For instance, how many of you know the story of Dallas Horton? Dallas is a domestic terrorist who did some very terrorist- like things, recently.

"In Oklahoma, a white “survivalist” shot a police chief three times in the chest and once in the arm. The shooting did not result in an arrest or charges and the man, identified by local media as 29-year-old Dallas Horton, has been released.

In a press release, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said, “Facts surrounding the case lead agents to believe the man was unaware it was officers who made entry.” But Louis Ross, the Sentinel, Oklahoma police chief who was shot, said that he entered the home after “Washita County 911 received two calls from a man who identified himself as Dallas Horton, and claimed to have a bomb inside the head start school.”

Ross cast doubt on the credibility of Horton’s claim that he didn’t know officers were present, noting that there was “screaming from five officers of the law announcing our presence, requesting to see hands.” Ross only survived the shooting because he was wearing a bulletproof vest. He has “massive bruises and welts on his body” and the shot that hit his arm “went clean through.”

a second statement released yesterday the Oklahoma State Bureau Of Investigation said Horton was “fully cooperating with the on-going investigation” and “no traces of explosives were found.”
A Facebook profile identified by Raw Story, that purports to be from a Dallas Horton of Sentinel, contains numerous racist images.

A sign on the front door of Horton’s home says he’s a “Certified zombie killer.” The mayor of Sentinel, Sam Dlugonski, described Horton as a “gun enthusiast” and survivalist. Dlugsonski was familiar with Horton, saying, “I’ve known that kid all of his life.'” [Source]

Wow! Shoot a police officer and all you get is an atta boy, and "I 've known that kid all of his life" from the mayor.

Nice. Some terrorist sure have it good.

Finally, my racism chase takes me to some old familiar grounds.

It's kind of sad that I have to blog about this on the day that we celebrate the legacy of Dr. King, but you all need to know that type of people we are still dealing with in this country almost 50 years after he the man was struck down by an assassin's bullet.

"COLLINSVILLE, Alabama -- A school superintendent has determined some 50 high school students will not be allowed to attend the showing of "Selma" Friday morning in Gadsden due to the film's strong language and use of racial slurs. 

Hugh Taylor, the superintendent of the DeKalb County Board of Education, denied a request for a Collinsville High School history club--sponsored by teacher Bradley Crawford--to attend the movie, along with other students from Crawford's classes.

Taylor cites the website "Kids In Mind" when explaining his decision. The site advises that the movie "Selma" has "about 2 F-words (and) 26 derogatory term (sic) for African-Americans."

"I understand the movie has a lot of historical value," Taylor told AL.com Thursday morning. "The request was denied based on language. (The website) told me there were about two F-words in that movie, which I presume may mean more. The school that wanted to go (Collinsville High) is a multicultural school and (the website) said there were going to be 26 African-American connotations, which I thought would probably be inappropriate.

"I deemed this movie in particular inappropriate and that's my job as the head of the school system to make those decisions," he said.

Crawford told AL.com Thursday night that "Mr. Taylor made his decision and we respect it." He said he was unaware of who had first complained to Taylor about the denial. 

Taylor is an elected official, a Republican who defeated four other candidates in a 2012 election to replace Charles Warren, who retired after 12 years on the post. Before then, Taylor served as principal at Ruhama Junior High in DeKalb County." [Source]

I suspect that Mr. Taylor might have had some relatives who are on the wrong side of history when it comes to what went down in Selma. That could be his real motivation for not wanting the students to see the movie.

But hey, I am sure that Mr. Taylor and all of his apologists out there will say that his actions have nothing to do with racism. But we know better.

There are lots of people like Hugh Taylor out there in positions of power.

Hopefully it won't be for long.