No more Mr. Nice Guy.

His Oness gave a press conference today that was full of ireful words.
I can't say that I blame him. These far right folks have been just batty of late.
I wonder if right before his presser he read a copy of "Armed & Dangerous: The Rise of The Survivalist Right" by James Coates. That's some scary stuff. That would put any president (especially one of color) in a foul mood.

Or maybe he has been listening to Mark Levin.

"He keeps telling us he won re-election,” Levin said of the president.

“Congratulations! But guess what, the Constitution wasn’t up for election, it wasn’t for a referendum,” he continued, before rattling off the list of ways he believes the president has expanded his office into an “imperial presidency,” including “unilateral action” on immigration, the tax implications of ObamaCare, “attacks on religious liberty,” and the potential use of executive order on gun control.

“What the hell is this?” Levin continued. “He was elected president. Congratulations. This guy makes Richard Nixon look like a man who followed the law all the time. I think we have an imperial president. He sounds imperial, he’s arrogant as hell and I’m furious about this.”

 “People better wake up to this. This is not what Bush did or what anybody else did. This president is different and in a very, very negative way and the fact that a lot of people voted for him, that’s extremely troubling, but the Constitution, as I said, that wasn’t up for grabs and it’s still not up for grabs....

“You would think that the Constitution is just another statute for these guys to play with,” Levin said. “This is why I’m furious. Once we lose the Constitution, and we’re losing it big, what’s left? How do we keep these people in check?”He concluded by saying it will “not be very pretty” if Obama invokes executive order in dealing with gun control."

Take a deep breath, Mark; you look like a heart attack waiting to happen. If I were you I would try to stay calm.

But back to President Obama's press conference. Dude was so mad he was telling congress to pay their bills. (When was the last time you heard a black man talking so publicly about paying his bills?) He declared that the Tea Party folks in congress wanted to collect "a ransom" in exchange for not crashing the economy. He did not seem happy about having America's credit rating taking another hit under his watch.

 “The full faith and credit of the United States of America is not a bargaining chip.”

“While I’m willing to compromise and find common ground over how to reduce our deficit, America cannot afford another debate with this Congress over how to pay the bills they’ve already racked up,”  [Source]

It was more like a lecture and a dropping of the gauntlet than a Q & A with the White House press corps. And when they asked questions he evaded them and tried to get back on message.

I think I prefer this Obama to the old one. This Obama is acting like a guy with nothing to lose. No more kissing babies and begging rich dudes to write checks so that he can get elected. I guess he learned that playing the nice guy role wasn't going to change how the other side feels about him.

This is your last four years Mr. President. It's Time to grow a pair. You better take a look around you and see how unhinged your enemies have become.

“People that are fed up with a power hungry, radicalized, abusive federal government intruding into every aspect of our lives,”
further

“People are going to say they’re fed up, and states are going to want more liberty and more freedom. They’re not going to want to tax their citizens to death anymore. If this pattern continues and gets worse and worse and worse, I can see at some point the states saying, ‘Forget it. I don’t want to be a part of this union anymore.’”

Hannity said if things continue on this current path he sees a possibility of conservative states leaving the union.

“There is a tipping point in all of these debates,” [Source]

All this because the black man told you to pay your bills?

"A dark vein of intolerance"?

I never considered General Colin Powell (the man who told us W's lie about WMD's in Iraq and helped W sell his war) to be a racism chaser. Maybe I should ask him to write some guest posts on the blog.

So anyway..... "Former Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday and had some strong words for his fellow GOP members: 'The Republican party needs to take a very hard look at itself and understand that the country has changed.' Powell criticized the GOP of today for everything from their views on climate change to taxes. Most importantly? The party has a 'dark vein of intolerance' running through it and 'if they don’t change' along with America’s changing demographics, 'they are going to be in trouble.'

Host David Gregory asked Powell why he was still a Republican and he noted that it was the way he was “raised,” but that “the Republican party right now is having an identity problem.

The GOP 'still looks down on minorities,' Powell said. He slammed Sarah Palin‘s “shuck and jive” comments from last year about President Obama and criticized Republican’s use of the word “lazy” to describe the president.
'Why do senior Republican leaders tolerate this kind of discussion within the party?' he asked.

