Category: Society

Jay-Z Greatest MC of All Time?

MTV News – Jay, Nas, LL, More On Being The ‘Greatest MCs Of All Time’:

I can buy Jay-Z being #1 hustler in the industry. I can buy him being the most successful artist. But #1 MC of all time?!?!? Oh hell naw! Rakim, Kane or Biggie could eat him alive lyrically. Sinead O’Connor was right. It’s about the loot.

Rakim was on point as usual:

“It’s a blessing, man. Especially the road I took. I’m a conscious rapper. I try to stay away from a lot of things: Not wanting to cross over and go pop. Try to stay true to my roots and for them to bless me with that title. It makes it all worth the battle. It’s like the first time you sit down with the notebook, you want to be with the greats. I came up under Grandmaster Caz, Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee. I used to think, ‘If Melle Mel heard this, or if Caz heard this, what would he think?’ ”

Silent but Deadly

Black Americans quiet on Darfur crisis:

“There are other matters that slow black American involvement in Darfur.
For example, it is unfolding at a time when ‘black Americans have lost momentum with Africa overall,’ said Marie Clark Brill, a program and mobilization planner with Africa Action, a 50-year-old group that pushes for positive activism for Africa. Unlike the anti-apartheid fervor, which was spawned in an era when black Americans, still inspired by ‘Roots,’ were reaching out to build solidarity with Africa.
‘Now,’ said Ms. Clark Brill, ‘we see a disconnect with the continent because of HIV and other issues.'”

We need to be more concerned and involved. Ironically, the reasons we aren’t are because the issues though race driven are not black and white, so to speak, and they haven’t been cogently presented to stir up Black folk. Like Rwanda where black folk were killing each other based on ethnicity, its hard for the tragedy to play into viceral racial righteous indignation there, and I suspect something similar is going on here.

Notes from My Favorite Black Conservative

I wrote in defense of a friend on a mailing list who speaks as a conservative. Many were starting to ignore him, instead of taking him seriously. He thanked me and explained his position that I think we all need to heed.

Thanks Rob.
Let me also be clear, I am a conservative. That isn’t a role I am playing. I firmly believe that a healthy democracy is one that has different points of view aimed at each other and the collision of those views (debate) produces comprehensive, well-thought out policies that grants the rights that liberals fight for and the responsibilities that conservatives fight for.
I believe that we have been oppressed and downtrodden. I believe that there is latent racism in the fabric of our society. But I also believe that I am not going to stand by and have people even think one IOTA that our people are too weak, too frail, too incompetent, too unlearned, too poor, too demonized, and too unfortunate to put a pen to a piece of paper and write a masterpiece, put a finger to a keyboard and create a near-perfect Java script, or put their hands to a piece of metal and create an elegant automobile.
Thus, I firmly believe that despite the fact that we have racist, bigoted, rat-bastards out there controlling the means of production and the positions of industry, We have no excuse for not being the kings and queens we are supposed to be. It was in our bloodline dating back to our African Ancestors. Malcolm said it and he was the guy I was tryin’ to be like so I am just “payin’ it forward.” Look at Ken Chennault, Stanley O’Neal, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Barack Obama, Harold Ford Jr., Andrew Young, John W. Thompson (CEO Symantec), Milton Young (President United Way MA), Oprah, Iyanla Vanzant, Shirley Jackson, and the list goes on!
So I don’t want nobody’s damn welfare (my parents have been on it), I don’t want nobody’s damn affirmative action (so someone can disqualify my intelligence, potential, or capacity), I don’t want nobody’s damn quota (so I can be their damn trophy), and certainly I don’t want nobody’s damn pity (because I want my kids to grow up with some honor and dignity)
Despite the fact that we need some variation of those programs because there are those who are genuinely disadvantaged, I still know we can do a helluva lot better as a people than what we claim to be doing now. And it is not all DA MAN holdin’ us down. Not when you have folks actin’ like pimps, hoes, and hustlas and PROUD OF IT TOO!
So as the good conservative that I am here is the charge: let’s buck up, stan’ up, and make somethin’ outta nothin’ like our great grandparents used to do!
T (Tha DA!)
——————————————-
Taalib al’Salaam

A Disgrace of Governmental Proportions

heraldsun.com: 3 Duke students tell of ‘disgraceful scene’

“Anyone who knows that area, if you had a bus, it would take you no more than 20 minutes to drive in with a bus and get these people out,” Buder said. “They sat there for four or five days with no food, no water, babies getting raped in the bathrooms, there were murders, nobody was doing anything for these people. And we just drove right in, really disgraceful. I don’t want to get too fired up with the rhetoric, but some blame needs to be placed somewhere.”

I am beyond livid at this point. Kanye must be right. Bush must not really care about black people, poor people, etc. If three students can make it and take people out in a Hyundai, why not the world’s most powerful nation’s government?!??!?!! In a CNN interview, they reported EMPTY BUSES LEAVING as they made their way to the Superdome. Words fail me to describe this as anything but monstrous racism, elitism, or incompetence. Take your pick. It’s just as ugly.

American Family Association calls for Ford boycott – Jun. 1, 2005

American Family Association calls for Ford boycott – Jun. 1, 2005

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – A conservative Christian group is calling for a boycott of Ford Motor Co. for what it says is the automaker’s support of a pro-homosexual agenda.

The boycott was called by the American Family Association, which a week before called off a nine-year boycott of Walt Disney Co. (Research) which it had declared on the same grounds.

AFA special projects director Randy Sharp told the Detroit News nearly 55,000 people had signed a pledge supporting the boycott by Tuesday afternoon.

Ford (Research) provides health care benefits for same sex partners of its employees, as does General Motors Corp. (Research) and Chrysler Group, a unit of DaimlerChrysler (Research), according to the News. But the group said that it also objects to donations that Ford has given to gay rights groups and advertising it bought in programs at gay pride events.

“From redefining family to include homosexual marriage, to giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to support homosexual groups and their agenda, to forcing managers to attend diversity training on how to promote the acceptance of homosexuality…to sponsoring Gay Pride Parades, Ford leads the way,” said a notice on the group’s Web site.

Ford vice president of human resources Joe Laymon told the Detroit News that the company “values all people, regardless of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and cultural or physical differences.”

Tupelo, Miss.-based AFA told the News it e-mailed an announcement about the Ford boycott to 2.2 million supporters.

The group said last month that it was ending its boycott of Disney because of some signs of change at the media conglomerate and because, “We feel after nine years of boycotting Disney we have made our point.”

It also said that the problems that the group has with Disney have become “lost among the other battles being fought on a crowded cultural battlefield.”

The AFA cited the upcoming retirement of Michael Eisner as CEO, the departure of the founders of the Miramax film studio from the company as what it feels are positive moves at the company. It also cheered the decision by Disney co-produce a film based the book “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” by C.S. Lewis, which the group described as a “Christian literary classic.”

It said that Disney is reaching out to Christian groups to market the film, due for release in December.

No matter how much we dress it up. Bigotry is hatred.

Trash Picking Itself Up

Supreme Court Sides with Klan in Adopted Highway Program:

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court let stand on Monday a ruling that the Ku Klux Klan white supremacist group can take part in Missouri’s “Adopt-A-Highway” program in which volunteers pick up trash along the road and the state puts up a sign thanking the group.

Without comment, the high court rejected Missouri’s appeal of a U.S. appeals court ruling that declared the state had violated the Klan’s constitutional free-speech rights by rejecting its request to adopt a portion of a highway.”

Words fail me. Too surreal.

The Price of Freedom

washingtonpost.com: Supreme Court Says Federal Sentencing Guidelines Not Mandatory:

“The Supreme Court today declared unconstitutional a portion of the nation’s federal sentencing law and said that federal judges are no longer obligated to follow the controversial system of sentencing guidelines established by Congress in 1984.

The long-awaited decision, one of the most significant rulings in a criminal case in years, effectively converted the guidelines from mandatory status to advisory status, meaning that judges must consider them rather than necessarily follow them.

The greatest uncertainty today was the extent to which the ruling will permit appeals by individuals already sentenced under the guidelines.

The central problem with the guidelines, the court said in its 5-4 decision, is that they allow convicted criminals to have their sentences increased on the basis of facts that are unproven before a jury in court.”

Some will complain about judges who make law as being out of control, “activist” judges who pervert laws. However, few seem to grumble when legislatures restrict the ability of judges to do their job, that is, to judge. It seems they might prefer to weaken that our government’s system of checks and balances to attain ends they find suitable. However, these folks might want to re-examine their thinking.

Without “activist” judges, there’d be no Brown vs. Board of Education, for example. They stand between the tyranny of the majority and the freedom of the minority. (I mean that both ways!) And if that means a felon gets his/her sentence reduced, well that’s we must be willing to pay that price. Freedom is seldom free.

Have Negro Will Travel

It would seem that TheStateOf.com put Armstrong on blast for that Leave No Child Left Behind stunt even with the apology. It’s shills like this that supply black conservatives with the credibility they currently enjoy.

Exploitation by the So-Called Protectors

BBC News – New York’s HIV experiment (PDF Version)

This outrage had me seething, folks. What is being done to defenseless children in New York City is no different from the Tuskeegee Experiment. The city’s Administration, big pharmaceutical companies, even the Catholic Church all have a hand in this. Sometimes, I am completely flabbergasted and bewildered at the evil people can commit to benefit themselves and their interests. Once again the voiceless and the most vulnerable are targeted and exploited.

What’s also shameful is the ineptitude or deliberate ignorance of our own press. This report comes to us from the BBC! I’m reminded of John 3:20, “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed.”

Make Love Not War

Yahoo! News – Army Defends Baghdad Battle That Left 16 Dead
This article is a rare glimpse into what war is like even for those who might stand on moral high ground. War is hell. War is evil. It certainly isn’t surgery. And this is why it can never, ultimately win against terrorism. It can defeat an enemy, but not a tactic or a motive, i.e. hatred.
The day after the Towers fell, I saw a sign on the road that read “Kill All Towel-heads.” It didn’t discriminate or hurl rage at terrorists, it hurled a racial epithet. Would any Iraqi who lost someone in this tragedy, who is caught up in the same grief and rage we were, really think any different about us? Tragedies like this recruit for an enemy who needs hatred to gain recruits.
Terrorism is like a grease fire for military might. What usually would put out the fire, our superiority, actually causes it to spread. My heart goes out to the soldiers who have to bear the weight of this conflict and to the thousands Iraqis who are lost in grief. Hopefully, we can let love prevail and defeat the hate that fires terrorism and heal wounds such as these.