Tag Archives: Blacks

How the Rich Folks Get Away with Murder

People have to wake up to the privileges of the rich and famous people in the world. The Poor, lower class across all race should stand as one against the formidable forces of the rich.  You have more power than you think but you have to stand together.  This is injustice that no one is talking about.pot injustice

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/michelle-alexander-white-men-get-rich-legal-pot-black-men-stay-prison

Sean Diddy ought to stick to what he is good at

Obviously, he is not a man of critical analysis or he would not come out with the stupendous statement that President Obama shortchanged black people.  President Obama and first Lady Michelle Obama have done a hell of a lot for the American people including black folks.  He was not a Black people’s president, he was the President of the United States of America and he has done a lot and could have done even more if his hands were not tied by the stalemate of the American Senate.

Celebrities like Sean Diddy who have a voice and a presence in American society ought to be more responsible with their words because ordinary folks believe the crap.

http://www.diversityinc.com/news/diddy-black-voters-obama/?utm

http://pleasecutthecrap.com/obama-accomplishments/

America’s lingering shame of the way it still treats Blacks

It makes me mad, sick and tired of racist Americans who are bent and determined to destroy one of the best Presidents America has ever and will ever see. Barack Obama is a man of principles. Perhaps he is too honest for Americans. They really are not accustomed to such honesty and care from a President. He is a man who is not faking how much he cares for Americans because he does and it shows. And because he is doing so well, the  devils in the midst are confounded and confuse. They try everything to humiliate the man but as Maya Angelou says so beautifully in her poem ” Ands still I rise…”

Americans of every stripe should stand up for justice and equality and stop simpletons like Donald Trump to attempt to dehumanize the President of the United States of America, to try to psychologically lynch another Black man. But Trump you will not win because you are not in Barack’s league, physically, mentally or socially. Barack is not a gutter rat. He has class and beauty, so stop haranguing the President. You will not prevail.  If the Republicans want another loose cannon to run against Barack in the next President, they may be wiped off the ballot completely this time.

Goldie Taylor articulated my sentiments – this you must watch

http://www.jamaicans.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1225985&page=1

“Show me your papers!”

Major Blackard, then just 19 years old, dug into his trousers in search of his wallet.  He patted his jacket, but could not find his billfold.

“Sir, I done left my wallet…” Blackard said.  Before he could finish his sentence, the young man was posted against the brick wall, cuffed and taken to the St. Louis city jail. Unable to prove his identity, he would spend the next 21 days in a cramped, musty cell.  That’s where his older brother Matt found him, beaten and bloodied.  Matt returned with Major’s employer later that day, wallet and identification card in hand, to post bond.

The year was 1899. Major Blackard was my great, great grandfather.

The real crime, as Pulitzer Prize winning author Doug Blackmon points on in his seminal work Slavery by Any Other Name, was that my grandfather was a colored man in America.

This morning, as White House staffers handed out copies of the president’s long form birth certificate, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something very ugly was going on.  For the first time in recorded history, a sitting president of the United States found it necessary to produce his original birth certificate for public inspection. Not once, in 235 years, have we ever demanded proof that our president was born on American soil……

http://goldietaylor.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/%E2%80%9Cshow-me-your-papers%E2%80%9D/

Blacks in Latin America – Four-part Series – Dr. Louis Gates

Latinamericans generally present themselves as one big happy family where everybody is equal and there is no discrimination. However when you look  beyond the veneer a different picture emerges. Blacks and the Amerindians  are generally the poorest in these countries, they are generally at the bottom of the social and economic totem pole while the white skinned occupies the top. Why is this?   One of the countries in South America where I believe that Blacks fare the best in terms of equality is Cuba. But in  many of the other countries the blithe of Black racism and discrimination is very present.  It is only in recent years through rap lyrics the issue of racism in Latinamerica is addressed. It is why I am pleased that Dr. Louis Gates is taking a closer look at Blacks  in these countries and we know how thorough the man is.  Don’t miss this 4-part series on PBS. Let us see what Dr. Gates will uncover.

(excerpt of article from Savoy Magazine)

Latin America is often associated with music, monuments and sun, but each of the six countries featured in Black in Latin America including Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico and Peru, has a secret history.   On his journey, Professor Gates discovers, behind a shared legacy of colonialism and slavery, vivid stories and people marked by African roots.

12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World during the Middle Passage.  While just over 11.0 million survived the arduous journey, only about 450,000 of them arrived in the United States.  The rest—over ten and a half million—were taken to the Caribbean and Latin America and kept in bondage far longer than the slaves in the United States.  This astonishing fact changes the entire picture of the history of slavery in the Western hemisphere, and of its lasting cultural impact.  These millions of Africans created new and vibrant cultures, magnificently compelling syntheses of various African, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish influences.

Despite their great numbers, the cultural and social worlds that they created remain largely unknown to most Americans, except for certain popular, cross-over musical forms.  In his new series,  Professor Gates  sets out on a quest to discover how Latin Americans of African descent live now, and how the countries acknowledge—or deny—their African past; how the fact of race and African ancestry play themselves out in the multicultural worlds of the Caribbean and Latin America.  Starting with the slave experience and extending to the present, Professor Gates unveils the history of the African presence in six Latin American countries through art, music, cuisine, dance, politics and religion, but also the very palpable presence of anti-black racism that has sometimes sought to keep the black cultural presence from view…..

http://savoynetwork.com/henry-louis-gates-jr-uncovers-latin-americas-african-roots-in-new-four-part-series-black-in-latin-america-premiering-tuesday-april-19-at-8-p-m-on-pbs/

Blacks are moving down south

 

Blacks are moving back to their roots in the south. What does this mean? Have Blacks arrived? Are they enjoying  the subburban quietude that Whites appear to be addicted to or are Blacks moving to where the grass is still looking greener.  Whatever the reason, it is great to see people heading home to be role models for those they left behind and help their communities to grow and prosper with the new skills and resources they take with them.