The choice of the next Republican candidate may be less important than what the party actually stands for, Powell added.

'If it’s just going to represent the far right-wing of the political spectrum, I think the party is in difficulty,' he said." [Source]

General, tell David Gregory that you did not leave the republican party; the republican party left you.

This of course will not sit well with the troops. They are already calling him a traitor.

"Anonymous

THIS IS AN OUTRAGE, AN ABSOLUTE OUTRAGE. POWELL, LEAVE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. WE DON’T WANT YOU, WE DON’T NEED YOU. WE WILL NOT FORGET THE HERESY YOU SPOKE TODAY."

Calm down wingnut, I am sure that General Powell will be glad to leave your party. Hopefully he learned that folks who look like he does were never welcome there to begin with.   

I would love to reach out but they make it so hard.

I am trying to take people on the right seriously in this country, I really am. I would love nothing more than to have a serious debate on the issues, but unfortunately I am doing my daily read of Mediaite and I scanned not one but three articles that gave me a reason to rethink my position.

"The co-hosts on Fox News’ The Five this week took on the dangerous trend of…elementary school math. Eric Bolling warned parents that they need to be vigilant of the way Scholastic Books, “the world’s leading publisher of children’s books,” is pushing the “liberal agenda” through algebra lessons. The evidence? A primary school worksheet entitled, “Distribute The Wealth.”

The worksheet was meant to teach the distributive property of multiplication and Bolling cautioned that it actually teaches kids in grades three through six to “distribute the wealth with a lovely rich girl with a big bag of money.” He told parents they need to read kid’s textbooks and “find out what is taught.” If a “bias” is present, he added, “explain it to your kids and tell teachers you’re on it.” 

Okaay, so now we have a liberal agenda infiltrating our math classes.

"Michelle Dresbold, handwriting expert and author of “Sex, Lies And Handwriting,” appeared on Fox & Friends to tell the co-hosts that Secretary of Treasury appointee Jack Lew‘s signature means that he is “compulsive” and that he “doesn’t want to give any information” at all about his personal life.
Although Law’s signature has been the subject of many a recent news piece, Dresbold took her analysis to another level, claiming that a “bunch of circles” that are “repetitive” mean that Lew “can’t stop.” His hand, she said, “keeps repeating and repeating.” What this means, according to Dresbold, is that “when he thinks about something, he thinks about it over and over again and can never let go.”

The Secretary of Treasury, based on his handwriting, has a compulsive personality.

"Appearing on CNN this morning, “Gun Appreciation Day” chairman Larry Ward said that if blacks had been armed, there never would have been slavery in America.

Ward’s group planned the appreciation day for the weekend of President Obama‘s second inauguration, and some critics have attacked the celebration for its proximity to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

“I think Martin Luther King, Jr. would agree with me if he were alive today that if African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country’s founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history,” Ward told CNN host Carol Costello."

There are no comments necessary for that one.

Finally, you gang- bangers are going to have to start thinking before you act.

"BURLINGTON, N.C. - Police in North Carolina say a deaf man was stabbed several times after his sign language was mistaken for gang signs by another man.

Burlington Police Sgt. Mark Yancey said 45-year-old Terrance Ervin Daniels was using sign language with another deaf man. He said a third person saw them, thought they were flashing gang signs and stabbed Daniels with a kitchen knife. A neighbour saw the victim and called emergency personnel.

Daniels is in stable condition at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill after Wednesday's incident.

Police arrested 22-year Robert Jarell Neal and charged him with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and felony assault on a handicapped person. He's being held in the Alamance County jail. It's not known if Neal has an attorney."

Mr. Neal, you might want to sign up (no pun intended) for some free sign language classes while you are in the slammer.

He thinks that the "tree of liberty" needs watering.

Wingnuts love the latest essay from FOX NEWS legal analyst, Andrew Napolitano. Mr. Napolitano wrote a passionate plea for the right to bear arms in the Washington Times.

The gist of his rant was that automatic weapons are needed to shoot tyrants and not just game. To Napoliatano, and others like him, the right to keep and bear arms "is an extension of the natural right to self-defense and a hallmark of personal sovereignty." He goes on to write the following: "it is specifically insulated from governmental interference by the Constitution and has historically been the linchpin of resistance to tyranny." That all sounds great, but I have a question for Mr. Napoliatano and the rest of his gun loving friends: Who, exactly, are these tyrants? Is it the government of the democratic party with whose policies they disagree? Is it their fellow citizens who they perceive as different?     

This is the danger extremist like Napolitano present. When you start throwing around words like tyrants when referring to a democratically elected government, the slope down to anarchy starts looking steeper and a little more slippery. You get guys like Gregory Gawrysiak who no doubt (assuming he knows how to read) would praise Napolitano's article.

Would Mr. Napolitano have written such a passionate defense of his right to bear arms if a republican government was in power? Somehow I doubt it. I know that poor Fred Hampton and the Panthers who armed themselves after his assassination would not have gotten his support.

"The principal reason the colonists won the American Revolution is that they possessed weapons equivalent in power and precision to those of the British government. If the colonists had been limited to crossbows that they had registered with the king's government in London, while the British troops used gunpowder when they fought us here, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would have been captured and hanged.
The historical reality of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms is not that it protects the right to shoot deer. It protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, with the same instruments they would use upon us. If the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had had the firepower and ammunition that the Nazis had, some of Poland might have stayed free and more persons would have survived the Holocaust."

There is an anti aircraft missile and drone detection radar coming to a trailer park near you. (Psst, wingnut, the government will not attack you with a gun.)  

 "As we have been created in the image and likeness of God the Father, we are perfectly free just as He is. Thus, the natural law teaches that our freedoms are pre-political and come from our humanity and not from the government. As our humanity is ultimately divine in origin, the government, even by majority vote, cannot morally take natural rights away from us..." [Article]

Yes, for Jesus loved his Uzi.





   

The Presidential Boys Club.

Joe Scarborough went on a rant this morning about what a chauvinist President Obama was because he did not have any women among his new cabinet appointments. His rant and tete-a-tete with his co-host  was sparked by that pic you see accompanying this post. 

 

Poor Mika Brzezinski almost lost her Starbucks and was furious that Joe Scarborough would imply that President Obama runs a boyz club and does not respect women. I wonder if Joe realized that other than Mika, he was talking to a room full of men. In fact, I have never seen any women working behind the scenes on Joe's show.

Scarborough, of course, cried double standard, and he went on to cry a river about Mitt Romney’s "binders full of women" gaffe and how the MSM ran with it.

Dude seemed genuinely outraged that Obama would get a free pass on issues of gender equality. Memo to Joe: First start by respecting your own wife before you start pointing fingers at his Oness for his dearth of those of the more feminine persuasion in his cabinet. (I see you Mr. and Mrs.Klausutis. I want to know what happened to your daughter as well.)

 

So anyhoo, skip over the next paragraph Obamaholics, I still have to slam your boy. Mr. President, I know that you have a much better record than your predecessor (and most republicans for that matter) when it comes to these issues, but optics is everything. The president has a way of defaulting to the Ivy League boys club, or going for the "safe" pic when it comes to these things. It's as if he is always afraid of having certain folks in America say he is hooking up his peeps. Honestly, I don't know why, they are going to hate him no matter what.  

 

But back to Joe and Mika. Joe proceeded to rip Mika a new one and dared her to say that he didn't care about women. He berated, scolded, and embarrassed her for five full minutes before she relented and basically said that Joe was a good Godfather.

 

"You really — knowing me and seeing me work around here for five years — you want to call me a chauvinist on television?” Scarborough asked, with Brzezinski replying that she wasn’t calling him that.

 

“I said the way you’re acting is chauvinistic,” she responded, “especially the way you were handling this conversation. It’s not funny.”  

Do I act like a chauvinist in Congress, the way I ran my office there, the way run my office here? I am a chauvinist?” Scarborough repeatedly pressed, as they argued and talked over each other. “Read your own book!”
“You can’t throw around attacks like that,” he said, “because you’re embarrassed about what Barack Obama’s doing.”

(Update: Later in the show, Brzezinski apologized to Scarborough, saying his “entire career” backs up the fact that he is not, indeed, a chauvinist. She reiterated her point that she disliked how Scarborough handled the segment.)" [Source]

 

In other words, Joe please don't fire me, I need those checks. Anyway Mika, you might want to reconsider the "entire career" part. Just ask Mr. and Mrs. Klausutis. 

 

Finally, speaking of women, it's sad that the lame stream media is ignoring the House republicans failure to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Yes, it expired on January 2nd of this year. It's sad, because the VAWA was a good thing.

 

"As the 112th Congress came to a close, wrapped up in the drama of the so-called fiscal cliff, it failed to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. It was the first time Congress has failed to do so.

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was enacted by Congress in 1994. Among its many provisions were tougher penalties for repeat sexual offenders, funding to train law enforcement in appropriate responses to domestic violence cases, and establishing the National Domestic Violence Hotline where victims can call for help and guidance. It focused attention on underserved groups of women, including immigrant and Native American populations.
VAWA created a federal rape shield law, which prevents a woman's past sexual history from being used against her in a rape trial. It provided economic relief to rape victims by mandating that they don't have to pay for their own rape exams.

Just as importantly, the enactment of VAWA publicly acknowledged the abuse suffered by hundreds of thousands of women every year. Not only did it put in place changes in how the legal system treated abused women, it was a statement that violence against women would no longer be met with indifference and ambivalence but would be prosecuted with vigor and diligence.
It was long overdue. The outcry against violence against women had reached a level that could no longer be ignored. The numbers didn't lie, and the Violence Against Women Act was enacted to combat them. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC): [Source] 

Joe, instead of the lack of women in O's binder, maybe you should have been talking about this

 

 

 

 

 

  

       

An American outrage, and and a new low for gun lovers.

I need to rant a little bit about the latest outrage in American sports: the dissing of Barry Bonds by baseball writers who vote to admit former major league baseball players into the baseball Hall of Fame. (Only three guys who died in the thirties will get in this time.) 36%??!! You have got to be kidding me!

Why, exactly, isn't the greatest baseball player of our generation not a first ballot Hall of Famer? But field, he used steroids, he was a one of the main players in what is being called the "Steroid Era" of baseball.

Oh Please!

I am sick of selective outrage and retroactive moralizing by these clowns who get to vote. (BTW, 36 voters voted to leave Jackie Robinson out of the Hall, so I guess we shouldn't be surprised at what this fraternity of dunces does with the power given to them by baseball.)  

Barry Bonds was a great player before the so called "Steroids Era", and when he allegedly started juicing he became superhuman. He would have been a first ballot hall of famer before he allegedly stuck the first Victor Conte needle in his ass. So what's the problem? If everyone else around him was juicing where is the competitive advantage? Do you really believe that Roger Clemens was the only pitcher allegedly juicing at the time? If you do, I have a wonderful antique bell with a slight crack on the side here in Philadelphia to sell you. 

Oh, and let's not forget, we idolize a racist who "once slapped a black elevator operator at Cleveland hotel for being "uppity," and when a security guard intervened, he [Cobb] cut the guard with a knife". He paid $100 to settle the case. He also beat up a disabled fan who heckled him from the stands in New York". What a guy. A drunk (Mickey Mantle), and thousands of others- such as Fergie Jenkins- who allegedly popped speed pills before games back in the day.  

So now I have to live with these self appointed morality police denying the man who gave me the greatest baseball memories of my lifetime his just due.

Sorry, every voter who left Barry Bonds off of his (or her) Hall of Fame ballot struck out today.

Finally, some folks just don't get it. Americans have every right to love their guns and advocate for their right to bear arms, but do conservative wingnuts really need to be having "Gun Appreciation Day" on January 19th, which just happens to be the day that Americans celebrate MLK Day?

"A conservative coalition has scheduled the first-ever "Gun Appreciation Day," calling on gun activists around the nation to rally in support of the right to bear arms.

Gun Appreciation Day is set for Jan. 19. Gun activists are asked to turn “out en masse at gun stores, ranges and shows from coast to coast" in an effort to rally against President Barack Obama's “post-Sandy Hook assault on gun rights," according to a press release on the group's website.

On 01.19.13 go to your local gun store, gun range or gun show with your Constitution, American flags and your 'Hands Off My Guns' sign to send a loud and clear message to Congress and President Barack Obama," the site's landing page urges visitors.

Said Gun Appreciation Day chairman Larry Ward, according to a press release announcing the planned demonstration, “If the American people don’t fight back now, Obama will do the Second Amendment what he has already done to the First with Obamacare – gut it without a moment’s thought to our basic constitutional rights.”

Gun Appreciation Day is scheduled to be held two days before Inauguration Day, when Obama will be sworn in for his second term as president of the United States. [Source] 

Don't say it; I know exactly what the rest of you Negroes are thinking.







  

 

The party of the extreme, and is a certain fat guy in Florida projecting?

Is there any doubt that a certain political party in Washington is becoming a bit extreme? Consider the following: A popular republican group has removed the word "Republican" from their title. The group formerly known as "The Republican Main Street Partnership" is now just "The Main Street Partnership".

I can't say that I blame them. I mean who would want to be associated with a political party that includes this guy? (Really Alex? The NYPD is a hit squad?)

"The organization's board of directors voted Tuesday morning to scrap party identification from its title and be known simply as "The Main Street Partnership." The group's new president, former Ohio Republican Rep. Steven LaTourette, told Yahoo News that he plans to begin conversations with Blue Dog Democrats and centrist groups in the coming months.

"The goal is to try and fill the void that is the middle," LaTourette, who resigned from Congress this year, said. "The American political system is like a doughnut: You've got sides, but you don't have anything in the middle, and it would be my goal to work with Republicans and Democrats who want to find the path forward to getting things done and compromise." [Source]

Good luck with that Steven. At least you have taken a positive first step.

Finally, speaking of crazy republicans,did you see where Rush Limbaugh said that liberals are seeking to "normalize pedophilia"? Now now Rush, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Let's just leave it at that.

MSNBC OR BET?

It looks like MSNBC is the new BET. You Negroes are starting to watch MSNBC in droves. (Tamron Hall is on MSNBC, so the field watches as well.) The good news is, of course, that it's a cable news channel, so maybe you Negroes will stay on top of current events.

And then there is FOX News; you Negroes sure hate FOX News.

"In that same time period, CNN grew its black audience by 23.7%(from 131,000 in 2011 to 162,000 in 2012, 23.9% of their total audience) , while Fox News’ declined by 23.7% (38,000 in 2011 to 29,000 in 2012, 1.4% of their total audience), but MSNBC had more black viewers than both of those nets combined (from 177,000 in 2011 to 284,000 in 2012, 31.4% of their total audience). What’s more impressive is that MSNBC attained 60% growth after being number one in that demographic last year, and the year before."

I can't say that I blame you Negroes for hating FOX.I mean they sure don't like you.

But the FOX people, to their credit, are smart. They have tapped into a huge segment of the American population. Is anyone surprised that FOX is usually number one in the cable news wars?

I bet the people who have been sending Jemele Hill racist letters are FOX viewers.

"ESPN Columnist Jemele Hill shared an alarming letter with her Twitter followers Friday, which she reportedly received after having made multiple appearances on sports radio show “The Herd” last year, according to the Grio.

In the letter (pictured), the disgruntled viewer refers to Hill as a “b*tch jungle bunny,” “spear-chucker,” and implores ESPN to terminate her “before she back slides into some ebonics-laden inarticulate mumbo-jumbo tirade.” To top things off, the anonymous man reveals he’s “not interested in spending all day listening to some thick-lipped gorilla attempting to properly speak the King’s English.”

Hill took the letter in stride on her Twitter account, commending the viewer for being racist without using the N-word. All in a day’s work for someone used to slurs frequently coming her way as a Black female covering sports.
“I get these types of letters every day,” she tweeted Adena Andrews, a writer for ESPNW. And there’s the show of support from colleagues in the journalism world to help. [Source]

Finally, I am not sure what this means, but there are now Django action figures for sale. Slave toys for sale. Oh the irony.













   

The new Nationalist, and a coach lies.

"The National Socialist German Workers' Party (German:Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (help·info), abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party (DAP), existed from 1919 to 1920. The term Nazi is German and stems from Nationalsozialist,^[6] due to the pronunciation of Latin -tion- as -tsion- in German (rather than -shon- as it is in English), with German Z being pronounced as 'ts'.
The party was founded out of the far-right racist völkisch German nationalist movement and the violent anti-communist Freikorps paramilitary culture that fought against the uprisings of communist revolutionaries in post-World War I Germany.^[7] Advocacy of a form of socialism by right-wing figures and movements in Germany became common during and after World War I, influencing Nazism.^[8] Arthur Moeller van den Bruck of the Conservative Revolutionary movement coined the term "Third Reich",^[9] and advocated an ideology combining the nationalism of the right and the socialism of the left.^[10] Prominent Conservative Revolutionary member Oswald Spengler's conception of a "Prussian Socialism" influenced the Nazis.^[11] The party was created as a means to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism.^[12] Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric, although such aspects were later downplayed in order to gain the support of industrial entities, and in 1930s the party's focus shifted to anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist themes.^[13]

I just thought I would give you, the reader, some information from Wikipedia about the Nationalist movement and its origins.

I also felt a need to educate you about the Nationalist movement in this country because of the recent pronouncements of a prominent conservative.

Michael Savage,conservative radio host, told host Aaron Klein Sunday, “We need a nationalist party in the United States of America.” The Tea Party, he said, isn’t cutting it: “They need to restructure their party. They need a charismatic leader, which they don’t have.”

Savage went on to underscore the notion that the Tea Party isn’t as strong as it could be because of a lack of leadership. “When you say Tea Party no one knows who the leader is because there is no leader,” he said. “No man has stepped forward who can lead that party.”

Unfortunately for Savage, he doesn’t think he could take the helm. He believes the role will require “enormous resources and enormous energy,” which he doesn’t have at his age.

The new party, he said, needs to be united:

Somebody has to bring them all together, unite them like King David did the ancient tribes of Israel. And there is no King David out there. Who’s the King David? Tell me who is going to do it?”

Saved blasted the current Republican party, calling it an “appendage of the Democrat machine.”

“It’s a game being played against the American people,” he said. “You’ve got the drunk Boehner on the one side, and the quasi-pseudo-crypto Marxist on the other, who is really just enjoying the ride in Hawaii right now, representing his factions.” [Source]

Someone should tell Mr. Savage that there is a nationalist party in America. He is upset with the Tea Party because they lack a "charismatic leader", but everything else is in place.

Still, I predict that the Tea Party will die a slow death after 2016. Why?Because Barack Obama will no longer be the president of these divided states. Sadly, I think that we all know what drove Tea Party passions over the past four years.  

The Nationalists know what drove it (the passion) as well.

So I am watching the Deadskins Seahawks playoff game, and I swear that Washington's coach is going to get RG3 killed. Dude is taking hit after hit and he is still in the game on bad wheels.

Now that we know that this same coach lied about RG3's condition and sent him into a game earlier this year, watching him lie there on the field just makes me kind of shake my head.

One thing we do know, with RG3 being the "good guy" that he is; we will not hear a single complaint from him.

Et tu, Google?

Another day in America, another mass shooting. This one was in a place that experienced a mass killing in what was supposed to be a safe place: the movie theater. Folks, please remind me to stay away from Aurora, Colorado.

So anyway, most of you know that I actually use a Google platform for my blog. I have been with Google for seven years, and I have visited their offices in D.C. and even met with some players for the company. Having said that, I got some disturbing news about Google recently and, as a result, I have to put them on blast.

"More than 7,700 people have slammed Google for hosting in its Google Play store the “Make me Asian” and “Make me Indian” apps. Asian-American groups and online users are urging Google to remove the racist apps from Google Play and stay true to its “Don’t be evil” motto.
Click here to view the petition.

Although Google has a Diversity@Google section on its website and a Diversity and Inclusion Annual Report including lots of “Googley” images and anecdotes about scholarships and internships and community philanthropy, we can’t assess its commitment to diversity and inclusion. Despite annual invitations, Google has never participated in The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity in the 13 years the survey has been in existence.

The free apps allow Android smartphone users to edit photos by adding “humorous” stereotypes that vary by app: They can darken skin color, change eye shape to an “Asian” slant or add ethnic accessories like an American Indian headdress. “Compare the results with your friends and laugh heartily!” writes app developer KimberyDeiss. “In few taps you can transform yourself and your friends in the real Indians, using different effects and settings.”
Both apps have been downloaded between 50,000 and 100,000 times.

Despite the “Make me Asian” and “Make me Indian” apps’ blatant use of offensive stereotypes, Google has refused to remove them from its Google Play store. The apps do not violate the company’s policies, Google told CNN.
Google’s hate-speech policy for developers states that it does not “allow the promotion of hatred toward groups of people based on their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity.” Because the apps are not “deliberately” offensive, they do not constitute a violation.

Washington, D.C.–based pastor Peter Chin, an Asian who was offended when he downloaded the app, launched the full-scale petition in reaction to Google’s inaction.......Chin says that “by choosing to allow these apps to proliferate on their branded Google Play store, they are implicitly normalizing these characterizations.”

Now he’s urging others to flag both apps as inappropriate and to tweet the following to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt: @ericschmidt Take the racist Make Me Asian and Make Me Indian apps off @googleplay NOW! #makemeasian

Additionally, users are voicing their outrage on the apps’ User Review pages: “What’s is fun for this app? I do not understand… It’s fun for white?” writes Hiro Tsukihiji. “Extremely racist app. I’m sure hipsters love this thing. I for one feel it’s racist. What will they come out with next a black face app?” writes Aaron Bollingmo." [Source]

Yes, Google might have some issues. A very well respected advocate for minority media  participation recently let it be known that Google has "many issues with minorities". As of last year they had zero minority editors.

Also, "equal employment opportunity was listed in their internal policies guidebook as one of six minor items, another of which is that it is a dog company not a cat company. And it was just a sentence or two.

And the big one: redlining in the provision of high speed broadband in Kansas City. The excluded neighborhoods were low and middle income minority neighborhoods ... This after getting large subsidies from KC MO and KC KS. They don’t even provide service to schools in those neighborhoods, putting the school boards at risk for violating the equal facilities mandate in Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act if they take the service that’s limited to schools in non-minority areas."


Google is a huge company, and the perception is that they are progressive when it comes to social issues. Personally, I am starting to have second thoughts.

Please send your suggestions about a good blogging platform to fnblg@yahoo.com 





 

N WORD UNCHAINED?

I sure hope that all those crazy GOP lawmakers like Tod Aiken and Richard Mourdock see what they started. This is not good.

So I had a conversation with a fellow attorney today about the movie, Django Unchained. (I still haven't seen it.) She happens to live in a very white area of the burbs and she told me that she took her teenage daughter to see it. The crowd in the movie theater, she said, was almost all white. She then told me that she walked out in the middle of the movie because she just could not take the constant laughter from the crowd every time the "N- word" was used. 

I just finished reading a post from TheRoot which reminded me of that conversation.

"2013 is going to be incredible, if for no other reason than because this will undoubtedly be the year the cultural discourse shifts from simple discussions of "race" or "racism" to the majestic land of "how we talk about and react to race in mixed settings." While ideas of a "post-racial" society are but a single cute step below thinking the world was going to end on December 21 on the "awwww, that's cute" scale, what we are in 2013 is post-"race and things typically associated with a single race existing only within that racial silo." Finally ...

As I left the theater after Django, it was interesting to see how diverse the crowd was, and, based on the conversations being had in the lobby, how they were all impacted in some way, whether it was by the violence or the language or the fact that it was simply a really good movie. I left the theaters feeling oddly proud of Tarantino for making such a thought-provoking film, while feeling the exact opposite way about Spike Lee for not giving Django a chance. I was slightly shocked at how numb I became to Leo's use of the N-word, to the point that I almost started to marvel at the bravado with which he uttered it. As for my "Django Moment," yes, there was the horrible foreign couple behind me that thought everything was hilarious, but mine came from a more unexpected place: the laughter that filled the room when Samuel L. Jackson and Jamie Foxx would say the N-word -- less like we imagine blacks would have in the 1800s, and more like they were two of the four Kings of Comedy ...

And in the world we live in today, where access to various modes of public expression is becoming increasingly accessible, the walls around "talking about race" are rapidly crumbling. Finally. And, just as a heads-up, if this makes you uncomfortable, if the idea of potentially offending someone is your greatest fear, or if you're content to discuss it like a simpleton, then 2013 might not be your year.

This, my friends, is the new apocalypse. Buckle up." [Source] 

It's funny that it should take a guy who got his black card because his mama slept with Wilt to bring on the "apocalypse".