“The notion of the North and its cities as the promised land has been a powerful part of African-American life, culture and history, and now it all seems to be passing by,” said Clement Price, a professor of history at Rutgers-Newark. “The black urban experience has essentially lost its appeal with blacks in America.”

During the turbulent 1960s, black population growth ground to a halt in the South, and Southern states claimed less than 10 percent of the national increase then. The South has increasingly claimed a greater share of black population growth since — about half the country’s total in the 1970s, two-thirds in the 1990s and three-quarters in the decade that just ended.

The percentage of black Americans living in the South is still far lower than before the Great Migration in the earlier part of the last century, when 90 percent did. Today it is 57 percent, the highest since 1960.

“This is the decade of black flight,” said Mr. Frey. “It’s a new age for African-Americans. It’s long overdue, but it seems to be happening.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/us/25south.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

Blacks have to get off the fence on homophobia

Sometimes when we deny people their humanity we push them in a dark closet and when they are kept in that closet they sometimes do bad things to themselves and others.
 
This is an opportunity for Blacks to speak up and support the basic human rights of their homosexual, transgendered and two-spirited brothers and sisters amongst us.  Where is the love?  If you are Christian where is the love of God?  What is driving your chariot people, is it hate or love.  One of the most compassionate things we can do for another human being and to be fully human according to the gurus of the past and the most brilliant spiritual minds of the planet, is to want more for others than we do for ourselves.
No one is asking you to change your sexual orientation, all this community of people and the civil society are asking is for you to show your humanity to all people.  People deserve to be who they want to be regardless of what we might think.  We are not asking you to approve something that is illegal for adults to do.  Adults ought to be free to engage in loving relationships with other adults.
What eats your goat?  Those of you who are so against this, what is it to you?  What are you afraid of? As yourself the question and you will see that your fears are groundless.
 
For blacks, refusing to champion the civil and human rights of people with different sexual orientations be they asexual, transsexual, homosexual, bi-sexual or two-sexual, these are not sex objects but human beings deserving the same freedoms as adult humans in our society.  Remember when Blacks were dehumanized and robbed of their rights, remember how that felt? How did you feel?  Did you feel human? Did you think it was right that others labelled blacks less than human and therefore deserved less rights that they accorded to their lap dogs and cats? No it isn’t right and there were many people including homosexuals who stood up and fight against the dehumanization of Blacks.  Those who know the pain must not be silent, God would not want that.  God is love and we are part of that divine, so let us love.  If being of a different sexual orientation and expressing it is wrong, then let us leave that for the Master to decide, let us focus on why we are here having this human experience to love everyone and want more for everyone. 
Lord make me an instrument of that peace, where there is hatred let me sow love. 
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
 

Sad Day in Louisiana for Drowing Deaths

BBC News – Why don’t black Americans swim?

 This should be a wake-up call for new immigrants in Winnipeg.  There are opportunities in Canada for newcomers and under-privileged people to learn to swim. Take advantage of this privilege that the community offers.  I have to say it, Winnipeg is one of the best and caring communities ever.

   The Immigrant Women’s Association of Manitoba, Inc. with the help of provincial funding and partnership with the YM-YWCA used to sponsor free-swimming lessons for  newcomer children and their parents. This program was quite successful. Many of the young people later became coaches, helping the younger ones in the pool. It is for this same reason, to save lives that IWAM thought of this program. It was a pro-active move. The program was later taken over by another agency. I’m sure there are programs abound in Winnipeg to facilitate swimming for everyone. We are living in water country and children are attracted to water like duck. I thank the people of Winnipeg who help those who cannot swim to learn to swim. It can save lives.

    It is heart-rending reading the story of the six boys who tried to help each other and all ended in the same place, under the water. This could have been avoided. I am afraid the aftermath of racism and discrimination percolates long after we believe things are better now.

Blacks forget their struggle for human and civil rights?

Blacks in the United States of America should think twice before joining the band wagon in trying to deny any group of people their basic human rights.

   It is okay to disagree with the lifestyle of other but it is not okay to deny others their rights because of your conservative beliefs.

   Many blacks use the bible to denounce the GBLT community forgetting that it is same bible the slave owners and colonials had used to put blacks in a separate category of servitude.  How soon we forget.  It is not our place to dictate the way others should live their lives.  We all have one life to live and it is not right to cheat a person out of their way of expressing that life.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the 50-year-old civil rights organization founded by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others, is seeking to remove the president of its Los Angeles chapter in response to his support of same-sex marriage in California.   Dr. King would have been disappointed with the short memory of the black population.  More than any other race you Blacks should have a deep appreciation for the human rights of others.  It took Blacks more than 300 years to get that right and even today it is on shaky ground.  Think about that and then see whether you could open your heart to help another group get their rights.

Read the story of a little boy who took his life because he was called “gay”: