Eco.Soul.Intellectual

It's 2012 And I'm Still Talking Shit

2012-01-30T01:10:00.000-05:00

Like all of us, life happened and I had to take a break. And a needed break. But sometimes writing is like your workout regimen that you put on hiatus and some days can't figure out how to start again.

So many topics that I wanted to talk about have flown by since my last post in 2011; however, I got writer's constipation. There was so much shit to say, but I didn't release it, so here I am stuck with this heap of thought.

So let me tell you about an incident I had that has metaphorically released my mental bowels. A spiritual colonic if you will. Yes, it sounds quite disgusting, but it's my truth.

This past weekend I met Field Negro by happen-chance in DC. He asked me why I had stopped blogging and told me that he like my writing. #EcoBlush

He also thought that I was a dude for a long time until my die-hard blogging brother Rippa told him I am straight up chica. #Superecoblush

I told Field Negro my dilemma and he just encouraged me to simply write.

So today, I am writing to free my locked fingers. Give me some time, I am a little rusty.But damn, it feels good to get some of this shit out of me.

As Jill Scott says,"Wide open, wide, loose like bowels after collard greens"

Goldie Taylor Speaks Out About Her Abuser Amid PSU Sex Scandal

2011-11-15T22:48:00.001-05:00

The veil has opened Americans to an open secret, we have neglected the safety and sanctity of our children. There is a saying, "You can measure the state of a nation by looking at the state of its children."

The Penn State sex abuse case is only a small morsel, a mere dot in the countless molestations that are happening to children around me.

When I was a substitute high school teacher, I had a young man who was a confide in me one day out of the blue. He rarely came to school every now and again. For reasons that I still am not sure, he came to me after class and told me that he was having a lot of issues at home that surrounded the re-emergence of his mother's old boyfriend --- a man that physically abused her, and sexually abused him.

I told him to wait as I got some information and people to help me, but he left, and I never saw him again. I think about him every now and then. I wonder what happened to the young man. Did he make it? Was he consumed?

And this is just one story that I've heard. Women and men who have both been molested at the hands of relatives or close friends during years in which we are most vulnerable. I still can't wrap my head around why adults prey on children in such a sick fashion.

What happened to make these people decided to rape a kid on that day? I really don't understand the insanity.

On the flip side, the response by people seeking justice after the eruption of the PSU debacle is one step in confronting old wounds that still fester. For example, political correspondent, Goldie Taylor, revealed a long-hidden secret via Twitter yesterday. She admitted to being raped by a coach while she was in high school, a man whom she named as Pat Sullivan, and a man who still coaches girls.

I am in awe at Goldie's courage to vocalize something she has held within for so long. I am also saddened at the depths of abuse children must endure.

Here is the blog entry by Goldie Taylor who is now pursuing legal action against the sick fuck who raped her and as Taylor admits, other young ladies.

Naming him.

Pat Sullivan.

I will never forget his name.

He was my abuser.

Somewhere inside, I feel a deep sense of shame, regret. Not for what he did to me, but for never telling anyone. There were other victims, I know. I knew some of them. They were my school friends.

Angel was about the same height and complexion as me. It seems he had a preference for short, light skinned black girls. Girls who were 16. Maybe he thought that was enough to save him from statutory rape charges. I will never know.

What I do know is this. Sullivan was a high school football coach in St. Louis and he preyed on young high school girls. What he did to me changed my life. And I will never forgive him. Normandy High School. 1984. I was a varsity cheerleader.

For the record, I am not brave. I didn’t tell my mother. Didn’t tell school administrators or call the police. I couldn’t. I fell into an ocean of despair. I stopped going to school and, when I did, I laid my head down on my desk. Maybe I asked for it, I told myself.

I am 43 now, with children of my own.

I have decided to tell my story tonight on CNN with my friend and colleague Don Lemon. It is possible that I will do other interviews, and may write about it more fully in this space and/ or on theGrio.com. I am not sure how much I can do. The old pain is new again. But if I can help someone else tell their story, if one abuser can be stopped in their tracks, then I am good with that.

I survived. Not unscathed. But I survived. I am grateful for that. But today, I am praying for the other young women who may not have…

Oh, and Pat Sullivan… sue me. I welcome it.

Grimm Day for Occupy Wall Street, Jay Z Compared to Hood Rat, Called Scrotum for Pocketing Off of Movement

2011-11-14T13:54:00.001-05:00

Jay Z has no shame in his pimp game.

Priscilla Grimm, I agree with you for taking Jay Z to task on his exploitative actions regarding the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Selling t-shirts that are pulling from the moment of OWS protestors and not donating a dime is cause to Put His Ass on Blast.

Jay Z is an over-rated rapper who has stepped on a lot of toes while climbing on the shoulders of many to get to the top and sticking his dick in very interesting holes. But let me be clear.

A lot of "celebs," both black and white have been stopping by Occupy Wall Street for Anachist cred. Then as fast as they arrived, they have traveled back to their nice housing and relatively excluded lives, while many soldiers have been pitching tents in snow, shit, and with homeless folk who have been forcibly planted by local enforcement as a diversion.

The pimp-like moves of notable 1 percenters have been something I pointed out when Russell Simmons and Kanye West brought their tired, raggedy assess on the stroll a couple of weeks ago. Namely, Kanye wearing a pricey gold chain, and Simmons not being called out for his Rush Card follies. The Rush Card was a pre-paid credit card venture targeting people of color, poor people and the youth, that promised to assist people in building credit, but was a sham that overcharged card holders and didn't build shit but Uncle Russ' portfolio.

Priscilla Grimm

But just like West and Simmons, celebs such as Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore squatted for two seconds and bounced back to their "humble abodes". Betcha Mike is going to use footage without giving you shit but a shout out.

Also, Priscilla, I wholeheartedly reject you arguing that Occupy Wall Street is the most important social movement since Civil Rights. Your pompous assumptions is what we call in the hood as having your flat, "Ass on Your Shoulders".

You see Priscilla, while you were dry grinding to "99 Problems" in the club, or your mother was finally learning how to do the Cabbage Patch to "Baby Got Back" the both of you's were dancing to a social and cultural movement that even has you using its vernacular. Hip Hop.

Today you can't go 10 minutes without a commercial or a news anchor using hip hop vernacular or a popular movie blaring the latest hip hop song as the backdrop. Hip Hop used to be that black shit that those type of people did. Today, everybody talks the lingo, wears the dress, wants to fuck Kanye, or singing "Black and Yellow". Hell, even the Jews have stake in it with their wonder-rapper Drake.

Now if you want to talk exploitation, let's have a conversation in which we bring the important social movement to the table that pre-dated your shit by about 35 years.

In fact, the audacity of hip hop and its radical roots is intertwined in your shit too, Shawty.

Don't get it fucked up. Occupy didn't just fall out of the air, it is a continuum of protests that have been occurring since Civil Rights. It would've been well noted if you could have called Jay Z out for pimping out another social movement pushing for progress as we simultaneously exploits a musical genre that changed the social, political and cultural climate of America. A little information for your Negrophile records, hip hop that was played at one pointed blatantly challenged the status quo. However, you are a little too young in your Suburban education to know that. Oh yes, I am assuming.

This is why I disagree with your description of which you used to castigate Jay Z. As you said he had "the political sensibility of a hood rat"; however, I will challenge you two meth addicts and throw in an Oxycontin abuser that you don't even know that a hood rat may fuck a lot of dudes in the hood, but that doesn't mean she can't read or isn't politically astute.

Priscilla, Jay Z didn't just fuck for beats to get all of that dough. His is quite political, just not how you like it. And your urban jab actually confirms why some folk aren't feeling Occupy Wall Street's over-educated, White lean. But I guess you are speaking with the sensibility of an Sub-urban Rat that is simply the left side of a vulva.

And in the words of my alter ego, a hood rat from South Central, "Occupy these nuts, bitch."

Distributing Gaddafi's Gold Backed Billions: To the Warmonger's Goes the Spoils

2011-10-25T11:54:00.000-04:00

Let us get this fact in stone. War is about profit. War is not about freedom, or independence.

Frankly, if you want to know where the 1% make most of their money, it is in the killing fields.

War might start with great intentions of radical change, and all that great kum-ba-yah shit, but war is about money, power and greed. Fuck human life, or any life.

War, when it is presented as the only rational step for a person, people or nation, it is positioned as the vigor of hope.

War is an ecological and environmental disaster.

War is a fucking nightmare, especially for vulnerable populations such as women, children, and those who cannot relocate away from conflict areas.

War is crafted as an illusion filled with religious spook-ism that is akin to black Americans thinking that Abraham Lincoln was a saint who really wanted to free enslaved blacks because slavery was wrong.

On the contraire mes amis. Got Profit? Get War! It reaps the biggest coffers.

With the recent killing of Colonel Gaddafi, Libya's president, the profiteers who crafted this fake war are experiencing a total come up.

All the while, the NATO-backed "rebels" who participated in what was more of an ethnic cleansing (specifically black Africans) and a grotesque destabilization of the most developed North African country, are sitting with dusty missiles and AK47s, celebrating a win-less victory because they haven't a goddamn clue on rebuilding.

So what type of revolution was this, and why was it supported by Western Powers if it was disorganized and ran by these abstract radicals?

Gaddafi's billions sure as hell are not going to be re-distributed back to Libya, and certainly not those rebels. Though they might get a couple of tons of Viagra, Newports, and Schlitz Malt Liquor.

Gaddafi's billions sure as hell will not go into the multiple development projects throughout Africa that he funded throughout his tenure as president. Or to some great fund like AIDS research in Africa.

Matter of fact, there has been very little information as to where all of those frozen assets in Swedish banks will end up. Saif al Islam certainly will not get a pence of a Libyan dinar.

For your naughty little information, NATO has already billed Libya for the drone planes, the 10,000 bombs dropped on civilians, supplying millions in war arsenal to "rebel soldiers" who fought in flip flops, ragged robes and sandals.

One of the bills that must be paid is the $186 million for the Tomahawk missiles that were dropped. And that's just one invoice. So I guess it's safe to say that Libya will be paying out the rectum for the next 100 years.

Western news identifies these sandal-footed soldiers as some of the rebels that took over Gaddafi compound in Sirte.

And guess who's coming to dinner to fix this mess that those sand niggers couldn't fix? Big Brother Haliburton, and his Black Water bullies.

Have you ever wondered how the US got into this madness. One day it was Osama, then it was Sadam, then it was the North Korean cat with the bad toupee, then it was Fidel Castro, then it was Ahmadinejad, then Egypt, then Ahmadnejad again, then Gaddafi pops up out of the blue. Hunh?

And as people were moaning and groaning about how Obama was getting fucked by racist, homophobic Republicans, Indian-giving Democrats, bad house Negroes in the Congressional Black Caucus, and Cornel West, somehow, we forgot about the shit that was going on in Libya.

If we would have paid more attention to Libya, we could've allowed a hugh power shift that would've helped all of us 99ers.

I don't know if you knew this, but Gaddafi was one of the richest men in the world. Not in comparison to an impoverished Africa, or from a third-world perspective that terms hood-rich as having a Mercedes rolling through dirt roads of some village with naked, starved children.

Dude had major cheese.

Women in Bamako, the capital of Mali rally for Gaddafi in March 2011.

And it was through his money that he funded some of the most sustainable, beneficial projects in Africa, and in some cases, some of the most controversial political movements in the world. Earlier in the year, Western press cited that he has "poured billions" into some of the most impoverished African countries, yet he is described as "eccentric" in the next breath. So what does that make Bill Gates who poured billions into condoms and vaccinations into Africa, a fucking loon?

Then again, America funded the oil-rich barons-turned-despots, Osama bin Laden and Sadam Houssein at one time, so uhhh, please don't cast stones.

Gaddafi supported and pushed for serious, radical economic changes in all of Africa that would implode the inequitable global power structure. I wrote about one months ago when the Libya thing just was getting started. Gaddafi was pushing for African countries to use gold to back their currency, or use the gold standard.

Do you know how that would've dismantled every damn dollar and Euro? Unbeknownst to many Americans, the US hasn't had gold-backed money for almost 100 years when it began circulating more paper money than gold around 1917-1918.

Another initiative was Gaddafi's push for a United States of Africa. Whoa. I thought they said Africans couldn't get shit together because they were always fighting and raping women?

By now, some of us should be aware that when media all over the world disproportionately vilify a person, a movement, or a country, get ready, it is about to go to shit. Look at Wikileakes. They are silently getting murdered.

With that said, I encourage everyone to do as much inquiry about the movements of Gaddafi, good and not so great. But if you know anything about running anything, especially a country, and even a church fashion show, you never come out crisp and clean, or holier than thou.

And as I read in disgust the manner in which he died, I am certain that these so-called rebels also were doped with the local opiates cultivated in the nearby poppy fields in Pakistani and Afghanistan; or perhaps the bottles of Viagra and Vicatin courtesy of Western pharmaceutical companies.

Nevertheless, I feel for Libya, they are the ones who will really experience a sodomy in fuck-level proportions they aren't even prepared to receive. Not only will NATO control the sophisticated industries that Libyan government has developed under the "dictatorship" of Gaddafi, but they will use this country as an AFRICOM headquarter to direct military imposition on the Middle East.

Get ready Iran.

Moamar Gaddafi is laid alongside one of his sons and a high-ranking military officer as family members view the corpses before the bodies are burned at an undisclosed site. I must note that this is Western reports that I cannot confirm. I hope Gaddafi's soul can rest in peace because Libya will not.

64-year-old Grandmother Percolating at the Breast Cancer Walk

2011-10-17T23:44:00.001-04:00

My people's at Seventy Sixes made an inspiring video about their participation at the Breast Cancer Awareness Walk, but the blog Bossip attempted to take credit and cut their video short. I am so glad that the spirits put some mean mojo on that trifling site because because the video didn't show.So I'm pasting the full length here. Dear Bossip, please give credit where it is due. Fuckers

Occupying the Hood Takes on the Hood?

2011-10-13T15:15:00.001-04:00

I'm still wondering if anyone thought about jacking Kanye West for his gold chain as he visited protestors at "Occupy Wall Street". Perhaps snatching out his blood diamond prosthetic teeth after he put on a multi-million dollar fashion show during fashion week?

Getthefuckouttahere.

And did anyone question Russell Simmons about those exploitative bullshit Rush Cards he pimped on people?

Because those two are part of the 1%. Multi-millionaires who have the luxury of globe-hopping, ho-hopping, and dick-riding with a Black card and private jet. Yes, the 1 percenters gotta have some affirmative action.

And though Russell Simmons does 20 downward dogs a day, he can still be an asshole and a capitalistic pig; just one who drinks wheat grass and can do a Chinese split in a 108 degrees Bikram Yoga room.

Point in case, someone criticizes John Lewis at an Occupy Atlanta rally saying that he is like one of us, and he chastises the general assembly plus calls the critic a dickhead. Really Russ?

And I'm just wondering why did these "grassroots" actions call for bodyguards?

With that bit piece, I must explore #Occupythehood Movement. So, what am I going to do there? Trek up to Marcy Projects and look at how big the rats have gotten? Beat down the owner of a bodega? Do a reality TV show on an immigrant slinging chilled mango pops and tacos?

What I'm saying is that we already occupy the hood. The world is a goddman ghetto and poor folk and people of color are the tenants.

Interestingly, I hear this debate, or perhaps I should say criticism about black people not being involved. Black folk been protesting since before this #Occupy Wall Street. In fact, this current occupation is just a continuum of political, social and economic agitation that pockets of people have been conducting for years.

Do you remember the groups down in Florida occupying abandoned homes that they were kicked out of due to foreclosure and homelessness. This shit ain't nothing new, but part of the process of a change long in motion, and long time coming.

What poor folks and folks of color can do is help are newly underprivileged understand the mysteries of iniquity. Rule #1 keep it moving, even when it seems like no one is listening, they really are. But you gotta keep it pushing.

FYI, there has been an occupation going on in Newark, NJ before any of this. Protestors of all colors have been committed to demanding economic justice in America. Right now on the steps of the old courthouse on Market Street in Downtown area, you can catch about half a dozen folk, without cameras, getting it in.

I'm just saying....
@OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street from adele pham on Vimeo.

Despite Mainstream Media White Out of Weeklong Protests in NYC, Marchers on Wall Street for Second Week

2011-09-24T16:03:00.001-04:00

Comedian Roseanne Barr, rappers Lupe Fiasco and Immortal Technique join thousands who are participating in "Occupy Wall Street" a protest against the Wall Street Bailout, government spending, 9-11 controversies, skyrocketing unemployment, war and other issues that have left many Americans frustrated and disgusted with the current state of affairs.

What did Gil Scott say decades ago, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

I guess the US is trying to avoid a London-esk rebellion, or perhaps, attempting to incite one; however, this is class struggle at its best.

Photo by Jeff Pra

An article by Activism Suite 101 Reads:

Occupy Wall Street enters its second week amid talk of mainstream media blackout. Celebrities and American heroes have been showing up in New York, lending their support and hoping that their presense will galvanise the big name news outlets into reporting on the protest. The latest rumour is that Eminem has indicated he is on his way.

The Academy award winning rapper won't be alone. An estimated 1,000 - 2,000 people are anticipated to join the march, at noon on September 24th 2011, including people from Liverpool, in Great Britain. Their ship is due to dock in New York City ahead of the largest gathering yet.

Lupe Fiasco and Immortal Technique Join the March in NYC

Chart-topping rappers Lupe Fiasco and Immortal Technique have both shown their support for Occupy Wall Street this week. As well as marching with protesters through the streets, both men mingled with the crowds gathered in Zuccotti Park (renamed Liberty Plaza by those occupying it). They signed autographs and each stood up to speak to those assembled.

For more of the article click here.

A friend of mine shared beautifully, vivid images that protestor Jeff Prager has shared. I do not hold any ownership to the these photos, these are Mr. Jeff Prager's. I'm just getting word out.

Photos by Jeff Prager

What Does Healing Look Like?

2011-09-22T09:50:00.000-04:00

Final Letter from Troy Davis

To All:

I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.

As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand. I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy. I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.

I cannot answer all of your letters but I do read them all, I cannot see you all but I can imagine your faces, I cannot hear you speak but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world, I cannot touch you physically but I feel your warmth everyday I exist.

So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated. There are so many more Troy Davis’. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.

I can’t wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing,

“I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!”

Never Stop Fighting for Justice and We will Win!

Eco Soul's Thoughts

Ironically, during the execution of Troy Davis, an innocent man murdered by the State of Georgia in the United States, this is Peace Week.

Peace Week brought together contemporary peace workers from all over the world who engaged in the concepts and practices of peace various facets of our lives. From fromer Watts gang member Aqeela Sherrills, to healing Native American dancer Grandmother Beatrice Long.

As a matter of fact, while the final prayers to wrap up Peace Week were going on, the US Supreme Court was handing down the death sentence for Troy Davis.

Nevertheless, this question of "What does healing looking like?" and "What does peace look like?" are questions that kept emerging in the dialogue.

I am still chewing on these questions, and when I am removed from an intellectual answer, I use my parents and grandparents and other forebears' tactic, put it in a simple sentence.

Peace is knowing that there is a space to resolve disruptions and conflict, and healing is a space committed to manifesting alignment and recalibration.

Troy Davis' life served as a moment that has millions of people questing this un-aligned, off-balanced cosmos. And the questions are internal, meaning, WE are asking ourselves, "How can I be the one who is the healer, the peacemaker, the element of change?"

And I would like to thank all of my folk around the world who tapped into these questions, and continue to push themselves, and thus others, to be about healing and change.

Thank you for this sacred moment of elevating Troy Davis' soul, and elevating your spirit. Troy Davis lives!

One, and blog on.EcoSoul

Need a Job? Go to Prison, They're Hiring - - - The Big Business of Prison Labor, the Privatization of Public Incarceration

2011-09-21T17:00:00.000-04:00

The Prison Industry in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery?
by Vicky Pelaez
Global Research
El Diario-La Prensa, New York
March 10, 2008

Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic – are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.

There are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country. According to California Prison Focus, “no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens.” The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but only 5% of the world’s people. From less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten years ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to reports.

What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners?

“The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself,” says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being “an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps.”

Call center located in an Arizona prison.

The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. “This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors.”

According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.

CRIME GOES DOWN, JAIL POPULATION GOES UP
According to reports by human rights organizations, these are the factors that increase the profit potential for those who invest in the prison industry complex:

Jailing persons convicted of non-violent crimes, and long prison sentences for possession of microscopic quantities of illegal drugs. Federal law stipulates five years’ imprisonment without possibility of parole for possession of 5 grams of crack or 3.5 ounces of heroin, and 10 years for possession of less than 2 ounces of rock-cocaine or crack.

A sentence of 5 years for cocaine powder requires possession of 500 grams – 100 times more than the quantity of rock cocaine for the same sentence. Most of those who use cocaine powder are white, middle-class or rich people, while mostly Blacks and Latinos use rock cocaine. In Texas, a person may be sentenced for up to two years’ imprisonment for possessing 4 ounces of marijuana. Here in New York, the 1973 Nelson Rockefeller anti-drug law provides for a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years to life for possession of 4 ounces of any illegal drug.

Prisoners at work from the Gwinett County Jail

The passage in 13 states of the “three strikes” laws (life in prison after being convicted of three felonies), made it necessary to build 20 new federal prisons. One of the most disturbing cases resulting from this measure was that of a prisoner who for stealing a car and two bicycles received three 25-year sentences.

Longer sentences.
The passage of laws that require minimum sentencing, without regard for circumstances.
A large expansion of work by prisoners creating profits that motivate the incarceration of more people for longer periods of time.
More punishment of prisoners, so as to lengthen their sentences.

HISTORY OF PRISON LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES
Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of “hiring out prisoners” was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition.

Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else’s land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery – which were almost never proven – and were then “hired out” for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of “hired-out” miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972.

Florida is seeking bids from private companies to take over management of 30 state prisons in an 18-country area in South Florida. The “fastest privatization venture ever undertaken by the state of Florida” is an effort by Gov. Rick Scott (R) to save the state money by outsourcing prison oversight to the lowest bidder:

During the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws were imposed on every state, with legal segregation in schools, housing, marriages and many other aspects of daily life. “Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry complex,” comments the Left Business Observer.

Who is investing? At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. (I have added more to Palaez' compilation)

IBM
Boeing
Motorola
Microsoft
AT&T Wireless
Texas Instrument
Dell
Compaq
Honeywell
Hewlett-Packard
Nortel
Lucent Technologies
3Com
Intel
Northern Telecom
TWA
Nordstrom's
Revlon
Macy's
Pierre Cardin
Target Stores
Unigroup (maker of denim jeans)
MicroJet
Nike
Lockhart Technologies, Inc.
United Vision Group
Chatleff Controls
Eddie Bauer
Planet Hollywood
Redwood Outdoors
Wilson Sporting Goods
Union Bay
Elliot Bay
A&I Manufacturing
Washington Marketing Group
Omega Pacific
J.C. Penney
Victoria's Secret
Best Western Hotels
Honda
K-Mart
Kwalu, Inc.
McDonald's
Hawaiian Tropical Products
Forever 21
Burger King
"Prison Blues" jeans line
New York, New York Hotel/Casino
Impereal Palace Hotel/Casino
Starbucks

Guess who was cleaning up the Gulf spill? Prisoners.

Don't hate BP hired them, while you were unemployed.

Crisp Country Solid Waste Management Authority
"No Fear" Clothing Line
C.M.T. Blues
Konica
Allstate
Merrill Lynch
Shearson Lehman
Louisiana Pacific
Parke-Davis
Upjohn
Heinz-Wattie
Living Earth Co.
Gala Gardens
Layton's Linen Hire
Morro Holdings
Encore Tech.
Peek Displays
New Zealand Post
Ideal Print
Royal (NZ) Foundation for the Blind
Packaging Specialists
Taylor's Group
Cortex Group
Premier Bin and Pallet Supplies
Price McClaren
Stages
Larson's Concrete and Drainage
Calix Nursery
Garden City Composting
Southern Seeds Tech.
Christchurch City Council
Fresh Direct
Fergusson Services

All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month.

Inmates and documented Mexican workers packing melons in Cali.

The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call “highly skilled positions.” At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.

Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.

Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that “there won’t be any transportation costs; we’re offering you competitive prison labor (here).”

PRIVATE PRISONS

Women inmates work on computers

The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton’s program for cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates.
Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private prison administrator in Virginia, “the secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners.” The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences reduced for “good behavior,” but for any infraction, they get 30 days added – which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost “good behavior time” at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons.

IMPORTING AND EXPORTING INMATES

Reno sanctioned privatized 5 prisons

Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals.

When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits.

According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state’s governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits.

After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 – ending court supervision and decisions – caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering “rent-a-cell” services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.

STATISTICS
Ninety-seven percent of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes. It is believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority are awaiting trial. Two-thirds of the one million state prisoners have committed non-viol

Troy Davis and Georgia's Brutal Legacy of Racial Injustice

2011-09-21T08:15:00.000-04:00

Protest for the conviction of an innocent man named Troy Davis who is scheduled to executed 21 September 2011 in the State of Georgia. Up until press time, his clemency has been denied and he is scheduled to be killed by lethal injection this evening. ***Read about protest in New York here.****

When European officials are petitioning for the State of Georgia to repeal the death sentence and the good state of Georgia tells'em to fuck off, you know the situation we have here is code blue.

A state teeming in ignorant policies where ultra-right ignorant conservatives agitate and mobolize an uninformed republican base, and crush a docile democratic bloc, Georgia is the state where the G8 meet in the once black-owned islands off it's coast that were stolen several decades ago so the rich can play and plan their internal revolution.

Yes, Martin L. King is crying in his grave, but he is not shocked. The injustices he knew in Georgia made him, and others.

For those of you around the world who are trying to understand how Georgia, and ultimately, the United States, can allow the execution of Troy Davis, an innocent man, let me tell you all about good ole, Georgia and the national prison industrial complex.

When the International slave trade was abolished, it was illegal to transport African people across the Atlantic Ocean to be enslaved in the New World. However, the Brunswick Sea Port in Georgia snuck in boatloads of African people for decades to be absorbed into a brutal system that kick-started America, and several European economies.

Today, there still exists a silent slave system funneled through Georgia, and all of the US. It is the "Justice" System. Georgia, like many other states, continued to use a system of slavery in its prison and jail systems to illegally fund corporations and banks who are etched into the fabric of policy, politics and the economy in the U.S.

From this ..... Union Soldiers in the Civil War.

It is not these ignorant Tea Party people hooting and hollering about shit they've never read. They are just the puppets and political fodder for a bigger agenda of which they will never reap the rewards.

To this ... Prisoners building US railroad tracks, the real US stimulus.

This neo-slave system is called the prison industrial complex, an industry so HUGE that it is one of the top trading institutions at the New York Stock Exchange. Who needs green energy when you have people of color and poor people working for 5 cents an hour. And no, this is not Thailand, this is homegrown sweat shops all in the name of "crime.

In the US, incarceration is supposed to be a place for rehabilitation, or at the very least, for those committed to understand their crime as they "pay" for the offense. This tactic has been said to help quell the criminality of a person, yet, the criminal justice system criminalizes inmates, and promotes recidivism, instead of "rehabilitation".

In December 2010, black, white and Hispanic prisoners in Georgia prisons waged a strike to expose the corrupt and failed incarceration system in the State of Georgia with demands such as: decent living conditions, adequate medical care and nutrition, educational and self-improvement opportunities, just parole decisions, just parole decisions, an end to cruel and unusual punishments, and better access to their families.

However, their strike proved to be unsuccessful because no one wanted to stop the flow of making money off of people, who for the most part are in jail for non-violent crimes.

A disproportionate number US inmates are incarcerated are for drug crimes, especially rock-cocaine that is also known as crack.

Not murder or shooting shit, like the US media wants everyone to think.

Now, if these people are being locked up for non-violent crimes, you would hope that it would be incarceration of the small group of the country's population who were the main profiteers of corporate embezzlement, corporate greed, presidential warmongering, and tampering with evidence to "prove" that all these "terror factions" are out to get us like boogeyman to validate why the US needs to go to war with . . . damn near the whole world while babies are starving here and people are being displaced.

But it's not, the people who are in jail, don't have the money to be bailed out for cocaine binges in the White House, or turf wars in Libya over oil and water rites. These are people caught in a system akin to its predecessor, slavery.

The U.S. has less than five percent of the world’s population, but accounts for almost a quarter of its prisoners. Disgusting.

And here are some other dismal facts to understand why the greatest country in the world with all these liberties that everyone hates us for is all smoke and mirrors.

The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street.
Reports show that crime has actually decreased in the U.S.; however, the rate of incarceration has skyrocketed.
Georgia is the ninth most populous state, but has the fourth-largest prison system in the U.S.
As a black person, you are 8 times more likely to go to jail/prison in the state of Georgia.
From 1870 until 1910, in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black.
Georgia spends US $18,000 a year to warehouse each inmate, but US $3,800 each year for students in K-12 grades.
One in six black men have been incarcerated as of 2001.
About 10.4% of the black male population between the ages of 25-29 have been incarcerated.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2.3% of all African Americans are incarcerated.
As of 2003, the population of incarcerated individuals exceeds 2,000,000.
African Americans are one eighth this nation’s population, but make up almost half the locked down, that is 1,000,000 black people currently incarcerated.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, property and drug offenses account for 76.4% and 56.4% respectively of crimes by individuals admitted to Federal and State prison for the first time.
In the State of Georgia, 77% of the offenses leading to the first conviction and 79% of the offenses leading to a second drug conviction involved less than one gram of controlled substance.
Since 1981, the nation’s prison population increased more than 450%.
As of 2010, private corporations house over 99,000 inmates in 260 facilities nationwide, with the large majority of them held by Corrections Corp. of America exclusively.

The Epic Fail of Black Bloggers is that We'd Rather Gossip than Rally to Truth, Information and Justice

2011-09-20T11:02:00.000-04:00

If Troy Davis is murdered tomorrow, or the next year, or at anytime for a crime he did not commit, than a part of all of us will die. There is something about the killing of innocents that steals the humanity of the world one death at a time.

A slow drip to hell, and we are all falling.

However, many will not give fuck. Dying a little inside seems to be the accepted norm, as long as we can read bullshit blogs and blog entries.

I am still trying to understand why we salivate on gossip rumor blogs and entertainment blogs, but passover informative articles that can save lives, ours included.

We can comment on Ray J and his fake two-piece, or some cross-dressing, booty popping police officer getting head by Mr. Cee while taking ass-shots at the West Indian Day Parade, but pass on engaging in intellectually stimulating conversations that regard our future.

And when the shit drops in our face, we want to scream and holler, when all we had to do was read and engage in news, politics, policy and economic blogs.

Is there some type of mind control going on through these Internet screens, or are we that removed, that brainwashed, that complacent, that far gone?

I hold us all accountable, me included, for failing the literacy and intellectual development of the black blogosphere.

Fuck me and fuck you too.

Blog on, fucking idiots.

Troy Davis and the Wheels of Injustice

2011-09-13T10:50:00.000-04:00

Troy Davis by Lavar Munro e, artist/activist.

Capital Punishment in the United States is like serving Schlitz Malt Liquor at a five-star wine and spirit tasting.

It is that toothless, barefoot, stinking Uncle Jethro spitting tobacco in the pristine white porcelain handwash bowl during a five course gourmet meal.

Not saying that being pristine and white are the sweet Victorian elixirs of utopia, but the fact of the matter is . . .

The death penalty just doesn't belong. It is an antiquated, ineffective, answer to crime prevention.

Capital punishment is an ugly stain on the cloth of humanity; especially when the wrong people, in this system, are dying.

Maybe the death penalty is more like a moral and venomous contrast. You have this principle called justice, infrequently being carried out.

In the United States, poor people and people of color are more than likely to be convicted, given tougher, longer sentences, and face the death penalty more than anyone else. And you and I both know, criminality is not based on social status or race, though some institutions coin it that way.

As in the current case of Troy Davis, a Georgia-man facing execution on September 21, is fighting an uphill battle even though overwhelming evidence shows that he has been found guilty for a crime he did not commit. To have been a young, black man in a working class, black community, indicted by vengeance-seeking (predominantly) white cops, in the South, is nothing short of a pick-a-nic(igga) moment.

What is pick-a-nic(igga)? When a black person, more so than likely, a black man, is randomly selected to "pay" for the frustrations of an ignorant few who have power to inflict pain without any consequences.

To isolate the stark injustices of Davis to just race and gender can be dangerous; but to point out that disproportionately, black males are given tougher, longer sentences is factual.

Historically, in the United States, capital punishment has been used to satisfy an irrational blood lust of a volatile group who have the privilege to try and convict people of color, and poor folks, on site.

It started out when indentured servants or slaves were not working like their masters wanted, and they were punished by death. Hell they were expendable.

It moved to black men who accused of doing something heinous like whistling at a white woman, were pulled from jail cells by locals and hung from a tree.

It evolved to things like forcing newly arrived immigrants to fight in Revolutionary and Civil Wars, while the rich hid in their mansions, thus fueling racial riots in New York, while some folk got rich off of war coffers.

It has now become local law enforcement satisfying their caveman, over-privileged power, so that when the real powers that be, need for shit to be enforced, the law officers will comply. Kind of like giving a dog some good steak, so they can fight for crumbs in the future, before they get terminated.

Some call them lynch mobs, or kangaroo courts, but I'll term it as American Gangsters. And I'm not talking about Frank Lucas, or any of those lightweights you see on Black Entertainment Television.

The real American Gangsters come from a long line of systemic order that designs an event to validate and mete out physical, political, cultural, and economic assassinations, while the real murderers, the real thugs look at it with glee on the sidelines and collect power and money.

Kind of sounds like a mega-corporation, conglomeration, or sort of, kind of like a complicit Head of State. The murder of innocents seem to be big business.

But just like the blood lust culture of the United States, Troy Davis' case is the epitome of "someone must pay."

Sylvester 'Redd' Coles

Since Davis' conviction, ~~six~~ seven out of nine witnesses have recanted their original testimonies in the trial, citing that they were coerced by interrogators at the Savannah police department.

Most of the witnesses were teenagers at the time of the interrogations, and have all said that they were placed under serious pressure, some of it physical or intimidation of threats of jail.

Nine witnesses have provided affidavits saying that a man named, Sylvester 'Redd' Coles actually killed Savannah Officer Mark MacPhail. One of the witnesses is an actual relative of Coles and has reported that he has been ostracized and threatened by family members since he has come out with his testimony.

Ironically, Coles is one of the witnesses who said Davis did shoot MacPhail, and has not recanted.

As well, the State of Georgia still hasn't presented any physical evidence linking Davis to the murder of Officer Mark MacPhail, thus calling into question the witnesses' testimonies that are now have change drastically.

Nevertheless, Davis is serving as the sacrificial lamb. Or more like an offering to some Satanical order. Perhaps its just sweet boys-n-blue justice---the cops are always right, even when they are wrong.

These officers don't realize that the justice in the death of MacPhail has now grossly been denied due to their own actions and ignorance.

An eye for an eye just keeps two sides blinded to the fact that the systemic issues of injustice are still churning.

Wine, Juke, Roll and Gunshots at West Indian Day Parade

2011-09-06T10:58:00.001-04:00

I know revelry. I know booty bouncing to NOLA music during Mardi Gras. I know Crop Over fest with the Bajans who are unbleached and down-to-earth. Junkanoo in Bahamas. Shit, I've even partied in the Akara festival in Nigeria. And at all of them I danced until I almost passed out.

However, running to prevent from getting popped in the poon poon has never been my objective.

But three years ago, I made an oath to myself that I would never attend another West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn when I almost lost my shoe from running away from a stampede.

The next day I heard someone got chopped with a machete and of course they were shooting.

I have to shake my head. My West Indian Folk are taking this Wild Wild West shit to another extreme. Carnival in Brooklyn is now a cross between a bad day in a favela and a heavy metal rock concert. According to news reports, 48 people were shot, 8 of the shootings ending in death, 2 of them were cops, and in a 24-hour period, 24 people were shot.

I'm sorry, that shit is unacceptable. And if they didn't put West Indian in front of parade, you would've thought it was us regular cotton pickers. But, not today, the Caribes represented like a muhfucka. When they say "lik shot" on di soca song, it doesn't mean to bust a cap.

Okay my West Indian massive, lemme school you on something you may not know about America. You see America operates very well with division. For the past decades, America has divided people of African descent with one of their tactics by saying that one group has a "better" culture than the other. Or that black Americans don't have any culture, while other black people from other countries could come to the US and thrive because of a strong sense of cultural self.

Native blacks were stereotyped as lazy, criminals, and deviants. And one of the reasons was because of a pathological cultural-less existence.

Then there were those who perpetuated the myth (meaning niggas), and those who believed (meaning migratory niggas).

It's just like European immigrants. As each came to America, the various groups were labeled as the new niggers until they were knighted into whitedom. Polish, Italians, Irish, Eastern European Jews, Russians, you name it, had to fight for their validity. Then they all settled into a prescribed white Americanness mixed with the cultural remnants of the home country.

What people don't see in the hybrid existence is the liqueur of Americanness that poisons the sensibilities. It ghettoizes some, while paving roads for other groups. And as a result, the American dream for blacks immigrants results in a few who make it, while the rest are absorbed into poverty and inner city blues or create a West Indian/African version of a ghetto.

The children of children whose parents migrated, get lost and caught up in being half of one world and half of another, and nobody can make much sense of the madness that comes with hybrid identity. The most disturbing part of it all is that, the dominant culture doesn't give a fuck if you are from St. Lucia or St. Louis, you are just another nigger with a funny accent.

From a persona stance, you kind of don't fit anywhere. You are too black to be a true American, and too American to be a true West Indian; however, these children have the thickest Caribe accents I've ever heard, as they bounce between patois and the King's English.

And they are not national accents that distinguish an individual from Antigua, or Trinidad, or Haiti. Everyone just sounds, West Indian. What the fuck is that type of accent? Ask Nikki Minaj or Foxy Brown, they perform it very well. Seen.

You can't also ignore the fact that a culture of violence is bubbling overboard in countries like Jamaica, Trinidad, and Nigeria. A manifestation of globalization at its best --- the have not's of the country still not having, but still wanting what they think every one in the "rich" world has. Of course, violence, and how it becomes a part of reality has a deeper explanation. I know, I know. Just throwing a bone out.

But my W.I. massive remember that the tap of Americanity you drink is laced with a reality that you are sipping a deathly elixir that is so sweet, you don't know that you are slowly dying.

Jobs Feed Families, Speeches Feed Bullshit

2011-09-02T10:33:00.000-04:00

I never cared for missionaries who went to starving countries with a bible in one hand and a nasty, bland biscuit in the other. But that was one effective tactic in expanding certain religions.

People didn't get baptized because they wholeheartedly believed. They allowed themselves to be submerged in muddy waters so they could eat.That is basic survival behavior. If you can't kill the people who hoard all of the food then join them.

And in missionary style, the Congressional Black Caucus members gave fiery speeches about the broken state of the Union while thousands grumbled in the hot sun donning their best church and business outfits. Though many of the them sucked their teeth with speeches that are a dollar late and a day short, they did so to finally get an opportunity to take part in the job fair that followed.

But in the flaccid-like movements that the CBC have garnered a reputation for doing, the job fair, if you would call it that manifested as a huge fail. According to fair-goers, the job hunt was a distant second to the photo ops and politricking. A number of booths were not even hiring, but just handing out literature for future availabilities.

One of the few businesses interviewing on the spot was McDonald's. And not for corporate positions, for fries frying and burger flipping.

CBC, you have got to do better. Once you do better, you will have more sway in forcing Obama to play a better hand. We don't need anymore goddamn preachers telling us what's good for us when CBC members are barely present in their own districts.

We need action, and we need jobs. And that's justice.

Dammit Uncle Omar, What Fuck Did You Do Now?

2011-08-31T05:47:00.045-04:00

Onyango Obama known as Uncle Omar to the POTUS. I hate these mug shots, but its the only photo I have of Unc.

There are two facts in African-American families. One, we keep a closet-full of secrets that only come out when someone gets drunk at Christmas dinner or a barbecue. And when the secrets come out, people's insulin packets, oxygen tanks, and 1970s wigs are flying all over the place.

Usually, the perpetrator who reveals this sensitive information is a relative that never quite made it. A familial flunky that you prolly dodge in public, and try hard not to converse with at family gatherings. That is, if they can scrimp up the bus fare to make it to grandma's house.

It's that relative that makes you say under your breath, "Why the fuck they show up?" Because they haven't done anything, but put their hand out to ask for a favor or a dollar.

Like Uncle Omar, the long lost kinfolk of our beloved POTUS who seemed to have gotten a little too tizzy this week, resulting in his arrest for drunk driving.

Taking a page out of Rick James' post-binge performances, Uncle Omar told the cops, "Do you know who I am? I'm Obama bitch! Now put me on the phone with nephew. Church beyotches."

What? Recession is hard on a black man. Thank the Lord he wasn't caught with a crack pipe. You would've really heard a whole bunch of ish coming from all these salty, impotent haters.

Are you saying a brother can't deal with recession like the good ole' fighting Irish do in Boston and throughout Massachusetts? Do you need green drawers, easy-to-burn skin and red hair to get shit-faced on a weekday?

I got a proposition for Uncle Omar: Come down to Newark and have a Guiness Stout with Booker. On me.

And since, I am an equal opportunity historian, I have to mention that George W. Bush and his twin daughters would get fucked up on the regular, while taxpayers would dish out tens of thousands of dollars for the Secret Service to drag the second and third generation drunkards back home. Hence this little news tidbit.

President Bush's 19-year-old twin daughters were charged Thursday with underage alcohol offenses after an incident in a popular restaurant known for its Tex-Mex food and ice-cold margaritas.

It was the second alcohol-related citation against Jenna Bush in less than five weeks. Police accused Jenna Bush of attempting to buy alcohol with false identification and Barbara Bush of being a minor in possession of alcohol. (USA Today article)

At these arrests, I could just hear the echoes. "Do you fucking know who my daddy is? I'm going to tell my father and he is going to have your ass, mister," said George to the police officer. "Ohhh, you are gonna get it. But uhh, do you have any of that white horse for my stuttering problem? And Kanye West on your itunes."

Now don't forget the are other secrets that were kept, like Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary Cheney who had a son with her partner, Heather Poe, a woman she had been with for 15 years. After gasps started bubbling in the Bush/Cheney constituency, Mary told the press to eat a d!ck. It was her prerogative and not a political agenda to have a baby. Not even a TMZ feature on it. Interesting Mayr, I wonder if you said that to daddy as he backed cutting reproductive health funding?

So I ain't hatin' on Uncle Omar. Cash in your chips, bruh. Or drink the finest millet beer and tip off with the baddest, tootheless white chick in South Boston. Your nephew is the president. You's a boss.

Though I doubt Barry really cares much about a guy I know he told to lay low and shut the fuck up due to his immigration status was funny; nevertheless, the POTUS will do something if not now, then later.

And I know Barack is shaking his head, once again, about his daddy's side. And it had to the black side of all sides. But brother, we all got that one side of the family that makes us say, "Uhm, uhm, uhm" every time we get a call from them, or mama telling us about the latest drama.

For real, Barack needs to take some pointers on what some African-American families would do about this situation.

They would bail him out, have a family intervention consisting of fucking him up, then fucking him up again. After that they would make him go testify at a Pentecostal church and get prayed over so the demons can go pouring out. Then get him baptized again. Afterwards, they'd fuck him up some more. Then feed him some chicken, macaroni & cheese, and peach cobbler. And if he still don't act right, send his ass down South to get regulated by Bubba and them.

A Pardon of Marcus Garvey Apparently Would Break America's Bank

2011-08-28T15:23:00.002-04:00

I know who shook the ground and brought the fire waters to the east coast. The earthquake and hurricane were the spirit of Marcus Garvey trembling in disappointment.

He kicked the sediment of the shores on the East and churned the Atlantic Ocean yelling, "Fucking Bumbaclot" just after after the Obama Administration denied a posthumous pardon request by Jamaican-American attorney Donovan Parker.

And rightly so. After all the work he did for people of African descent everywhere, the most powerful brother in the world, who happens to be the most powerful person in the world (or at least figure head), cannot extend a simple gesture of justice.

According to the Jamaica Observer, Parker was "flatly rejected" for a pardon that would absolve Garvey's guilt of being imprisoned for mail fraud for $25 bucks.

Yup, 25-muhfucking dollars. But if you read the intricate and potent politics of Garvey, you would understand why his legacy is quashed by the powers that be and why $25 was nothing compared to the multi-million dollar, million-plus membership he had spanning across the globe in pockets where people of African descent lived.

As quiet as its kept, the Civil Rights movement couldn't even fuck with the dough (especially black dollars) generated through all facets of the UNIA.

The Gurgling Toad

But the reason for the "fuck off" response was simple. America is crying broke.

However, the Administration has shelled out $600,000 for this ugly ass sculpture that I swear my 5-year-old niece could do a better job designing for only five dollars.

According to the letter, there aren't enough resources to investigate pardoning an icon who plays critical role in global political shifts in issues around post-colonialism, industrialism, and the emerging thought-politics of Pan-Africanism.

The letter basically says, that the Negro is dead and been dead. Let's just let this all go. Shit ain't relevant today. It's kind of like the Caucasian who cries, "I didn't own slaves. Why should I be held accountable. Hey, I'm not a racist man."

The rejection letter reads:

Many posthumous pardon requests would likely be based on a claim of manifest injustice, and given that decades have passed since the event and the historical record would have to be scoured to objectively and comprehensively investigate such applications, it is the Department's position that the limited resources which are available to process requests for Presidential clemency -- now being submitted in record numbers -- are best dedicated to requests submitted by persons who can truly benefit from a grant of the request," Rodgers replied on behalf of Obama, who is the first black president in the history of the United States.

Now let me remind you, or inform you, Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Associated had millions of dollars in bonds and donations from countries and statesmen and women, including black notables who also raised money for the organization.

Garvey didn't believe in the pauper prophet appealing to the guilt of others to fund his cause. He believed in black dollars and he knew that economic force always made a better chess player on the board of global political assertion.

UNIA Parade in Harlem

The UNIA paper, the Negro World, was banned in numerous countries, including Costa Rica, Antigua, Panama and Dominca for its political posturing of Africa for the Africans. For example, the UNIA sponsored a strike in Guatemala and Panama for workers of the United Fruit Company to increase their wages.

Or perhaps you would know about the Black Cross, an emergency response team of nurses that helped black people throughout the Caribbean in natural disasters, health issues, and other crises.

To date, the UNIA remains the largest black global organization in history, and positioned Diasporic blacks into the black American and American politics.

But before I continue to talk about America's raggedy ass, lemme point out that Garvey is considered a national hero in Jamaica, but still hasn't been pardoned for being arrested in his homeland. Get your shit together bumbaclots. Worried about the pardon in the States, focus on the issue in your backyard, Yardie.

It were West Indian infiltrators cooperating with the FBI who eventually aided in taking down Garvey, as well as selling the UNIA two bullshit steam liner ships that were broken down. Mr. Warner and Mr. Grey, you are rotting in your graves along with Agent 800 (Please read a Negro With a Hat by Colin Grant). But best believe there were African-Americans in the mix.

But as Garvey said in an interview with the Pittsburgh Courier, a phrase he echoed that is reminiscent of Harriet Tubman (not Allen West). I'm paraphrasing this one, but she spoke of Negroes, even the ones in the Caribe, who didn't know or cared to accept that they were slaves and craved to be like their former masters or be with them on the plantation. Garvey comments:

From early youth I discovered that there was prejudice against me because of my colour, a prejudice that was extended to other members of my race. This annoyed me and helped to inspire me to create sentiment that would act favorably to the black man. It was with this kind of inspiration that I returned from my trip to Europe to Jamaica in 1914, where I organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League.

When I organized this movement in Jamaica it was treated with contempt and scorn by a large number of the highly coloured and successful black people. In Jamaica the coloured and successful black people regard themselves as white. This is also true of the other British West Indian islands. The result is that racial movements tending to the betterment of the Negro have to undergo great difficulties. Such difficulties I encountered with the new organization. I labored in Jamaica with the hope of making the movement successful for two years. Seeing how difficult it was to succeed with only a limited amount of money at my disposal, I communicated with Dr. Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee. He encouraged me to go to the United States on a lecture tour and promised me his help. Unfortunately he died before I was able to reach America.

But lemme get back to the Obama Administration. Obama and his tired verboseness that aroused so many is now sickening. Full of rhetoric and empty promise.

I know we stand on the shoulders of those before us, so it is safe to say Garvey's work added to Obama's Diasporic arse being in office. Definitely got dad over here to put that African mojo on Ann Dunham.

But like the cold and bullshit response I got when I wrote Obama Administration about black unemployment, these letters fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. The people who decide what letters are relevant are absolutely ignorant. I mean, who gives a shit about a negro who dressed in fancy military clothes and assisted in economic and political issues for black people around the world.

Obama surrounds himself with people who gives a fuck about humane issues. What an impotent and foolish reason to reject such a monumental response as pointed out by Calvin G. Brown in what he calls a pardon fiasco.

Nevertheless, this doesn't absolve Obama's complicity as a head nodder on this issue.

Not enough money Obama?


Artist Chuck Williams

This is so interesting because America made a shit load of money from neutralizing Marcus Garvey and the UNIA. In fact, the notorious FBI boss, J. Edgar Hoover cites his "work" on shutting down the UNIA as the template for neutralizing progressive and black organizations.

Garvey was Hoover's first case in creating what was to be called COINTELPRO, an intelligence system directed towards radical groups and progressive groups that were operated by people of color, poor people's movements and radical white folk.

Garvey was the government's intelligence agencies' guinea pig, and as we know, Hoover's tests proved that in fact, his sadistic tactics were somewhat effective. Until the Mafia showed Hoover a picture of him in his infamous tutu, ballerina slippers and lipstick to postpone his derailing of Kennedy and taking down Italian underground organizations who occupied the ports of the United States.

But I have to go back and mention one more thing regarding Obama Administration's flimsy excuse of not having resources. I know we are in a recession, but what an interesting time to shout "Broke".

I had to do a really quick budget review in the Obama Administration to see if researching the request of a pardon would over-utilize resources in the case of Garvey.

$550 Million in NATO airstrikes in Libya
$1.2 Billion on Biking and Walking Initiatives
Almost $800 Billion in Military Spending in 2011 Alone (with a global troop presence of 500,000 soldiers in 150 countries)
$600,000 on a Frog Sculpture with a Fairy Riding It's Back at the Pentagon
$100 million to support programs in Afghanistan aimed at moving former insurgents off the battlefields and into the country’s mainstream economy while Democracy is struggling in the United States.

Damn shame.

Don't forget the habits of a snake Obama. They will always bite.

And don't get it twisted, let's hope that we won't be writing anyone for your pardon one day because they way folk are treating you, people won't even put a food stamp on your history.

Maxine Waters' Gasoline Soaked Granny Panties

2011-08-25T07:12:00.003-04:00

I chuckle at the Oscar winning performances of my former congressional representative, Maxine Waters. She learned well from the Tinsel Town just north of her district, as she is full of drama, and is quite the diva. But everyone on the hill knows her reputation of being quite the bullying chick, even during tea time.

And I'm not going to front, the Hill is a white man's upper echelon world, and is a hard place for people of color and women, especially women of color to gain footing. So being hard and hardened is a very nasty and unwelcoming part of the job.

I applaud the congresswoman's backbone for being over 70 and still raising hell, or sending people to it. But Maxine, you better watch out, your granny panties are soaked in premium petro.

Her recent "Go straight to hell," comment to the Tea Party in an Inglewood, Calif. forum, interestingly comes after her feet have been placed in the fire for ethics violations, like several other black congressional officials. Simultaneously, her black middle class constituents are anxious as their pseudo-comfy lifestyles are bottoming out, and now they are questioning "What the fuck has she really done for our community in the last 15 years?"

You see, Maxine is like every other congressional official who has garnered tenure from a loyal, politically complacent voting bloc due to a couple of political tricks, some federal chump change, and about a dozen church appearances a year to show she is still connected to the voters.

But that is like most voting blocs on all partisan sides, parties tend to vote for their party.

However, as a congressional official who represents a population that is still under-resourced, there is much more work to do other than have a forum with Wyclef while wearing stunna shades at the annual CBC convention.

In fact, Waters has been quite the unapproachable asshole on the Hill, and as a former constituent she has always been unreachable for every concern.

But if I were a party of interest, someone with a fancy, big name or even bigger cash, she would definitely have the time.

Minions like me who wanted to help during the Haitian relief efforts back in 2004, but our local campaign wasn't shit to her global agenda as she plane-hopped to Africa while exclusively speaking to that Amy chick from Democracy Now rather than show up to at least one local event that wasn't highly publicized.

Minions like me tried understand why she gave the copious information gathered about the CIA funneling crack into black and brown Los Angeles communities to Bill Clinton as a bartering chip to save his presidency rather than file it as genocide in the United Nations like she had promised.

Minions like me wondered how her district has been going through serious gentrification and suffering horribly from severe job loss, failed black businesses, and a Cali housing implosion leaving many homes foreclosed for years while she lives well in a house in Hancock Park, not anywhere near the congressional district she serves.

Oops, sorry, I think I'm sounding a little too much like Cornel West.

But Maxine Waters who has claimed she is for the people, now wants to rally black folk after she has habitually forsaken our interests due to wagging her tongue and tail to be in the Obama circle like it was a Basketball Wife shindig.

And Obama, in pure snake fashion, kept her and the Congressional Negro Caucus at a cordial distant---close enough to get them to vote how he wanted, but far enough to not have to entertain their long list of honeydo's and back scratching.

You see Maxine, you or we haven't arrived, and it seems that you have been reminded as such.

Quid Pro Quo doesn't apply to Negroes at the back of the bus, even if you are Congressional senior ranking members.

But I do get the ugly politics on the Hill. The well-tenured black congressional officials mostly have high rankings in their committees, and needed to be quashed or dethroned, so to speak, to move a certain agenda forward. And as they were plucked like feathers of a chicken head, none but God came to their aid. And that wasn't Obama. He kind of politely said the same thing that Waters conveyed in his actions of no-reply-isms, "Go to hell."

As is all the Congressional Negro Caucus, who are turning in their drawers full of loose bowels due to them being rejected and ignored by the POTUS, who halfheartedly entertains the permed-haired opportunist known as Sharpton.

You see an unelected somewhat political joke still wearing a conk is easier to tame and control than the elite CBC with their asses on their shoulders and Tom Joyner social club to appease. All Sharpton needs is an MSNBC show and a lifetime supply of Dark N' Lovely.

So Maxine, now you know how it feels to be unheard. Welcome to our hell. Massa sick and he don't give a fuck about you.

But I am still not convinced that the traveling circus patched together by you and your cronies in the last 3 seconds of the game is the play that is needed. The rules changed boo, and not to your favor. This shit needs more than a Hail Mary pass to Rep. John Lewis, the veteran with bad knees and a pacemaker. I don't think his prayers and constant reminders that he walked with King will save us this time.

Folk need real jobs, credit opportunities, and this racial shit that got e'erbody from hillybilly honkies to ride-or-die Chicanos ready to blaze this bitch needs to be put down.

DISCLAIMER: This blog entry does not in any way support Herman "Coon" Cain or Allen "Step-It Fectchit" West in anyway. They are bona fide house niggers that are using serious issues of leadership and economic/political concerns in the black community to further white privilege.

I'm So Over This Post Racial Racist Shit

2011-08-22T10:34:00.000-04:00

In the beginning of the recession, there were warnings that racist actions would increase dramatically. But goddam, I think we've reached the mountaintop. So much so, that promoting a white supremacist agenda in major "liberal" magazines is no biggie.

Surely, someone within the advertisement agency DraftFCB (great thinkers behind the advert), or Nivea's marketing squad, or perhaps the various publications who ran this photo thought that this might be, well uh, somewhat racially repulsive?

But in the age of "Post Racial" America, racist behavior sells. And is absolved with half-hearted apologies and negroes who are hired to say "I wasn't offended at all." Nigg* puhlease.

Once again, it is vogue to be openly, robustly, violently, and ignorantly racist. The twist in this trend is two-fold. On one hand, racism is so rampant that we are becoming desensitized to its social affects and apathetic to those who call it out. On the other hand, there are black people who keep the cogs of racism churning with vehemently anti-black actions and behaviors or turning the other butt cheek to ignore the ideological and bloody poking of oppression and hate.

People have been arguing that this advertisement is art and art is always up for interpretation. Then there are those who really didn't see racism at all; especially some black folk possessed by the spirit of Clayton Bigsby who claim that they don't see the reason for all the fuss and feel that these niggers need to hush and stop whining.

So let me put a Swastika on my cooch for a free love campaign and call it my Picasso moment.

I guess with the other ad of the white man holding the caveman face makes it fair-and-square for the German-(cough, Nazi)-based Nivea to be blatantly racist by being self-deprecating.

Nope, doesn't even come close to equitable distribution.

Because in the US, and as we now know, in the UK and definitely Germany, the white man in that photo will be laughing all the way to the bank with another modeling gig.

And a promotion.

A pass by a patrol officer if he is speeding in a fancy car in the poor section of the city.

A house or business loan.

A country club membership.

A KKK membership.

And a welcome cake in an exclusive white neighborhood where he bought a house for $16.

In fact, he would get a job waaaaaayyyyyyy faster than the brother because a rugged white man is sexy and has reality shows that feature white dudes living off of hippo shit and alligator meat while shooting shit like moose from a helicopter.

Oh my bad, that's Palin's Alaska reality series, wrong show.

Hold up. I got one more bone to pick. It is very interesting that this ad is released at a time where black men are openly re-embracing beards and their thick coily manes. A time where black men are not burdened with nasty razor bumps from the pressure of shaving every day to look "professional" "approachable" and "clean" because their hair coils like the number 9. And a time where some are okay that their hair resembles a halo, much like Jesus' wooly main when it grows to be more than 1 inch.

Of course EcoSoul is tripping. Everybody at Nivea and DraftFCB passed their sensitivity training and diversity workshops with flying colors and have the certificates to prove it.

I mean look at Nivea. They hired Rihanna as a sexualized model for the lotion. You know who Rihanna is? The only beige Bajan from Barbados who bleaches her skin and said on the Chelsea Handler show that she was surprised Australia had "black black" complexioned people.

Sigh.

We gotta do better. For real.

Black History Fact: The Real Underground Conductor

2011-08-20T03:56:00.001-04:00

London Bridges Falling Down

2011-08-18T00:38:00.001-04:00

I had to chuckle at some of the good Brits who stood stunned at the behavior of rebellious countrymen and women who lit various parts of the British Empire like a good Havana stogie.

And the BBC, who were two blokes from saying, "Effing darkies are tearing up the queen's land." Doing the same tired shit that American media oft plays in citizen unrest. Blame it on those that are easiest to pick on so that the resolution is to squash the freedom of all in the name of deterring the troublemakers who need to happy that they can reside on sacred land.

And where was the queen? Scared shitless on a throne about 50 feet beneath the city. Old bat. Glad I'm not a British citizen, I'd probably get jail time for that one.

Oh poor England, you are not supposed to be like Greece or France, burning like Watts, while everyone seizes the opportunity to get some free shit like water and drawers, simultaneously, fucking up the most under-served areas of the country.

It seems to me that amnesia has crept into the psyches of these Brits. Now shame on you black and brown Brits, but you were enslaved then, so I will give you a small pass.

The history of America begins with the mythical religious fanatics landing on Plymouth Rock, somewhere in New England. These kind folk wanted religious freedom and to kum-ba-yah with the natives over dried corn and fried turkey legs done Pocahontas style.

NOT.

Let me give you the real. England's prisons were overcrowded with murderers, thieves, and other deviants. And just like Japan's horrible waste management program that dumps billions of tons of shit in the ocean, England found a way to cast off the unwanted.

Thus the beginning of America and Australia was formed. Yep, the United States has a foundation of Jack Rippers, horse stealers, and those who loved to consort with goats and sheep.

My British cousins across the water, it is important to remember your history, so you are not too quick to say it was the darkies' faults.

What a fucked up race card you are pulling. And actually a dangerous one, because what you have coming to protect London for the Olympics is an evil you've never met. This is Big Brother warp speed. You already have all those cameras everywhere, now you will really get the mark of the beast.

But you know England must appear like a softie. It's just part of the image to hide the money bags of the world. After all, England's queen is the most seen face on any currency of the world. England is the money center, while the Vatican is the religious epicenter.

And guess where England is looking to neutralize the uhh, citizen problem? The military regime of the USA. Yes, the bulldogs, the security guards of the status quo, the henchmen of capitalism and world order.

But let me prepare my fellow brown and browner Brits who have not heard of the Beast, the devil himself, William Bratton, former police chief of New York and Los Angeles.

Let me back up a bit and explain. America was birthed through blood lust, thieving and vile fuckery. It was a natural evolution due to the first criminals who occupied these territories.

At one time in America, political disputes were resolved through the gun and blood. America are the original gangsters, trained by the queen himself. And that history is carried on quite well through law enforcement.

And England has recruited the number one urban terror to its lands.

Meet Bill Bratton, racist in fleshy pale skin, who jailed more people of color than the incarceration rate of England in the last five years. Lots of torture, corruption, and Hitler-like tactics.

Well, my fellow brown and browner people, and poor pale people across the water, get ready, Bratton is nothing short of a walking torture chamber off the coast of Guantanamo.

BTW, Raheem, please send me some looted scones and Earl Grey tea to satiate my sweet tooth of revolution.

Wigs, Weaves & Extensions, Nuthin New Under the Sun

2011-08-16T15:56:00.003-04:00

Egyptian Queen Nofetari

I was at the Do Over in the Los Angeles this week, and met up with a Ghanaian sister who told me she would be shedding her locks for something new.

Her plan was to wear her hair short and get some funky wigs and weaves and let her roots rest, eventually allowing her follicles to bloom.

Immediately, the bias in me, said, "Weaves!" with disdain. She saw my face as my mouth dropped. She quickly tried to explain her decision.

I felt embarrassed. This sister was a bridesmaid at my wedding. She will always be my sister and I wanted to ask her, "Why wigs? Just rock you!"

But, "Who am I?" I'm still trying to figure it all out myself; especially my hair.

When I made it back to Jersey last night, I was perusing through some hair anthropology data when I was checked for my judgmental thoughts. I forgot about the wigs and extensions found in multiple burial chambers of Egyptian pyramids adorning women and men.

From kinky, to puffs, to coily, to straight augmented hair was mummified to perfection. Like today, augmented hair was all the rage as far back as 3400 BCE (Before the Christian Era).

Wig with coily puff mane found with mummy.

Not only did this re-submission of information into my life sit my ass down in my natural journey, but re-affirmed that nuthin' isn't new, just revamped and reinterpreted.

Weaves, wigs, extensions, braids, fades, silky locks, faux locks, real locks, and Indian Remy hair are old hair trends with a contemporary feel.

In Egypt, the hot desert sun and sand were climates that made bald heads an easier style to rock for men and women. Plus it was the most hygiene-appropriate in preventing the oft-head infestation of lice.

Women and men, usually of royal descent would wear wigs and extend hair length with the use of human hairpieces from their own shorn hair or coifs of commoners.
I always asked, "Why is hair so important to black people and black women in particular?" Well, anthropological studies have shown that even in the days of Queen Tiye and Nofertari (the mummy picture above) hair communicated your wealth and social status.

Hair was an important commodity that was traded and sold. In fact, human hair ranked alongside gold and incense at one point in ancient Egypt.

Hair dyed with Indigo and black henna.

And get this, not only was human hair wigs and extensions were popular, but hair coloring. One mummy was found with a waist-length wig and her own hair colored with a vegetable-based dye to give it a yellowish color. The mummies natural hair was black.
Much like henna and indigo dyes still popular in North Africa and India, and even the ochre earth dye of the Himba women in Namibia, there are natural dyes.

So who was I to question my friend's decision of jazzing her hair with added pieces?

Though I still think that the wig and weaving process should be more humane and equitable in the trade of hair, and prolly, people will use this blog to continue to throw horrible Yaki #9 in their hair, and wear 29-piece weaves on their balding crowns, I think I need to reconsider selling the locks that sit on my shelf.

Even though the Korean store owners didn't want the coily manes of African descendants in Chris Rock's documentary, "Good Hair", it was, and still is all the rave.

Eco.Soul.Intellectual is a socio-cultural, political award-winning writer, journalist and blogger who lives between Newark and Los Angeles.

Culture of Fear Redux: Debt, Displacement, Unemployment and Wealthlessness for Black Folks

2011-08-01T13:37:00.004-04:00

I knew that black people were damn near at our last limb when Cornel West became the voice of serious public, and dare I say, radical critic of the Obama Administration.

Then I got wind that the most ~~depression~~ recession-proof black business is selling hair extensions and weaves. Oh shit, do you mean fried chicken and fish shacks plummeted to number three and four, with black churches losing its premiere spot sometime between King's assassination and Kirk Franklin declaring he was in a heterosexual marriage?

I guess weaves, wigs and Yaki #9 are modern day upgrades of Madame CJ Walker's magnificent marketing and business plans.

But I keep thinking that someone will jump from behind a tree and say, "A-ha" like the Jewish character from the black barbershop scene in Coming to America.

But this is different from Oprah's "Aha" moment. My "A-ha" is a bullshit moment, with me slapping my leg and saying "Y'all stop playing jokes, we ain't this effed up. This is all just one, long corny joke." Right?

But, I really think we are, you know, fucked up, because most of us aren't laughing. And I think the joke is on us. Casting votes for a puppet whose nose continues to grow.

For real, for real, please let me know if what I am feeling is just Eco.Soul tripping again. Or, are you twitching and itching for solutions too? Running circles of hypothetical plans in your mind to bring order or clarity to this cloud of chaos, apathy, and terror in the world.

It is so interesting that the POTUS declared an end to the Culture of Fear. A US social milieu that had masses of people looking at Arabs and Muslims with side-eyes and condoning bombings on millions of civilians in multiple countries to protect our dwindling "freedoms." Right?

This Culture of Fear that aided in the breeding of distrust and wars with ghost groups and leaders in the Middle-East. Ahh, these wars, fueled by political instigation around religions that in its purest form, operate more like cousins then arch enemies, are about as real as Bishop Eddie Long's hairpiece.

Last week, people scrambled and called their elected officials to move on avoiding a debt ceiling. A debt of which people have been saying is really bologna. Others have stated that Obama is too acquiescing to Republican Party's anti-human agenda. Even though the Democrats' movement are anti-people these days.

But senior citizens, poor folks, Tom Joyner listeners, and people of color jammed the lines of their public officials in a frantic without really looking between the real lines of this bullshit deal that was being made. It actually was a push, to move an agenda that snubs the masses of people, those who are struggling, and provides another layer of safety for the 5% who own most of this country's wealth, and are gouging for more of it.

For example, huge short term cuts in social programs like education and housing, and guess what? Millionaires with jets, like Souljah Boy (emphasis on boy) and his $55 million pimped out private G5 purchase are keeping their share of the economic booty. Like our asses, our ripe and plump derrieres are for the taking.

What does this mean? That debt ceiling deal means, well, we are still fucked. America is a credit card company that kept calling your ass and scared you with court when it actually already has filed for tax write off and turned black folks over to a nasty collection agency like Midland Funding. Who is in turn, collecting on monies we still don't have and a debt that no longer exists, but didn't really in the first place; and now the shit is about to get even funkier.

I was talking to my father and father in law, both who are in their mid-60s, and they grumble in great angst when talking about a man they once cried for when he got elected. Now they are both trying to see how they can save their retirement money and health insurance.

When black men in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s especially from the South, express their disappoint in Obama than you know shit is really, really bad. This demographic of Americans bear the brunt of insidious racist experiences, but they too have turned their backs in shame at what Obama has been complicit in passing.

While America's "Culture of Fear" is waning, black people's fear of debt, displacement, unemployment and wealthlessness is at its height.

Our fear is very real. If about 20% of black people are unemployed in various states than that means 1 in 4 black people you know are unemployed. If black people's wealth is about $1 to every $20 white American dollars than damn near everyone we know is poor, working poor, one paycheck from poor, or one mortgage missed from foreclosure.

There is a report of an increasing amount of immigrants returning to their native countries for better job opportunities. But where can we go? Most African-Americans have not traveled out of their state or region, let alone, the country.

I thought of the letter I wrote to the president last year, detailing the high unemployment and foreclosure in the black community, especially black male unemployment rate. I got a response that I know was written by some college intern who is there to get a notch on their resume. The letter encouraged me to report any acts of discrimination to the proper bureaus for further investigation.

What?

As I am applying for jobs, I know which positions are filled. Coons, Self-deprecating Negroes, and Spinelessness Leaders.

Washington D.C. Gentrification

2011-07-28T12:25:00.000-04:00

If you thought Harlem and Atlanta gentrification were complex and sad, please don't put away your tissue.

The old Chocolate City has been experiencing waves of gentrification that are tangled in a funky web that is class, race, and to some degree gender; government and private citizen; yuppie and buppie; working class and emerging young professionals.

It is almost hard to fathom that people such as Anna Julia Cooper, Thurgood Marshall, Toni Morrison, Booker T. Washington, and a host of others walked the very streets that were pummeled and forgotten at the height of the crack epidemic. Now these places are sitting in ruin, and have turned over in the hands of folks who are seeking a cleaner, brighter DC.

Atlanta Re-Gentrified

2011-07-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

When I left Atlanta there were three little words that began popping up in the city that made me cringe. When you see, "Live-Work-Play" you know that THEM are coming.

And in the case of Atlanta, THEM, had been coming just before the 1996 Olympics

THEM had been written about by author Nathan McCall in a book called, THEM, regarding gentrification in his once professional and working class black neighborhood that MLK once walked.

In this case, THEM are two-fold. The first is THEM, the major corporations and housing authority that have been displacing poor and people of color from housing developments for 20 years.

The other THEM are yuppie white folks and uppity, migrant Negroes moving within the perimeters of the Highway 285, the thoroughfare that circles around the city of Atlanta.

Before the 1906 Atlanta Riots described in a poem by WEB DuBois, the city of Atlanta largely served whites, while black folk lived at the perimeters. But you know what race riots do to white people when they don't do a Mississippi burning, they flee.

By 1920s the white flight out of the city caused a switch in the racial demographics. Blacks were the dominant race, and institutions such as schools and churches supported thriving communities.

Now of course, it was blackified, but not totally black owned. Hence the Coca Cola company, a beverage corporation that stole its ingredients from a black man, and pretty much owns the city. Although black folk owned, they still did not own the economic flow, thus the climate of the city still produced disproportionately low-wealth black families who often were subject to seek government assistance.

Nevertheless, Atlanta became the New York of the South for black folk. In the 70s and 80s, millions of black people poured into the city for job opportunities and very reasonable real estate.

Then Magic City opened. Just playing! According to Bobby Brown, that club saved his life and about half of the female alumnae of Spelman, Clark Atlanta and Morris Brown.

Anywho, when Atlanta got the bid for the 1996 Olympics, there was a necessary problem that needed to be solved.

What do they do with all these homeless folk, po ass n*ggas and a sprinkle of cr*ckas in the projects smack dab in the middle of downtown Atlanta?

Atlanta had to brand itself as the myth is perpetuated, the "Black Mecca", and land of milk and honey for black people singing kum-baya and patronizing black stores and eating chicken and bean pies.

In reality, there was the continual stench of poverty, and the new stench of classism in the black community, one that pitted old money against new, native ATLiens against these new Negroes that were coming in from New York, California and New Jersey, and all these Bama country ones trying to get citified.

Prior to the Olympics, Atlanta was one of the poorest major cities in the nation. Developers saw this as an opportunity to build economic growth in the city, and put together a plan that left out much of the people who kept Atlanta going. But the city enacted a removal process that they swore would be a local trickle-down for all.

The answer was simple because they took a page right out of South African Apartheid, ironically, a place where Coca Cola loved to do business. First, the poor and homeless were framed as deviants to the city. THEY were the ones bringing it down.

This set up the stage for the neutralization of an Atlanta that had been in placed since the early part of the 20th Century. They bulldozed housing developments and low wealth areas for Olympic Development.

As a result, people were evicted from their homes and thousands of homeless were jailed while 21 acres of west downtown Atlanta were bulldozed.

Now of course, the removal was coated with unmet promises. The city and developers said that the people would "temporarily" be placed in various parts of the city, and moved back into areas that were mixed-income developments.

Mixed-income developments is a plan in which various income levels lived in the same housing units, but with the varied income salaries, property values would go up. And what happened, the people who were temporarily removed became permanently assed out, as a handful moved back, but most were priced out.

And this is not just people on welfare, people who owned homes, inherited land too could not afford the skyrocketing real estate taxes and lost their homes.

But that was the beginning of a gentrified Atlanta. Today, much more has been done to erase the face of the Black Mecca. From the re-routing and price hikes of public transportation to housing scandals where blacks who moved outside of Atlanta Metro to Claytown County and all of those suburbs with shitty housing communities that fall apart in 2 years, inside the 285 is another face. A face of comeuppance.

As the document below shows, Atlanta is free of housing developments, and has been the first major city to do so. Under the administration of black people. Chilling isn't it?

We didn't overcome, we rather have succumbed to corporate interests and our own greed and power impotency.

Click here for an in-depth report of housing displacement in Atlanta as a result of the 1996 Olympics.

Harlem Re-Gentrified

2011-07-26T08:00:00.005-04:00

Gil Scott has a poem called, "We Almost Lost Detroit" but with the influx of whites and Latinos into the upper west side, we've lost Harlem in the re-gentrification of the Black Mecca USA.

Truth is, we, never, really, really had Harlem. If you look at how Harlem was blackified, that portion of Manhattan was allotted with conditions to black folk in the early 1900s because city developers needed to fill the numerous empty buildings that were initially designed for Jewish families after WWI.

New York is such a funny place for us Negroes. It tickles me pink to see all of the urban lingo and intelligentsia that comes through Harlem.

Would think that all of that thinking could actually transpire into some type of economic revolution. But Marcus Garvey was trampled, then the Harlem Intelligentsia. Then the various black nationalist and liberation movements. Ma$e and P. Diddy were disempowered. Jim Jones killed hip-hop and then G-Dep turned himself into the police. Oh lawd, G-Dep gone? We dun now.

But how does gentrification happen? The formula is complex, but the standard elements are very general. A community experiences a social, cultural and economic implosion due to external and internal dynamics, thus weaking the real estate, commercial enterprise, educational development, and overall community progress.

It is replaced with chaos, disorder, economic neglect, political under-representation, and dumbing down of the value of the community, and the education of the future children.

The state of an area becomes so blighted, that it leaves it vulnerable and in need of a savior. And then THEM comes. Who is them? Largely corporate interests mixed in with some Captain Save'em's. That is a combination of big business interested in controlling communities for capital gain and those who want to bring "new life" into a community, and blaming the "old life" for its under-development.

THEM's say gentrification is good, and brings life into the neighborhood. But an element is missing in this change.

When gentrification usually happens, the historical residents are displaced. Taxes increase, rent increases, and are pushed out in various reasons.

On the flip side of the this issue, when it comes to black neighborhoods being gentrified, you have numerous amounts of black people who grew up in communities they would never step their baby toe into again. To be around these people would put them in a lower cast, again. So they break their necks to move to the suburbs, and rear their children around good people.

More at The Real News

Give you a good example, when crack hit Harlem, there were so many abandoned buildings in the 1990s, that gutted brownstones were going for $15. Yup, $15. A chunk of us didn't want to touch them because they were in neighborhoods where the crack epidemic was its highest. Now, these renovated buildings start at about $1 million.

And when THEM began to buy homes by the hundreds and renovate. Of course, the police acquiesced the new neighbors, and a structured income system slowly dripped into this community.

And when I saw a white couple walking a miniature poodle in Harlem back in 2001, I knew that the neighborhood was over.

Here is a great article detailing Harlem Gentrification

Harlem: The New Frontier?
A Brief History of Gentrification Uptown
By Julian Brash & Neil Smith

'Harlem is the last great frontier of Manhattan real estate,' gushes Barbara Corcoran, manager of an elite New York real estate brokerage. 'There are many wonderful things happening in this historic and beautiful area.' Others are calling it the new Harlem Renaissance.

Wonderful things do happen in Harlem but gentrification isn't one of them. Since the city's real estate market exploded in 1996, Harlem has had a bull's eye on its back as brokers and developers have made fortunes buying and selling brownstones for renovation. Victorian mansions have been gutted, and refitted with intricate wooden staircases and period chandeliers; black professionals, white gays, students and many others have followed the developers, desperate to find a place to live in a borough where last year the average apartment price was recorded at $770,000. 125th Street (which no-one calls Martin Luther King Boulevard) has been reinvented as a suburban mall. Gone are many of the street vendors and small shop owners, replaced by the large logo stores such as Disney and Old Navy. The jewel in the crown is the mall, 'Harlem USA.' And a new first run movie theater, thanks to Magic Johnson's real estate company.

Local entrepreneurs give tours to the famous streets, clubs, restaurants and Harlem Renaissance sites as well as the Teresa Hotel where Fidel Castro came to stay in his famous 1960 snub to the US government, the Audubon ballroom where Malcolm X was assassinated, the route of Nelson Mandela's walk through the neighborhood a decade ago. For an extra $30 a visit to a gospel church is thrown in; for $40 further you can thrill to all this at night! Others give architectural brownstone tours to Strivers Row, Astor Row or the Mount Morris Park Historical District, directly encouraging gentrification. So many bus loads of tourists are coming to Harlem now - mostly European and Japanese - that the churches have had to issue rules of appropriate behavior - no flashes during prayers please.

For folks who have lived there for decades, surviving the bad years when no outsiders cared about the place, the conversion of their neighborhood into a frontier is a mixed blessing to say the least. In the early 1980s, banks and other private lenders totally redlined the neighborhood, dribbling a paltry $2 million of mortgage money into Central Harlem. By 1993, the figure for the whole of Upper Manhattan, dominated by Harlem, was $163 million rising in only five years to an astonishing $686 million. Two of the biggest banks in Harlem real estate today, Citibank and Chase Manhattan, were entirely absent twenty years ago.

While black people celebrated the arrival of the first "black" president, they didn't know that "There goes the neighborhood" would follow.

Listening to real estate agents like Corcoran or reading the New York Times, you would think that Harlem residents should rejoice. They are now apparently getting what they were long deprived of: mainstream mortgage money, loans, home ownerships, shops, amenities. But they don't give away these new windfall loans with lottery tickets. Whereas the average cost of a Harlem building in 1982 was $47,500, today that would hardly make the down-payment. Buildings now routinely sell for $300,000 to $600,000 and often require hundreds of thousands of dollars of renovation. Even without the renovation costs, it takes a household income of almost $100,000 to begin to afford the cheapest of these buildings. By contrast, the median household income of all New York City homeowners is only $50,00 so only the wealthiest New Yorkers can now afford to go 'back to Harlem,'as Claude McKay put it. In Harlem itself the median household income in 1999 was only $20,000. Homeownership on the private market is no solution to the Harlem housing crisis.

The City's housing policies don't blunt the gentrification of Harlem. Gentrification is the policy. Vacant or abandoned properties that could provide urgently needed cheap and good quality housing for Harlem residents and others are instead transferred to the private sector where rents and prices go through the roof. The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, claims to have facilitated the renovation of 6,000 Central Harlem housing units in the last fifteen years, evenly split between owner-occupied and rental units. This more than doubles the number of owner occupied units in the neighborhood. Even the more affordable rental units are disproportionately targeted at 'moderate' income households earning between $30,000 and $75,000. Some city programs such as 'City Home' fuel real estate speculation and escalate brownstone sale prices, according to recent research.

And then there is the HUD debacle in which developers and landlords, masquerading as non-profit churches and community groups, received federally backed loans for rehabilitation but instead 'flipped' the buildings they bought to unsuspecting buyers. 160 buildings that could be housing homeless people are instead left in ruins and the feds and banks are left holding bills for $50 million of bad mortgages. Because this scam victimized well-healed would-be gentrifiers, it has received a lot of press. Where are the press reports about the majority of working class Harlemites struggling to afford rising rents in the crumbling ungentrified buildings?

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Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal Points Finger to Superintendent

2011-07-25T01:15:00.004-04:00

At first glance, this woman looks harmless. Something like a really cool grandmother, or perhaps a teacher. However, Dr. Beverly Hall, former Superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools is in waist deep shit with the release of the Governor's Office for Student Achievement investigation regarding cheating on Criterion Reform Competency standardized tests in 2009.

The office used a simple assessment. They scanned all the competency tests to view the number of erasures on answers that went from wrong to right. They found out that several public school systems, including the state's largest, Atlanta Public Schools, as having a high number of erasures. These erasures imply that answers were removed and the correct answer replaced. By whom is the million dollar question, but also suggest that adults rather than students having an epiphany of testing intelligence to go back and fix numerous wrong answers.

Two years ago, when the governor's office requested information regarding these large numbers of wrong-to-right erasures from Hall Administration, Dr. Hall, the 2009 awardee of "Superintendent of the Year" rebuffed requests, sending even more alarms during the inquisition.

But get this, there are whistle blowers in this investigation, principals and teachers who say that the Hall Administration created a climate of fear and retribution if one did not comply with the erasures. According to the investigation, 58 principals and 444 teachers who instruct in 1 - 8 schools are under fire for cheating. Add to that over 80 people have come forward with information detailing the cheating climate at APS.

Dr. Hall who announced her retirement months before this investigation was released has now come out to say that she did not know about the cheating. According to the Jamaican born educator who got her fame working in New York and New Jersey public schools, the whistle blowers were blowing hot air. In a written statement she says, “Apparently, not one of the 82 persons who allegedly ‘confessed’ to cheating told the investigators that Dr. Hall at any time instructed, encouraged or condoned cheating.”

Okay, I am simple, but if 82 people have said that they were coerced and over 500 people have been fingered for this scandal, Dr. Hall is either a dumb ass, or a horrible liar. A woman who had the reputation for running a school district with "an iron fist" now pleads that she was ignorant to these egregious acts of which were spread throughout her district.

Interestingly, it was the large jump in achievement on standardized tests that was a major accomplishment that got Dr. Hall her fame, accolades, and $400,298 yearly salary.

Furthermore, she has literally vanished from Atlanta and has left others to take the heat.

This scandal has created a round of discussions, one of which is around the "No Child Left Behind" bill during the Bush regime that totally disrupted public schools and dis-empowered teachers and parents in providing wholesome education. The implementation of schools being given funding based on standardized achievements placed pressure on schools to concentrate on passing tests instead of getting real education. As well, parents have meet a plethora of roadblocks in finding the right schools for their child if they did not perform well on tests.

This draws another fact in standardized tests. As a former teacher, it is well known that in the history of teaching there has cheating going on for a very long time. From elementary tests to SATs, cases upon cases have discovered that many have fallen under the pressure of tests that really don't prove much at the end of the day. George W. Bush can agree to that!

Nevertheless, Dr. Hall, you get an F for major fuck up! You have failed communities and the public education system grossly.

Whew, I Thought N*ggas Just Went Crazy When it Was Hot

2011-07-24T15:10:00.002-04:00

White.
Blond.
Aaryan.
Christian.
European.
Right-Wing.
Killed almost 9 dozen youth.

Hmmm, but he's just a shooter and not a terrorist? That's why racial profiling just exploded in your face like a nasty cow-shit bomb?

Sunday Spiritual Music

2011-07-24T09:57:00.002-04:00

Why Didn't Autum Ashante Consider an HBCU?

2011-07-22T08:49:00.000-04:00

Or maybe I should ask, "Why didn't an HBCU open their doors for Autum?"

The Common Man's Sport of the World, Is an Elite Playground in the USA

2011-07-19T12:00:00.000-04:00

There is something missing in this photo of the US soccer team. Can you please identify the missing element? I will give you three options to choose from.

A. Casey Anthony
B. A Transgendered Woman
C. Women of Color

Okay, so these hints are tricky, but if you picked C, you are sort of kind of right. There is one woman, Shannon Box, on the bottom left of the picture, who is from Southern California and is an African-American woman.

This is very problematic because soccer is played mostly by people of color all over the world, and in the USA, with the population being diverse.

Not only is the US Soccer team under-represent the landscape of soccer of the world, but it also mis-represents the milieu of America, once again propagating that America is encompassed of majority white people and a couple of brown and black tokens.

Also, it can be puzzling to learn that in the USA, soccer is an elite institution when it reaches the level of an organized sport.

Of course you see soccer in low wealth communities of color, especially in immigrant communities; but to play and excel in the United States on a larger scale means you have to dish out a lot of resources that include money and time; something that is scarce in working class and communities of color, thus making it rarely accessible to those children whose families reared them to adore the game.

In fact, traveling soccer leagues are not only expensive, but exclusive. There is a recruiting practice, much like the European soccer teams who target people of color to play in the various leagues. Top players are largely plucked from low wealth communities for top notch teams, garnering millions in these teams, but leaving very little in the communities which they came, with the exception of maybe a soccer camp to train future players for Euro leagues.

Meanwhile, players who are not selected are left to kick ratty balls in torn up Keds.

This gets even more disturbing when these players provide vivid stories of racist accounts while playing. Like bananas being thrown on the field or monkey noises being made when a black player is on a certain side of the field.

I have several relatives who have children who play soccer. I must be frank, it is seen as a status to play soccer, and not a common person's game. Something like, hockey on a hot day, minus the uber expensive equipment.

And to make matters worse, the high school I went to, a predominantly African-American school, looked at the game as a third-world sport, and pushed its athletes to play football and basketball. I guess there was more tolerance for concussions and broken limbs, then a healthy set of lungs and a global consciousness.

This beautiful game is also ugly in America.

Oh well, blog on..

Parenting Lesson 101: Don't Let Your 8-Year-Old Walk Home Alone in NYC

2011-07-18T13:24:00.001-04:00

Killer of Little Leiby.

The disastrous thing about the movie "Home Alone" was this perception that little white boys could walk in comfort on the unpredictable, gritty streets of NYC.

People, that Macauly Culkin shit was fictitious!

I feel for any child brutally murdered the way that Leiby Kletzky was last week by Levi Aron, but there is a critical point that surely some people have missed.

Why in the fuck are parents going to allow an 8-year-old to walk by themselves, and in New York of all places? His juvenile innocence and his parents being distraught are framing this case, but I wonder, if any talk of an egregious parental decision is emerging.

Come on people, that is inexcusable. It doesn't matter how secure or tight knit a community such as Borough Park, there are sick fucks everywhere.

Blog On...

National Black Arts Festival, July 7 - July 17

2011-07-15T08:17:00.005-04:00

NBAF is by far one of the expansive arts festivals celebrating the culture of people of African descent. If you've never experienced it, than it is time to make a trek to Atlanta.

For two weeks, the city is teeming with cultural, education, and social activities and entertainment that whet an array of appetites. This year, one of the musical features is a personal favorite, Omar Sosa.

Celebrate National Black Agricultural Week July 10 -July 16

2011-07-13T17:00:00.001-04:00

George Washington Carver is the most celebrate farmer in the history of the United States with over 400 inventions using soy beans and peanuts, and other legumes. He was so famous that in the early 1900s, there were US dollar coins with his face, one of the first and few black faces you ever saw on American money. In his biography he said that the plants spoke to him and told him what to do with them. Deep, now everybody talks about weeds.

Saveblackfarmers.og

2011 Theme: Recognition, Justice, and Development

Creating Opportunities: Awareness, Education, Outreach, and Volunteerism around Black Agriculture

What Is Black Ag Awareness Week?Black Agricultural Awareness Week is a week set aside to recognize and celebrate black agriculture, while bringing awareness to the needs and the decline of Black Agricultural Producers; as well as focus attention on the African American community regarding food and food choices.

When Is Black Ag Awareness Week?Black Ag Awareness Week is celebrated from July 10, 2011 through July 16, 2011. National Black Ag Week falls during the week of George Washington Carver's Birthday.

Apopka Lee of Florida

Who Hosts Black Ag Awareness Week?Healthy Solutions hosts the national campaign. However, the awareness efforts in individual communities across America are as influential - if not more influential - than the broad-scale effort. A planning Guide and Toolkits will be produced to allow for communities the opportunity to host events in celebration of this vital week. Healthy Solutions also partners with several organizations and businesses nationally that work to make this week happen.

What Is Black Ag Awareness Week All About?Black Ag Awareness Week is about recognizing, educating, and celebrating the contribution of African Americans, and People of African Descent, to agriculture in our everyday lives. The National Black Ag Awareness Week encourages everyone to:
Understand how the decline in Black Agricultural Producers is an issue that needs immediate attention.
Educate youth to want to pursue Agriculture as a viable option to build a foundation for themselves and communities.

Appreciate the many agriculturally related accomplishments that benefit not just black agricultural producers, but agriculture as a whole, and impact us on a daily basis.

Bring awareness to food and agricultural issues in the African American community as a whole

Why Celebrate Black Agriculture?Why not?! Agriculture provides almost everything we eat, use and wear, but few people truly recognize or understand the part that Black producers, scientist, chemist, and African Americans in general have played to make Global Agriculture what it is today. Oftentimes we see pictures of farms and food and the true picture of Black Agriculture is not represented.

On December 18, 2010 the UN Declared 2011 as the International Year for People of African Descent, with the themes of Recognition, Justice, and Development. We feel there is no better time to celebrate those who paved the way for agriculture in the US while educating our people, and bringing awareness to the fact that black farmers may soon become extinct if we do not act now by educating and training our youth, and our communities to pursue agriculture. The saying that there is No Culture Without Agriculture will become truer than ever as Black Agriculture will become extinct without immediate action and the awareness brought about by weeks set aside to insure that a culture, food, farmers, land, and heritage will not be lost.

What Can I Do to Help?Get involved! Your participation in Black Ag Awareness Week is critical in helping us spread this message about black agriculture. If you are interested in planning an event, download your Planning Guide today. Of course, there are other ways you can lend your support, including sending a letter to your local newspaper, sponsoring outreach activities, volunteering on local black farms, hosting educational events with our toolkit, hosting a Black Farmers Market, advocating for your local store to feature food from a Black Producer for this week, hosting a day of Prayer and Healing at your place of Worship, calling your Congressional representative, providing in-kind donations to get the word out or simply purchasing from Black Producers this week.

Where Can I Find More Information?Contact the Healthy Solutions at (888) 415-2667, our website www.SaveBlackFarmers.org ( check site as information will be updated regularly) , or email BlackAgWeek@healthysolutionsgroup.org

Golden Laws to Greatness: #12 Speak Your Greatness Into Existence

2011-07-13T08:19:00.000-04:00

"Oh but this whole country is full of lies, You're all gonna die and die like flies"

Nina Simone "Mississippi Goddamn"

I thought it appropriate to talk about the Golden Law of "Speaking your Greatness into Existence" during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday. A man known for his oratory skills, used the power of speech to move what seemed to be impenetrable social climates, and contributed immensely to change in social policy.

The power of speaking is evidenced in the antiquities. In ancient Egypt, originally named KMT or Kemet, one of their divine laws emphasized speech. Not the act of speaking, but the power, or rather the energy from the soul that is given into whatever is being said. The Ka or the life-force of the soul has power in your words.

Among the Yoruba people, the spoken word is considered the very breath of our soul. It is called àláàlasè or àsè, which ironically is commonly used in African-centered gatherings as a phrase of affirmation. À--è (pronounced ah-shay) is the most powerful force within the framework of these West African people who claim their roots in ancient Kemet.

In many African Diaspora cultures, and Africa, children were always warned to watch what they say. For women, when they emit their àsè it is said to contain a strength that is considered to be so powerful that it could save or destroy humanity. Unfortunately, we all forget this sacred principle (at one point in time) as we get grown. We can talk some mile-high, piled-high bullshit. We've mastered speaking our spirits, and our community's spirit into the ground. Let's flip it and lift it up.

Speaking is a strategic spiritual tool as well. Sometimes we talk about emerging concepts to the wrong people. Our intentions might be well when we spill the beans. Maybe we are bragging. However, down the line we witness a wonderful idea die before it was allowed to fully bloom. We are left scratching our heads about what happened. We opened our mouths when it should have been shut. Speaking has two components: making noise and being silent. We must also master the latter.

Your words do have power, let's use them substantively.

Destination: Support black artistry by going to a local poetry/ spoken word venue; or an open vocal night or jazz improvisational spot. Listen to the soul.

Golden Laws to Greatness: #11 Relax/ Sleep . . . The Best Ideas Happen when You are Dreaming

2011-07-12T08:17:00.000-04:00

"Inside my head there lives a dream that I want to see in the sun. Behind my eyes there lives a me that I've been hiding for much too long"

India Arie, "Strength, Courage & Wisdom"

Ever woke up from a dream or was zapped out of a mental zone, only to pull out a great idea or simple solution to a complicated problem? This semi-conscious or other conscious dimension is something that is spoken of from known names such as Zehanda of Zimbabwe to Albert Einstein (he studied African culture like Sigmund Freud). They all have recounted dreams or visions in which they received their most brilliant or inspirational ideas.

If you look around today, we are caught in such a rat race, our dreams are disturbed with recurring nightmares of late bills, pending projects, children's tuition, or the recurring reality shows we can not shake from our psyches. Two of top three under-diagnosed health/mental issues are sleep deprivation and untreated stress.

Our bodies have been conditioned to operate in a "state of emergency" mode for so long, it seems normal after a while. We are functioning on of coffee and anxiety, with little substance. Consequentially, we are dwindling to these mindless robotic machines. Beyond the health and mental issues, we've lost our art of dreaming and interpreting our dreams.

Dreams are very profound. Even Oprah sleeps with a journal by her nightstand to log what she says are her "thoughts". Read behind the lines. She is journaling her dreams and writing what they mean.

Destination: Chill out and drink some Kava Kava in Samoa, Fiji, or Tonga Islands in the South Pacific. These islands enjoy warm climates year round, and are opulent in natural beauty and also known for its whales in the surrounding waters.

Lifestyle: Visit Birdland Jazz Club, a famous jazz spot named after musician Charlie Parker. It's in New York City, located on 44^th Street. www.birdland.com; In Johannesburg, South Africa, the supper jazz club "Back of the Moon" was designed to honor Sophia Town musicians www.backofthemoon.co.za ; In London, Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club helps revitalize the city's Soho district that is noted for its vibrant culture; Listen to the smooth sounds of Bossa Nova in Sao Paolo, Brazil's, "Ao Vivo Music Club".

Alternate Lifestyle: Support your local jazz club.

Beauty: Honey Milk Bath

• 1 cup honey
• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup salt
• 1/4 cup baking soda
• 1/2 cup baby oil
• Fragrance oil of your choice
Combine honey, milk, salt and baking soda in a bowl. Fill your tub and pour the mixture in. Add the baby oil and a few drops of the fragrance.

Health: Kava Kava can also be purchased at your local health store. It is a natural calmative that gives you a pleasant tingle.

Golden Laws to Greatness: #10 Completion is Power

2011-07-11T08:16:00.000-04:00

Completion is Power

I was hit with a personal crisis the day before I was to go on a weeklong training for a job I really wanted. That morning as I cried my eyes out to a friend in Florida she told me that I had to get my ass up and go. She kept saying, "Completion is Power". With all of my snotty rags and medication, I did it and had a successful career in teaching.

I still am thankful for her wisdom and support. She taught me a rough lesson I dodged for years. I carried so much baggage from incomplete projects and not bringing life situations to closure. Completion and closure represent consciously ending something for the purpose of opening up to another. When you leave things open or unfinished it is like a bad wound festering until it becomes a disease that consumes a part of your life.

Release and ending things have gotten a lot easier for me. I hold the crown entitled "Queen of Cling", so I know all about grudges, lingering heartache, fear of moving forward, nagging insecurities, pack rat behaviors, mental obsessions, and obsession with my possessions (more so what I feel I am attached to). Sister let me tell you, as a cancer, I still am challenged.

For me, the hardest part of completion, other than relationships, is completing personal projects. I will do things at work and at school that will almost drive me crazy. But I get them done. However, when it comes to me finishing my book, my business plans, or that poem, or my resume, or that pitch to Oprah, it gets mixed up with excuses and anxiety.

Completion entails putting your needs as a top priority. There are days you must put you first. Be it losing weight or traveling to a destination you've dreamed of, do it sister, you got to. Completion is power.

Destination: Barcelona, Spain. Lola Akinmade wrote a great article on www.Blacktravels.com called "See you in Pamplona" http://www.blacktravels.com/pamploma_lolaakinmade.html

Alternate Destination: Olvera Street, Los Angeles; Little Havana, Miami.

Lifestyle: Wine touring. If there isn't a local wine tour by your home then visit a specialty shop that features wine. Some of them offer samples.

Alternate Lifestyle: Throw a wine party….hmmm sounds like a good plan for Excursionista.

Beauty: Cracked lips are a sign that you are deficient in B-vitamins. Chap sticks, lip gloss, Vaseline, and other lip emollients provide temporary if any relief. Many even further damage with the toxic chemicals in them. Up your vitamin B intake and try an emollient that is natural or even consider pure vitamin E, coconut oil, pure cocoa butter, avocado oil (which I love), and refined shea butter (this is the kind that has a subtle smell instead of the mold that often plagues shea products using unrefined butter).

Health: Your vagina is very, very sensitive, but many mainstream products weaken our vaginas and wombs rather than strengthen them. In particular, over-the-counter douching products have been shown to damage the vagina, leaving holes in the womb and causing other ailments. However, you can still rinse that sacred area by creating your own feminine rinse. First go to a local store that sells empty douche bottles such as Rite Aid, CVS, or Duane Reade pharmacy. A basic feminine rinse is distilled water (not spring water) and organic apple cider vinegar (not white vinegar or table vinegar). For every cup put a tablespoon of vinegar. The douche bottle holds about 2 cups. Boil the water and let is cool completely. Then put in the vinegar. After you have washed the bottle in boiled distilled water (don't burn yourself please) put in contents and enjoy a refreshing experience. There are other combinations that you can read in several health books, but this basic feminine rinse is a great start.

Golden Laws to Greatness: #9 Your Gift is Your Wealth

2011-07-10T08:04:00.000-04:00

Your Gift is Your Wealth

"And I wish on all the rainbows that I see, I wish on all the people who really dream."

Rose Royce, "Wishing on a Star"

Black women are the masters of hustling. We have no choice. When you are sitting at the bottom of the social, political, and economic food chain it takes creativity, business savvy, and determination to survive.

Yet, in the midst of us carving our existence, we often let our natural talents fall by the wayside. When life hits us hard between children, jobs, relationships, and ensuring basic necessities, we justify the sacrifice of our knack or that distinctive thing we do, as something that was nice, but it never paid the bills.

Tsk, tsk sister, it is a new day. Ain't God ever told you that the gift is your wealth, and that we can flourish spiritually, emotionally, and financially. When I was young my mother used to sing a song by the 70s group Rose Royce on the guitar and piano. It was called "Wishing on a Star". My siblings and I would giggle at her small concerts. My mama? Singing? Playing instruments? The age she was then, I am now. The biggest difference was she was married with five children going on six. Me, I'm still single and have a lot of nieces, nephews, and godchildren.

Today, my mother plays about twice, maybe three times a year, now for her grandchildren. They now giggle and scream as she roughly go over notes she hasn't plucked in a long time. Her beautiful guitar sits in the corner.

I too struggle between pursuing my writing and performing, and hustling to eat another day. This shit we got going on right here is serious, especially now since other people are feeling the economic crunch and our scrounging for dollars too. It is getting savage out here.

I must offer you this gem that I got from one of the craziest men I called myself dating. As I was balling up my fist like Miss Sophia on the "Color Purple," he said to me right before I was about to clock his ass, "It is a sin when you do not use your God given talent. You gift is what makes your heart beat."

I hesitated so I could mentally chew on those simple sentences I still remember verbatim. Wish I would've taken the gem and ran, but the glutton for punishment I could be, I stayed, until I had to literally knock him the hell out some months later. Oh well, that was another lifetime, so let me continue with the golden law.

My love of writing and the performing arts feed my soul. It is my therapy. It is my salvation. It has been in a lot of ways, my bread and butter. More importantly, my gifts are my prayers. That is how we should see our gifts, as our prayers to the divine, which in turn are our prayers honoring our spirits.

One day, my mother and I will pray together. She will be on the guitar and I will be reciting poetry.

Support and honor your sisters' gifts.

Destination: Your place of birth, your mama's house, or your grandmother's house.

Alternate Destination: Call them if you are far away.

Lifestyle: Acknowledge your gifts and meditate on how you can incorporate them in your daily life. Think about a business you can sculpt around it. Collaborate with others if you can. Remember, this isn't a quick fix. Respect your gifts. NEVER second guess and unapologetically release them on us troubled souls that are hungry for more authenticity in this superficial world.

Alternate Lifestyle: Buy and critique black art, black businesses, and black products. There are quite a few sisters who are moving into their natural love of something. Though it is a gift, all talents are cultivated and developed. So if a sister tells you the shea butter body crème you made was not emollient enough, then take the suggestion and go back to your lab. Recently, I've been doing my poetry again, and honestly my deliveries are not close to what I used to do several years ago. I got work to do as well.

Beauty: Ugliness and disease start at the spiritual level then works down to cellular, finally emerging physically. Notably this is the process of beauty, healing, happiness, and prosperity. Reverse the negative and manifest all that is divine.

Health: One of my favorite tea combinations given to me by an elder whom I miss dearly. He is looking over me, I know this. Womb tea, combine all of these herbs "Chamomile, Lemongrass, Hibiscus and Red Raspberry." BUY YOUR HERBS IN BULK. I've been shopping at this wonderful place called Penn Herb for years. There selection is out of this world! Go to their site and see for yourself www.pennherb.com.

Golden Laws to Greatness: #8 Be Fluid Like Water

2011-07-09T07:59:00.000-04:00

Be Fluid Like Water

"Moving down the streams of my lifetime, Pulls the fascination in my sleeve"

Lauryn Hill "Just Like Water"

Water is so cleansing and refreshing. It represents the amniotic fluid of the world. Somewhere, we've forgotten how to respect and use the spiritual and medicinal properties of water in our lives. For starters, we do not drink enough of it, and the water is becoming so polluted. In this little note, I am speaking of a metaphorical toxicity.

The ebb and flow of life can be frustrating when you do not understand that such a thing exists. What exactly does ebb and flow mean? In my opinion, life consists of constant cycles. Each cycle represents a tier in our growth. Within that tier you go through various stages which have two extremes, dry spells and floods. We experience them both, in different volumes, and varied time frames.

For me there was always a battle that had to be waged in coming to understanding. Even when there was no need for one, I would show up and it would be on. However, after my long battles, I would often look around and be standing alone. The alone part would always subside because often you will find yourself alone, but the part that always left me scratching my head was the fact that I exited from a battle more confused about who I was or where I was going.

As a result, the next step in my journey became unclear. I became stagnant. Worse, I made unhealthy choices and behaved in unproductive ways. Similar to those who love drama, or sisters who love self-pity, or the self-righteous, who know every goddamn thing and wait for the opportunity to pounce on us inferior minds. "In the middle of a whole bunch of nuthin'" some of my folk would say.

We immerse ourselves in bullshit because it is easy when we truly have lost our way. Instead of moving with the natural flow of life, we stood unmoved and stubborn to growth like a huge crater in the river of our existence. Over time, the water wore us down and we realized we were in the same place, chipped down raw, and flooded over.

I made a decision to be like an African water lily (if there is such a thing) effortlessly floating down an Amazon, Nile, Niger or Mississippi watercourse. There were times when it gently kissed rocks or was sprayed with rapids, but it kept gliding. I am that aquaboogie sister.

Destination: Why a mineral spring? Check out the benefits of mineral water. Indigenous people have known and used them for centuries. For instance, the native folk of what is now know America saw hot mineral springs as sacred spaces. Unfortunately, the great expansion of the West has forcefully relocated the original inhabitants of the lands who probably can give us a deeper understanding of the springs. Anywho, here are some spots to go hot spring crazy.

Japan. An island nation that sits on volcanoes, this country is teeming in hot springs that are attached to inns or public bath houses.

Denver, CO. I know this sounds crazy being that it is freezing there right now, but just miles outside of the city are over a dozen hot mineral springs to visit.

British Columbia, Canada. This vast stretch of region has hot springs that range from Big Foot to all-luxury.

Malaysia. Make sure these hot springs are friendly for you because unfortunately

a huge sex trade goes on in south Asian regions and islands where people are economically disenfranchised.

Something's in the (mineral)Water! Hell yes, check it out!

POTASSIUM
     1. Release of energy from cells
     2. Manufacture of glycogen and protein
     3. Regulates fluid balance
     4. Transmission of nerve impulses
     5. Important in maintaining normal heart beat
     6. Muscle contractions
SODIUM
      1. Maintains normal fluid balance
     2. Transmission of nerve impulses
     3. Muscle contractions
     4. Helps to increase permeability of cell walls
CALCIUM
     1. Development and maintenance of strong bones & teeth
     2. Protects against Osteoporosis
     3. Ensures proper clotting of the blood
     4. Needed for the contraction & relaxation of muscles, especially the heart
     5. Needed for proper utilization of iron
     6. Assists in the absorption of Vitamin B-12
     7. Helps to regulate cell permeability
MAGNESIUM
     1. Helps to form strong bones and teeth
     2. Helps to regulate muscle relaxation and contraction
     3. Maintains proper function of nerves
     4. Activates enzymes controlling energy metabolism
SULFATE
     1. Maintains healthy hair and nails
     2. Needed in eliminating blood diseases
     3. Helps to eliminate some skin diseases
     4. Stimulates the liver and increases the flow of bile
     5. Important in maintaining normal body metabolism
     6. Detoxifies some poisons in the body
AMMONIA
     1. Breaks down into nitrates, which are found in the DNA of all living things
PHOSPHATE
     1. Development of strong bones and teeth
     2. A component of the enzyme system in a cell, which governs the release of energy
     3.  Assists with protein production and defines the structure of cell DNA & RNA
     4. Helps to maintain the neutrality of the bodys fluids

Alternate Destination: Go to any body of water and pray (i.e. ocean, gulf, lake, stream, river, brook, bayou, swamp, etc.)

Lifestyle:

Sycamore Hot Springs

1215 Avila Beach Drive

San Luis Obispo, CA 93405
Toll Free: 1 800 234 5831; Direct: 1 805 595 7302; Fax: 1 805 595 4007

www.sycamoresprings.com

Carson Hot Springs

St. Martins Road, Off Highway 84

Toll Free: 1 800 607 3678; Direct: 509 427 8292; Fax: 509 427 7242

Email: carsonhotspringresort@earthlink.net

Website: http://www.carsonhotspringresort.com/

Lava Hot Springs Foundation

430 East Main

Lava Hot Springs, Idaho 83246
Toll Free: 1 800 423-8597; Direct: 1 208 776-5221

http://www.lavahotsprings.com/

Taupo Hot Springs & Health Spa

State Highway 5, Napier Taupo Highway

Taupo, New Zealand (Not far from Auckland)

http://www.taupohotsprings.com/

Peninsula Hot Springs

Springs Lane (formerly Devonport Drive)
Rye, 3941
Victoria, Australia
Direct: 61 3 5950 8777; Fax: 61 3 5950 8705

http://www.peninsulahotsprings.com/

Alternate Lifestyle: (Hot) Yoga class.

Beauty: Sea salt bath to remind you of the ocean. One pound of sea salt, 3 cups of baking soda, and an essential oil of your choice.

Health: Drink 1 – 2 litters of water a day. You will notice that you have slimmed down and will be relieving your bowels more.

Golden Laws to Greatness: #7 Listen to Your Spirit

2011-07-08T07:57:00.000-04:00

Listen to Your Spirit

You should have listened/There is someone here inside/Someone I'd thought had died/So long ago

Beyonce "Listen"

On my first trip to Nigeria, I was stranded in Lagos. It was me listening to my spirit that got me through. I was twenty-five, had never traveled to West Africa, knew no one, and was on a mission to immerse myself in Yoruba culture.

That was way before Beyonce or Jay-Z got inspired to tour with an entourage that probably had bullet-proof, armored cars, security resembling the president. As a matte of fact, I was the only non-Nigerian who was black and a woman who flew in that day. Nope, no high profile anything. It was just me, my overalls, and my bags and the customs agents were looking at me in a line full of white males mostly from Europe and some of United States, and were wondering what I was doing there as well.

The plan was that I was to be picked up at the airport by an African-American woman who spent most of her time in the country. I waited for ten hours. She never came and my sojourn began. Four days later, I arrived in Ile Ife, unharmed and ready to celebrate the Akara or Bean Cake Festival with the Yoruba people who honored their traditions and customs.

The Araba, or spiritual head of the Yoruba people looked at me and said through the interpreter that my ancestors had guided to Ile Ife, and I had listen. Today, his words and my experience bring chill bumps. If there was a time that I honed every survival skill I had, it was then. It was because I was stripped of anything I thought was pragmatic or effective, and had nothing I could identify to help me, so I consciously decided to listen and follow.

We are intuitive entities that miss so much of the underlying layers of life. From birth there is a process that systemically strips us from honoring and following our spirits. It is this thing called logic, or more, Westernized logic that tells us spirit does not exist and the thought of even thinking with our guts, or our sixth sense is garbage.

There are instances in your life that you are thinking right now that you wish you would have following your first mind, or listened to that voice that was telling you to go left. But nooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!! Logic told you to go right, and like all of us, you ended up in a gutter. More specifically, a gutter-relationship, a gutter-career move, a gutter-friendship, a gutter-mechanic, a gutter-baby-daddy, a gutter-investment, a-gutter-business deal, a gutter-driving decision, and the list continues.

But, do you remember the time you DID follow your spirit and everything fell into place. You were thinking, "It can't be that easy?" Honestly, it can, if we just listen.

Destination: The Lady's First Hotel in Zurich is a hotel that caters to women travelers. It is small, 28-room hotel in an elegant, totally renovated 19th century mansion. The top floors include a spa, rooftop terrace and workout room for women only.

Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa in Knysa, South Africa (near Cape Town) is surrounded by rugged cliffs, ancient forests and sheltered beaches, on the cliff-top of the Eastern Head, Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa offers breathtaking views of both the Knysna Lagoon and the Indian Ocean. A one hour flight from Cape Town. From the moment that guests arrive at Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa, they will realize what a truly exceptional place they have chosen. The hotel delivers a whole new world of luxury in elegant African style. http://www.pezularesorthotel.com/.

Alternate Destination: In the U.S., the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Bloomington, Minnesota has an all-female floor. It costs about $30 extra a night, and boasts rooms with makeup mirrors, fresh flowers and premium chocolates.

Lifestyle: Give yourself a trip to the spa! No sisters, a lot of you get manicures, pedicures and fingernails done at local facilities that treat you like cattle, amongst other things. Why not try a black-owned spa that caters to your distinct aesthetic needs.

Spirit Dream Spa

The only black-owned full spa service in Las Vegas.

1811 South Jones Blvd at West Oakey

702-873-9788

http://www.spiritdreamspa.com

Tru Urban Spa

A mother-daughter team in Sacramento

604 12 Street (at F Street)

916-443-2599

http://www.truurbanspa.com/

Alternate Lifestyle: Create your own spa in your bathroom and bedroom. It is so important for every woman to know how to maintain every part of her body and not rely on anyone. Dedicate a day to you and lather them ashy knees or crusty feet.

Beauty: A couple of years ago when I lived full-time in Los Angeles, I bought several products from a line I just noticed called Sade. The products were stellar, but the store stopped carrying them and I couldn't locate the product. Fortunately, for internet, I found her. FolaSade is in the building and holding it down in Brooklyn where she has a flagship store. She is a Nigerian noble raised between New York and London. Her products consist of natural materials cultivated from her homeland and are very good. Check her out at http://sadeskincare.com/

Health: Try a Yoga class with a brother or sister. Honestly, I didn't get Yoga until I tried it. Whew, you do not know how much of a rat race you are running until this meditative activity stops your breaks!

Golden Laws to Greatness: #6 Honor Your Creativity

2011-07-07T07:55:00.000-04:00

Honor Your Creativity

Runnin' 'round in circles, lost my focus/ Lost sight of my goal/ I do this for the love of music/ Not for the glitter and gold

India Arie "Little Things"

Kali Alexander of Lotus on the Nile gave an excellent lecture on fibroids. A sister who has rid herself of fibroids said that this health issue affecting a disproportionate number of black women starts at the spiritual level when we do not listen to or express or creative energies and our personal destiny.

Her profound statement is one of the reasons I'm pushing Excursionista. Personally, I dreamt of this for years. From a collective perspective, too many sisters have allowed natural talents to fall by the wayside for one reason or another. Not even knowing that it is that very thing that is the essential element in giving us sanity and life.

Write! Sing! Dance! Sew! Bake! Act! Sculpt! Paint! Play! Crochet! Compose! CREATE!

Destination: Peru is a country that is opulent in ancient African civilization. People think that black people came during slavery in South America, but that is far from the truth. One hundred kilometers from Lima, Peru there is a place called Makawasi, which is also known as the Stone Forest. It is called this because there are hundreds of stones shaped in human faces, and animals.

There is evidence of structures that were designed in the semblance of pharaohs, sphinxes, and African intellectuals. These structures pre-date what was thought to be the oldest civilization, the Incans. This spiritual journey is bringing thousands of people to these sites that also are said to have dozens of spiritual vortexes. While there you can enjoy the beauty of Lima, which also has the largest concentration of Afro-Peruvians. In my opinion, that is not a coincidence either.

Alternate Destination: When was the last time you've been to a museum or an art galler? Today, there are so many museums that you can skip the traditional city museum. Washington DC and New York have fascinating museums capturing different cultures. There are also funky museums that highlight black dolls, black films, black art, and other interesting things.

Currently, black visual artists are struggling due to the embarrassingly low support of the community. You see some of their work at festivals, or even knock-off copies, but visit their galleries, or a gallery that features their work. Also, over the last decade art collectives have been emerging that host a group of artists who can't afford their own galleries. Check out which one is in your neighborhood.

Lifestyle: You have not experienced Atlanta if you have not attended the nine-day summer festival in Atlanta called the National Black Arts Festival. This festival celebrates the contributions of people of African descent and their impact on world cultures. From visual artists to performing arts, this festival, engages, cultivates, and educates diverse audiences about the arts and culture of the African Diaspora and provide opportunities for artistic and creative expression. Check out their site http://www.nbaf.org.

Alternate Lifestyle: Visit www.lotusonthenile.com, and call Kali, she's in California, but does work across the globe.

Beauty: Jasmine essential oil stimulates creativity. Buy an oil burner and put 15 drops in the burner and fill the rest with distilled water (for a clean burn). Your house will smell wonderful and your inspiration will increase. Five drops of pure jasmine oil in avocado oil and give your body a vigorous rub while whispering affirmations.

Health: Pomegranate Juice is good for the blood and treating fibroids.

Golden Laws to Greatness: #5 Get Up, Get Out and Do Something

2011-07-06T07:48:00.001-04:00

Get Up, Get Out and Do Something

"We who believe in freedom cannot rest. We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes."

Sweet Honey in the Rock "Ella's Song"

Turmoil, political unrest, war, hate crimes, sexual violence, corruption, and so many other social atrocities have greatly impacted the world. Now is the time for us to take positive action, as well as stay abreast of current issues. Reading and dialoguing are just the beginning of contributing to redevelop and stabilize this world.

In the United States, presidential elections are around the corner, and it is critical for us to be involved in every facet of the political process. Since the US has its hands in many international affairs, our work here affects our sisters all over the world.

From your place of work, to the community, to the national issues, we must be active. Voting is just one way because political activism and education go far beyond the ballot. I am the last one to criticize anyone who does not believe in the voting process, but I challenge everyone to politicize themselves.

Internationally, countries such as Kenya are involved in a bloody and bitter post-presidential election that has left hundreds dead. There are people who are willing to die for fair elections. That struggle is deep and runs through the struggle of all oppressed people, and nations who are recovering after years of oppression, colonialism, and slavery.

What I do call from Excursionista readers is that we consider looking at the world from a Pan-African vantage point. This means we understand that black people are connected all over the world. Then after we embrace our intimate ties, we must honor this link.

When you travel more, you will see the physical resemblances of people of the Afrian Diaspora from Peru to Panama. I guarantee you will meet your aunt, uncle, mother, best friend, or someone that you know in another country.

Let me not deviate from this Golden Law to Gr8tness. Your participation in the flow of this world is critical. Even if for a second you give your all, you have given to the world a lot, thus you have served as our salvation.

Destination: It is summer in South Africa and the perfect time to check out the country's three major cities which are Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town. You will be immersed in various cultures that richly carve out a country known for its intricate clash of contemporary and tradition, European and African, Asian and Indigenous Nations. The cities are situated in distinct areas of the country, and have their own beauty.

Let's start with Cape Town. A picturesque city by sea located on the western coast is experiencing major developments due to it being the host of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the über soccer event of the world.

Durban, which is also identified by the original inhabitants as Kwa Zulu Natal, is a breathtaking region on the west coast of the country by the sea as well. The hotels and inns are very reasonable. When I was there, my friend got a penthouse suite in the off season for US $45 a night. I know much has changed since then. I remember the beautiful purple flowers on hills and mountains of lush green. Don't sleep, to get to the memorial site of Shaka Zulu was a disappointing journey because the Indian people in the area ridiculed this celebrated African warrior.

Johannesburg is like a mixture of New York, Washington, DC, and Miami with a Zulu/Xhosa swagger. You know it's the city, but it emits an African flair that I love. The city is filled with these grand mansions once occupied by rich whites, but now the owners have diversified somewhat. You can easily visit Soweto, or the infamous Sun City. Please, don't sleep on this city because the gun-clappers are out and you definitely have to watch your back.

Alternate Destination: Black Paris Tour is a company founded by Ricky Stevenson of Oakland, California USA, who had the desire to live in Paris after her career as an international travel journalist. This tour gives you the historical and contemporary depth of the black presence in Paris. You can contact Ricki at Rickis@club-internet.fr or phone her at (from the U.S): 011.331.46.37.03.96; In Paris call: 01.46.37.03.96; Cell Phone: 06.62.68.03.96. Read about her online: http://www.tomtmusic.com/id155.htm.

Lifestyle: Film Festivals to Consider

Images of Black Women African Descent Women in Cinema
http://www.imagesofblackwomen.com

Pan-African Film Festival
www.paff.org

African Film Festival
http://www.africanfilmny.org

National Black Arts Film Festival
http://www.nbaf.org

Langston Hughes African American Film Festival
http://langstonblackfilmfest.org

African American Women in Cinema
www.aawic.org

American Black Film Festival
http://www.abff.com

Alternate Lifestyle: Read a Book Sista! Other than the street novels and gutter love stories . . . not hatin' on Zane, I'm just saying daaggggggg, step outta your box! Here are a couple of fiction and non-fiction women writers to look up (some have already made their transition). Bessie Head(South Africa), Mariama Ba(Senegal), Octavia Butler(USA), Toni Morrison(USA), Ama Ata Aidoo(Ghana), Maryse Conde(Guadelouoe), Assata Shakur (USA, but has been living in Cuba since she escaped from prison), Tananarive Due (USA), & Nalo Hopkinson(West Indies/Canada).

Beauty & Health: Water is great medicine! Drinking the right amount of water increases your metabolism, moves your digestive system, cleanses your body, and clears your skin. It is always good to drink lots of water during travel.

Golden Laws to Greatness: #4 Move!

2011-07-05T07:45:00.002-04:00

Move!

"I'm taking my own freedom, putting it in my stroll, I'll be high stepping y'all, letting the joy unfold."

Jill Scott "Golden"

Many of us are losing the battle of health because of sedentary lifestyles. Whether we are riding in the car, or hibernating in our homes during snowy, cold winters, we have got to incorporate more movement.

Personally, I hate the word "exercise" because it connotes a societal pressure that tells me if I don't "exercise" than that means I'm lazy. We all know that is bullshit because black women are hard workers—yet most of the time we are working for the benefit of others. As a result, we neglect the maintenance of ourselves.

I'm discovering that carving out a fitness program must be creative. Most of us drop out because of the boring "routines" we use. I've learned to also despise the word "routine" because it equates to a bland sex life. And please do not mention "work out" because the word "work" is in the phrase and I've been working since the age of 14 and am still broke.

So approach working out to the best sex life you ever want to have. Throw in some dance lessons, with power walks around your block, or try Yoga and morning stretches, belly dancing and personalized strip tease shows (for your honey, or just work on your game for future usage); try boogie boarding, squatting and performing leg lifts during your lunch break; stretch those underused limbs; and between all that tighten up womb with pelvic squeezes.

Destination: Los Angeles. Lots of sun, a lot of outdoor activities.

Alternate Destination: Local roller skating or ice skating rink

Lifestyle: African Arts Festival in Atlanta going on now until July 18

Alternate Lifestyle: Take an ethnic dance class

Beauty: Hot water damages the hair, so when you wash try room temperature water to save those roots.

Health: MSM for joints; Kelp and Alfalfa for energy; Chlorophyll helps cells regenerate, pumps oxygen in your body, prevents aging and helps alkaline the body.

Golden Laws to Greatness: #3 Learn Your Body

2011-07-04T07:41:00.001-04:00

Learn Your Body

This is how I look without makeup
And with no bra my ninny's sag down low
My hair ain't never hung down to my shoulders
And it might not grow
Ya' never know

Erykah Badu "Cleva"

I had one of those mothers that gave me little instruction on my body. One day she just told me that my body was a temple and I should treat it as such. Well, I quite was not able to conceptualize my body being a temple at age nine, and would go clueless about my body for about ten years more.

Many black women were taught various portions of learning our bodies. Some were given birth control before they were having sex and were damn near pilfered if they even thought about intercourse. Others were shown basic things like wearing sanitary pads, bras, and matching underwear. Some with the help of women folk, even went through rites of passage to their womanhood. Unfortunately, most of us walk through life not knowing much about our bodies—meaning the physical, spiritual, and emotional components.

First, let's be clear, black women's bodies have been commodified. Our bodies have been turned into a product to exploit and fuck rather than be worshipped and adored. This is waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy before hip-hip, so please do not get it twisted. We have abused for so long that abuse has become our natural infliction. Now many of us have been shamed into knowing the difference between our nipples from our third chakra.

Then, there is this twisted interpretation of religion that distances women more from knowing themselves. All of our traditions and customs have been so suppressed by anti-African, imbalanced, and synthetic versions of spirituality, black women are walking around with wombs full of fibroids, various types of thyroid conditions, prolapsed uteruses, and depressed sensuality trying to pray all of their preventable ailments away.

I am not casting judgment, but just being true to me, because I too fall in that category. I am a black woman who is also learning her body. I've been in uncomfortable situations and confused moments as well that a doctor, or priestess, or my mama could not explain. It is because my body has its own blueprint, its own map that only I could decode and understand.

Herbs, counselors, priests, books, crystals, and yoga classes are all tools that we can use to learn our bodies. We experiment or we test these various rituals and places of knowledge by applying them into our lives. They teach us how to understand; however, everything isn't for everybody—meaning what works for me maybe different when you try to apply it. That's when the learning process begins.

Many women have told me to be still, I do that though sometimes I fall short. However, often when I do, in my stillness my body comes alive and tells me to be active. So I run on the seashore and listen to the melodies of ocean, I open my legs to the breeze and let nature cleanse my center, I walk on the cool sand and massage my toes. There I feel the aches in my womb or the peace of knees.

Like you I am still learning and refining.

Destination: Egypt. In the antiquities of this spiritual place the term "Know Thyself" was the mantra for all. Discover the pillar, the cornerstone to all that you see today.

Alternate Destination: Sedona, AZ is known for red rocks mountains and the Kachina indigenous people who have houses in the cliffs like the Dogon of Mali.

Lifestyle: Belly Dancers of Color Fest & Soul Yoga Fest, May 23 – 26, Washington DC www.bellydancersofcolor.org.

Alternate Lifestyle: Purchase Moor Hips Bellydance Instructional DVD Vol. 1 by Dr. Sunyatta Amen

Beauty: Unrefined Coconut oil for hair, face, and body

Health: Smile at yourself and others more. The facial movements in a smile bring internal relief. Nurture a house plant, or find a tree, flower, or some vegetation that you greet, it will send you back love.

Golden Laws to Greatness: #2 Allow Yourself to Be Completely & Totally Loved

2011-07-03T07:35:00.001-04:00

Allow Yourself to Be Completely & Totally Loved

I had a paralyzing fear of facing failure

And I couldn't love you perfectly with fear in my head
So I perilously had to face the danger
So I could come back and love you whole instead
All of your soul I said!

Lauryn Hill "Lose Myself"

We all have scars from severed relationships, friendships, cruel relatives, and other life experiences. Some of us, if not many of us, place our hearts in a steel cage thinking that we are protecting ourselves against predators; however, we become the killers of our souls. Yet and still, we look at movies, read novels, and write scripts in our heads that yell "We want to be loved".

Many of us think that showering ourselves with material things is exhibiting self-love, but often that is an action that indicates we are substituting true self-love for things that will fade away. Eternal love is this unmovable energy that sits on your head's crown, in the nape of your neck, with every pulse of your heart, at the base of your womb, in the small of your back, behind your knees, and at the balls of your toes.

For me, I did have to lose myself, meaning I had to release all I thought I knew about me and about life to reconnect with who I really was. It was a volatile and painful death, but once I let go, I entered into a peace and became clear on what I wanted and needed. When came into me, I finally saw him then allowed him into my world.

Surrender to your love, to his love, to her love, to universal love.

Have I found the Promised Land? Hah! Once you think you are home you realize you have so many miles to go. So that's why I've cooked up some travel and lifestyle ideas for you.

Destination: Try a Bed & Breakfast, there are many local B&B's that are in your town, or across town. Even if you live in the country, or rural areas, many of the older homes have been transformed. Here is a list of some B&B's that have gotten attention for their stellar service.

Phoenix Risin' B&B located in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Baltimore is owned by Janice Orr, a sister who is a civil rights, international human rights, and entertainment attorney. For an additional cost, you may also have in-room massages, facials, manicures and pedicures performed by licensed practitioners. Check her out at http://www.phoenixrisin.com. Phoenix Risin', 1429 Bolton Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21217, Telephone: (410) 462–2692, Fax: (410) 523–3434, Email: jorrphoenixrisin@aol.

Glendale Glasslight Inn is in historic Glendale, AZ that describes itself as retro-chic. Ran by innkeepers Paul and Teresa Seabrook it offers unique cozy rooms, a coffee and wine bar, and a piano lounge reminiscent of the old west. 5747 W. Glendale Avenue, Glendale, AZ 85301. Phone for more information, (623) 934-9114

The Foley House awarded in the top 25 B&B's of the south and one of the most romantic in the country it is Savannah Georgia's oldest bed and breakfast. The Inn sits on a quiet street nestled between two of Savannah's oldest churches. Opulent in mesmerizing charm, attentive southern hospitality, and the legendary slower pace of the old south it is definitely a lover's getaway or can be a private retreat. www.foleyinn.com. It is located 14 W. Hull St, Savannah, GA or call 1 (800) 647-3708.

Akwaaba Inns is made up of husband and wife team Glenn Pogue and Monique Greenwood. They have collection of upscale B&B's from Brooklyn to New Orleans. Locations are as followed Akwaaba Mansion (Brooklyn, NY); Akwaaba by the Sea (Cape May, NJ); Akwaaba at Buttonwood Manor (Cape May, NJ); Akwaaba D.C. (Washington, D.C.); Akwaaba in the Bayou (New Orleans, LA). Their historical properties have been restored and renovated to top-notch lavishness. They are divine and worth every cent. Check out their website http://www.akwaaba.com or call at (866) inn-dulj or fax (718) 455-9697.

Alternate Destination: Your local day spa.

Lifestyle: Check out St. Lucia's Food & Rum Festival from October 30 – November 8 http://www.foodandrumfestival.com. This festival features chefs from all over the Caribbean. It consists of dinners featuring menus from our invited chefs, lectures on rum, chef demonstrations, rum tastings of over 40 rums from across the region and concerts held on Saturday and Sunday night.

Alternate Lifestyle: A Damn Good Mojito. 7 sprigs of mint leaves, 1 small lime, 2 cups of water, ¼ cup of agave or turbinado sugar (I love it sweet), 2 ounces of brown Cuban rum (or to your desire, I prefer more J). Mix and chill over ice while listening to a Cassandra Wilson CD. White jasmine candles are nice!

Beauty: Sprinkle pure cinnamon oil in your bedroom linen and on your pillows for love; Take a bath with rose petals, orange slices, and honey. All these things you can get out of your kitchen or access them easily (rose petals also come dried as a flower herb).

Health: Buy some rose petals, chamomile flowers, and raw organic honey to make a wonderful elixir then drink it ice cold (in the cold winter regions try it hot). Did you know you could drink rose petals? You can, it is a traditional drink in Senegal that is delicious. If you look in the Latino sections of markets they sometimes have rose petals for $2 or less. I used to pick them up in Los Angeles all the time in the store called "Food For Less" on Century and Western. To spice it up drop in a cinnamon stick.

Golden Laws to Greatness: #1 Love Yourself

2011-07-02T07:31:00.000-04:00

LOVE YOU

"I like what I see when I'm looking at me while I'm walking past the mirror."

Mary J. Blige in, "Just Fine"

Consciously critique your biggest critic, which is yourself. Exorcise that personal demon and embrace the essence of your goddess.

We often prevent our own elevation by wallowing in the harsh criticisms we lavish upon ourselves. Especially black women who carry the world's burden's and crucify our spirits when we do not show results or when we are not what we think we should be. The mirror can be our cruelest invention. Teach yourself how it can be your best friend.

When I say consciously, I mean every syllable of that overused word. Some days you might have to talk about your love of self out loud. Read affirmations, stop in mid thought to change the direction of damaging idea, or stand without clothes in the mirror and genuinely admire who you are. Gradually, the conscious practice will merge into the everyday ritualistic thinking that will guide us to making better decisions. More so, instead of projecting a life of doom and misery into our mental projections that play out our lives in your heads, we will create a world where we win, where we love, where we are happy.

Stand in front of a mirror with bright lights on and pay attention to the points on your personal planet you have been neglecting. Lovingly name every stretch mark, mole, booty dent, splotch, keloid, pimple, varicose vein, gap, bald patch, lopsided breast, black toe, and every other perfect imperfection you see. Love it, own it then bless it. These physical features are part of you, part of your story, but your spirit gives them life. If you hate it, the world will hate it. However, if you love your stubby toes, trust, there will be someone who will sincerely suck the shit out of your toe and love you more for allowing that intimacy.

Destination: Bahia, Brazil. The people there will show you the meaning of life and personal love. Dance in a night parade letting it all jiggle. Then take a trip down to Rio and soak up sun at a nude beach.

Alternate Destination: Miami is the best city to travel when you want to get out of the country but can't. Some parts are so heavily saturated by people of the Caribbean, South America, or the diverse populations of New York, you feel as if you left the strip mall, Disneyland appeal of the United States.

Now we all can't just hop on a plane and go to Miami so draw up a warm bath with honey. You can also use sea salt or kosher salt (buy that for about 1.25 @ grocery store) and white tea lights. This is a cleansing of your temple and the opportunity to consume your beauty.

Lifestyle: "Color Purple" Broadway Play

Alternate Lifestyle: Any of the following concerts: Chaka Khan, Cassandra Wilson, Sy Smith, Rachel Farelle, Susana Baca, or Erykah Badu

Beauty: Ibeji Body Care Products. This right here smells scrumptious. It made

by this sister out of Oakland. http://www.myspace.com/ibejibodycare

Golden Laws to Greatness

2011-07-01T07:27:00.000-04:00

In honor of my birthday month, I am exploring and celebrating the spirit within.

Get ready, Eco.Soul is getting down to the soul.

For the next 12 days we will be exploring each law/principle and adding great travel and lifestyle ideas you can implement or challenge yourself to manifest.

1) Love You

2) Allow Yourself to be Completely & Totally Loved

3) Learn Your Body

4) Move!

5) Get Up, Get Out & Do Something

6) Honor Your Creativity

7) Listen to Your Spirit

8) Be Fluid like Water

9) Your Natural Gift is Wealth

10) Completion is Power

11) Relax/Sleep/Dream

12) Speak Greatness into Existence

You're the Dick, Dude

2011-06-30T20:00:00.000-04:00

This is that bullshit that we talk about, Mark Halperin, in his smugness egregiously insults Barack Obama, the President on the United States during a time he is supposed to provide critical analysis on his Afghan war speech made two days ago.

"I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday."

What the fuck?

I am the first one to criticize policies, but it is very interesting how he talks about his behavior and not his policy choice. Here we go again, some folk feel threatened by a Negro who speaks and acts like he's got a set of cahones, and is called arrogant.

Wowzers, what great intellectual property. Fucking dick.

Fantasia, You're a Non Fucking Factor

2011-06-30T11:27:00.005-04:00

I know Fantasia is a gifted singer when she isn't screaming all the time and kicking off her shoes.

I defended Fantasia when she received harsh criticism for messing with a married man, and others such as Alicia Keys and Lauryn Hill get slightly-tempered responses, and still have a career.

I even cheered for her when she attempted to read on a seventh grade level and do basic math on her reality show. I did not stigmatize Fantasia because truth be told, a large number of Americans are semi-literate, including Hollywood.

For example, R.Kelly, the best daddy day care you can find admitted to be illiterate in the midst of his legal woes for pissing on a 14-year-old. Then he proceeded to put out a song talking about writing a love letter. Yeah right.

For real, for real, I really hoped Tasia could baptize herself in a healthier life. One in which she could surround herself with love and people who would direct her with wisdom and not leech on the small change she has made with her depleting fame. Like her grown ass brother Teeny, who hasn't had a job since he played drums in the church. His sorry ass.

But I must retract on Fantasia. The recent news that she is now openly dating her former married lover, and is with child again by him speaks volumes to the proverb, "You can take a chicken head out the hood, but she will keep clucking."

Fantasia and Antwaun, a hoodrat's love story in true fashion. She runs back to a dude who was fucking her and his wife raw at the same time. Shacking up with both of them at the same time, and didn't have a job. Oh, my bad he was in real estate, during the fucking housing implosion. This was the Negro who at one point bragged about being happy that he finally had his own one bedroom apartment after his ex kicked his ass out.

And I know her family and friends have been screaming and shaking her to read the obvious signs on the wall. But her self-esteem issues and insecurities are clogging her sensibilities. Just because somebody say you purty Tasia, don't mean they love you.

Antwaun pulled a bigger fish then mooching off of his former wife who had several advanced degrees. Now he's with someone who can barely read?

But as Fantasia said on her reailty show, "He makes me feel good. He tells me I'm beautiful." She really is Celie.

I am no Cleo the Psychic, but this rocky foundation is bound to go in a Bobby and Whitney direction; twisted and fucked up. If you were so desperate to find someone to tell you, you look purty Fantasia, you could've bought you some well-behaved dick from Africa that was waaaaaaayyyyyy cheaper because this mufucka is going to cost you.

As for Antwuan, he definitely got a hood star; however her light is blinking on low and she's about to fall out of the sky onto the rocks of reality and brokeness (again) with these low record sales. Hopefully, this disastrous relationship will give us one or two great singles.

Aye yai, yai.

BET & It's Deal With the Devil (Repost Revisted)

2011-06-29T19:47:00.006-04:00

People have been bugging with Boyce Watkins' commentary about BET; unfortunately, BET has been on a fast track downhill to hell in gasoline thongs even before Viacom got a hold of it.

Matter of face, founder and former owner, Robert Johnson could've done a lot with it, if he had a heart, a conscience, and a little concern regarding his own folk.

Anywho, here is a blog I did after the 2010 BET awards. I was not at all interested in seeing 2011, or Free's fake ass, or five stars make ten appearances on the same night because BET can only book folk who's careers are dwindling, or they are trying to get some exposure.

BET's Deal With the Devil
Have you noticed the plethora of shitty awards shows lately? Let's take MTV, the Oscars, the Espy, the annual porn awards (uhh maybe not that), and we can go down the list.

But the one that I'm going in on today is my all time favorite failure, BET's annual F-list celebs, cooch fest and fake-thug fuckery known as the BET Awards.

Between the BET Awards, Soul Train Music Awards and the Brandy/Ray J reality show and now the Basketball Wives, I shake my head and think, "What a waste of airtime space."

You know what is scarier, the fact that there aren't any shows starring black folk on television. And I am not talking about "Tiny & Toya" or any Reality TV series, that is just a cheap way for networks to deal with heavy financial losses in the era of Internet while they figure out the next gigantic exploitative financial scheme other than overpriced advertising.

With that said, some people view BET as the only time to watch diversity other than the token black, Latino, or Asian that appears on CSI, House or Grey's Anatomy. Yes, please be afraid.

What has been even more of a squander is BET the network, also known to me as Bullshit Entertainment TV. The only shows carrying that half-ass cable channel are "106 & Park" and the Sunday gospel shows that feature pastors with 1983 gherri curls and thousand dollar suits sweating and preaching religious feel-good lies to half of a congregation living in upper-class poverty.

And my all-time unfavorite, "106 & Park" is a prime environment and training site for pedophiles. You have two hosts in their mid-to-late 30s, playing videos of soon-be-grandfathers such as P-Diddy who is making like his 10th comeback, in crowd full of tweens and hot-booty adolescents who are ready to pop, lock and drop it for the first star to blow them a kiss.

All you need is a fake east-coast accent like Rocsi (from NOLA) and Terrence (from N. Carolina), a little music, some brand named clothes, and you have at least three teens on your team.

And if I channel surf to this cable station and see the film, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, or a horribly-written homo-erotic Christian-zealous stage play one more time, I'm going to come out of my skin. And if there is another Baby Boy replay, I think me and my mama will get pregnant by Jodie or get ripped from asshole to vagina by one of Ving Rhames' jump-fucking scenes.

With the ongoing financial depression, it has been shown through government documents that the overexpsure of highly-hyped, low-production shows and professional athletics such as FIFA, NBA Finals, Wimbeldon, French Open, the Golf Master's, and the list of other sports, is often used to quell the savage beast of the masses. Check out the baseball frenzy on the radio during the 1920s Depression.

Nevertheless, BET was not always this way. There were actually some pretty good, original shows, news, and black political thought up until the late 1990s. In fact, BET was in many ways, a social-political-and cultural hub for black folk who could not break into a very whitewashed entertainment or news industry.

Once upon a time, being on BET meant something.

Lets not forget, MTV did not to show Michael Jackson's videos when it launched in the 1980s. Back in the day, BET, was all black folks had as far as cable television was concerned.

But let me tell you a little about one of BET's deals with the Devil that has led to its . I remember it well, I was an entertainment reporter then.

I will start with a BET press junket that I went to in the late 90s or early 2000s. Since BET supplied the publication I worked for with lots of entertainment material and advertisement, I was damn near obliged to go. Yup, that's how the press works, the newsroom is always darkened by an advert-man.

Well, I went to this junket and Robert L. Johnson was there to introduce BET's latest channel. The reporters were thinking, "Finally, a political station or one that focused on more than videos." We were so stupid, it was the exact opposite, it turned out to be a soft porn channel with a name I cannot remember.

After Johnson gave his warm and fuzzy speech in front of black and white sleazy investors, a black male reporter asked Johnson why he chose a soft-porn station out of all the things he could have launched. Then the reporter added to his inquiry that Johnson alreardy received heavy criticism for cutting socio-cultural political shows and even the news from the already existing BET.

And that is when the coon came out.

Johnson said something to the fact that BET was about entertainment and if he wanted to do something on entertainment then that was what he would do. Of course he said it with a fuck you tone and a couple of F-bombs to the reporter. It was quite nasty, and I was frankly disgusted.

Here I must mention that Johnson's former wife (who now openly talks about his gazillion affairs and domestic abuse) didn't even let their children watch BET because of its content! Also, I must mention that Johnson was the guy who insinuated Obama to be a common criminal in his support with Clinton back in the presidential campaign.

Okay, now back to the story...

Porn & Hip Hop

A scene from the video "Tip Drill"

Well, the soft-porn venture did not work out well, but something else happened. BET became a breeding ground for the merger of porn and hip-hop.

It was around the 90s when porn companies began to invest heavily in hip-hop. Larry Flint, the owner of Hustler Magazine had experimented with a hip-hop magazine called, Rap Pages, a West-Coast version of The Source.

Though Rap Pages could not mess with The Source, there was something to be said about over-sexualized themes and frequent messages of materialism and consumerism in 1990s rap. Plus there was a trend with the hip-hop video models---most came from the porn world located in NOHO, or North Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, and the Valley right outside of city of the Los Angeles.

Logistically, this was perfect because BET has production sets in Burbank and corporate housing the Valley, not far from porn industry headquarters. In fact, this goes for all of the entertainment industry who often preyed on artists via lots of drugs and freaky sex.

As hip-hop became heavily infused with drugs, strippers, sex, money and murder, the porn industry banked on the destructive lifestyles of artists and their entourages. Plus in black strip clubs, the music of hip-hop and its latest uncut songs became the preferred music of choice.

Simultaneously, hip-hop became BET's bread-and-butter, especially after Donnie Simpson, the former host of Video Soul left. After the failure of the soft-porn station, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that loosened content regulations, BET put on a late-night show called "BET Uncut" a video showcase that featured strip-club hip-hop or videos that were sexually explicit.

The most popular video was "Tip Drill" from Nelly, noted for displaying a mansion full of bikini-clad or naked-black women dancing for money.

With hip-hop being bankrolled by the porn-industry, videos and songs that magnified sex, money, drugs, violence, and misogyny were a BET staple. Silently, Bob Johnson who profitted from ill-gotten gains and brought a once politically powerful network to its knees by giving blow jobs better than Superhead to corporatists, sold BET to Viacom in 2003. And the network has been falling ever since.

BET Awarding Who?
And so I shake my head at an awards show that is totally constructed through money and power players about who is the new urban-it person. You know when a black star has fallen from white graces when they appear on BET, a la Kanye West and Chris Brown.

But one thing remains the same in BET that was apparent years ago. Light-skinned folks get all the glory. Copycat Nikki Minja, Wannebe Lauryn Hill in the body of Drake, and the new white token, Justin Timberlake aka Justin Bieber are reifying the bleached side of Black.

Healing

2011-06-28T15:21:00.003-04:00

In the midst of the craziness comes light and calm. Right now I am about being in a place that is filled with light, peace, healing, prosperity, and growth. Yes, the most cynical of us has light.

In between my cynicism and jabs, I must fall back and examine myself. The accusatory finger points in both directions. And as I criticize, I also look within. I was told about a nice video that talks about healing, something that we all do.

In this atmosphere, we all have obtained funky bumps and bruises on our souls. Here is something that re-teaches the lesson and power of transforming and reaching our higher selves.

I had a note on my printer that said, "Thoughts become things." And they do, I would spit regularly that I didn't like my job and wanted to be somewhere else. When I was laid off, I was shook.

Then a younger sister said to me a couple of days after announcing my release, "You weren't happy there anyway. You wanted to leave."

And I thought, hunh, "I did want to leave." But I was scared at the possibilities or the unknown of what was to happen. I was willing to work in misery in order to hold onto a source of income that was actually strangling my love of writing and creating.

Life has a way of moving you into a place where you need to be. Now I am embracing where I am, and feeling good as I grow into the awareness that we are, who we think. And I am great, good, wealthy to the bone, loving, healing, growing, thinking, moving, exercising, loving and transforming.

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

Michelle Alexander at Riverside Church NYC: New Jim Crow convict under-caste

2011-06-26T11:10:00.000-04:00

I remember when I was younger, a man called my father to inform him that my uncle, a man who was once-upon-a-time, destined to go to the NBA, had just overdosed and was laying out somewhere on the streets of Long Beach.

That wasn't the first call, or the last. And if you are African-American, in the United States, someone in your family has been destroyed and/or gravely affected by the wave of drugs that were dumped into the US in the 70s to neutralize the growing angst and youth power that challenged government policies.

Shortly thereafter crack hit our country like a social implosion.

It is as if we have amnesia, when this new war on drug emerges and the political industrial complex widens. Who will fill these walls. Well, the same people who have been doing so for years, you.

Especially as the economic gap becomes something similar to a Saharan desert, a gap that is like a sinkhole.

Check out Michelle Alexander's talk that explores how the prison industrial complex is the new Jim Crow, or a social-racial-class caste system.

The Sticky Case of Reggae Artist Buju Banton, Sentenced to 10 Years to the Feds

2011-06-24T09:01:00.000-04:00

Tampa, FL - In a federal court filled with supporters, reggae artist Buju Banton, real name Mark Myrie, was sentenced to 10 years for being involved in a 2009 drug trade for 5 kilograms (roughly 11 pounds) of cocaine from undercover officers. His conviction for conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine, includes a drug trafficking offense, as well as a gun charge.

Banton pleaded not guilty with his lawyers using entrapment as their defense, but audio and video surveillance recorded Banton serving as the go-between for the dealers and buyers. Surveillance also showed him tasting cocaine and bragging about him being involved in previous drug trades.

According to the US District Judge James Moody, 10 years is the minimum federal sentence, and if you know anything about fed time, you are doing at least 80 percent of your sentence, so Bantan will not see the light of day for a minute.

Veteran Jamaican DJ and activist, Jason Walker began a campaign asking for leniency for Bantan during his trial. In a letter from one of his 15 children, his son Mark Myrie, Jr., asked that the courts have mercy upon a man who is a hard working father, artist, and philanthropist, who is a victim of his personal human imperfection.

There have been other free Buju campaigns, and celebs who have come out to support are son of Bob Marley, Stephen Marley, actor Danny Glover, and NBA player and poet, Etan Thomas. Glover wrote in his statement of support, "Society would not benefit from his incarceration."

A statement that is a true revelation on the failed drug policies in this country that highlight racial and economic disparities; hence the recent trials of Lindsey Lohan, or the admitted cocaine usage of two US presidents, Obama and Bush jr.

Banton is a well-celebrated reggae artist who has created music that has won him numerous accolades. As of late, he just garnered a Grammy for Best Reggae album for his work, Before the Dawn; but his 1992 song, Boom Bye Bye, won him the reputation of being a serious homophobe.

His lyrics, 'boom bye bye to a batty boy head" literally means to shoot a gay man, and is in support of the social practice in Jamaica (and in the Caribbean and Africa to a large degree) to harm and sometimes kill gays and lesbians by a mob if discovered.

Mixed with ultra-conservative Christian fanaticism, Rastafarian views that are against homosexuality, and a local culture that sees homosexuality as taboo, Boom Bye Bye became a war car for islanders (even local police officers) who participate and support the death of homosexuals.

Gay activists cited Jamaica as one of the most homophobic places in the world, especially at the height of anti-gay terrorism which included the murders of two of the island's most prominent gay activists, Brian Williamson (June 9, 2004) and Steve Harvey (November 30, 2005). Williamson who has hacked to death with a machete, and Harvey, found dead with multiple gun wounds, sounded off an alarm to protest famous Jamaicans who supported violence against gay and lesbians.

Myrie also was brought on charges in 2004, after a local gay man named Brian accused him and a group of men bursting into his house and beating him and five other men with a board. Bantan who was vocal about his views on homosexuality was slammed with a global anti-Bantan movement.

In the US, many of his concerts were shut down due to protests and in some cases, melee and protests broke out while he was on stage. As a result, promoters and Bantan were losing thousands of dollars. For a while, Banton was more of a liability to the entertainment world than an asset. You see reggae artists bank in their performances in California and on the West Coast, but the LGBT community frequently blocked and put political/economic pressure on Banton.

In 2009, Banton agreed to meet with gay activists, but the meeting was unfruitful. The activists requested that the proceeds to Boom Bye Bye go to the J-FLAG organization and asked for Banton to hold a town hall in Jamaica addressing homophobia. Banton rejected the demands and later that night his concert was pepper sprayed by protestors.

On a radio program hosted by Mutabaruka, Banton said:

Them come with demands which I and I a go flop dem right now, because give thanks to my culture and upbringing I coulda never endorse them things. I can't sell myself out, neither would I do that in a thousand years, "" he continued. " I love everyone in the world. I don't love no special group from another group. There are other needy organizations out there.

Banton who is a known philanthropist maintained his anti-gay stance, and has become the face of virulent homophobia in dancehall and reggae songs that are against homosexuality.

Banton's case presents a conundrum. On one hand, it is seen as justice served. While on the other, it is viewed as injustice upheld.

The reggae artist who never had any convictions is an example of failed American policies in this "War on Drugs" because the real issues with drug abuse in the US still has not been properly addressed. At the same time, gay activists and the LGBT community are shaking their heads and thinking that karma was the bitch who has him by the balls.

At the same time, the Banton case is loaded with political objectives and smoking mirrors covered by his culturally-religious-political views. The system took someone who is a bad guy in one arena, and unjustly stuck him in another way to allow him become the poster child for an absurd law that is justified because of his actions dealing with something else. It is okay to some because they popped a rude boy one way or the other, not realizing that we all can suffer the same fate.

Impact of Obama's Failed Health Care

2011-06-23T08:02:00.004-04:00

A couple of days ago I was floored to discover that one of my favorite paranormal writers, L.A. Banks was fighting late stage renal cancer. Her editor notes that she is in an "uphill battle" that also includes skyrocketing health care costs.

Ironically, this video is of Banks talking about her healthcare insurance issue a couple of years ago when Obama's universal healthcare system was being pushed. Eerily, Banks talks about an issue that she is now facing, not enough healthcare coverage to pay her bills.

Along with the F for failure in universal healthcare, I am ashamed to have voted for someone who is consistently turning their backs on those who put him in office.

I represent a new class of people, it is the professional poor, people who have degrees out of the ass, but are barely or not making it at all. In this recession we are either unemployed, underemployed, or being pimped out at a job paying us a for a portion of what we do. We are either without healthcare insurance or under-insured, and in serious debt. Just like Banks, my talents, my education, my contributions to American society bear very little significance when it comes to protecting greedy corporations and jack-legged politicians.

Though I know that healthcare is being dragged through the courts, I just hoped he'd fight for it as hard as he allowed banks to get the biggest welfare check after slavery, or him igging critics in his support to drop NATO bombs in Libya, though the African Union has called for a peaceful resolution.

Yep, change did come, and it its not the change we bargained to get.

In the meantime, please buy a book for LA Banks to help support her return to good health. The last thing we need is a writer who writes more than "street lit" to pass before their time.

The Struggle Continues: LSE Students, Faculty Hold Protest Today to Oust Researcher Who Published 'Black Women are the Least Attractive' Study

2011-06-22T12:11:00.000-04:00

Below are posts on the Students Against Kanazawa Facebook Page a collective of LSE students and staff who are calling for the removal of London School of Economics professor Satoshi Kanazawa.

According to the FB statement by the LSE, Home Of The Racist Academic SAY NO campaign, "Kanazawa has consistently produced racist, sexist and incredibly offensive 'studies' which are not peer reviewed and use science which is completely flawed."

The protest was scheduled at 4:30 PM, June 21, Outside Tower 1, LSE, Houghton Street. I hope the protest was successful and made more people aware. If you look on the FB page, everyone does not agree, and there are racist comments themselves by cowards and ignorant, racist students. Nevertheless, the movement to remove Kanazawa crosses all racial and ethnic boundaries.

Evolutionary psychologists turn on controversial peer

by John Gill 2 June 2011

An international group of more than 60 academics has accused a controversial evolutionary psychologist of refusing to engage in scientific dialogue, highlighting long-standing criticism of his work in an attempt to protect their discipline from further attack.

The group, which consists of 68 scholars of evolution and human behaviour, wrote to Times Higher Education following the furore over a recent blog by Satoshi Kanazawa, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, in which he claimed that an analysis of data showed that black women were "far less attractive" than those of other races.

The academics and journal editors from countries including the US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Holland, Italy and New Zealand claim that Dr Kanazawa - who is currently on sabbatical from his post as reader in management - has attracted a flood of criticism to the field of evolutionary psychology.

Defending the discipline, they say that "a large number of scientists who apply an evolutionary approach to human behaviour consider Dr Kanazawa's work to be poor quality and have demonstrated this via their own academic critiques".

The signatories say they have taken the "unusual step of making this statement to counteract the damage we believe he is doing to the perception of our discipline in the media and among the public".

They go on to list 24 papers that have critiqued Dr Kanazawa's work, which they say involve a total of 59 social and natural scientists. The critics have "expertise sufficient to critique his work both theoretically and methodologically, including statisticians and epidemiologists", they write.

They add that 35 psychologists, including many evolutionary psychologists, recently contributed to a critique of Dr Kanazawa's research that is shortly to be published in the peer-reviewed journal American Psychologist.

The statement, which has been posted on the website of the journal Evolutionary Psychology, says that Andrew Gelman, director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University, re-analysed data used by Dr Kanazawa in 2007 to suggest that "beautiful people have more daughters". Professor Gelman concluded that his findings were not supported by the data, it says.

The statement goes on to say that "the peer-review process is not perfect" and claims that in some instances papers by Dr Kanazawa that had been rejected by one journal on scientific grounds subsequently appeared almost unaltered in another.

Despite the strength of their criticism, the signatories say they agree with the sentiments expressed by Dr Kanazawa in an opinion piece in THE in 2006, in which he said that "academic freedom must be paramount".

The statement adds: "Academics who publish work that may be unpopular...should not be condemned on those grounds. However, we are adamant that any work in science - politically sensitive or not - should at all times adhere to the principles of rigour and good scientific method."

The LSE says in a statement that it "has informed Dr Kanazawa that in the opinion of the school's directorate, his recent article appears to lack a sound academic foundation and therefore threatens the school's reputation for research excellence".

An investigation has been launched, and Dr Kanazawa has been asked not to publish any work in non-peer-reviewed publications until it has been completed, the institution adds.

Dr Kanazawa declined to comment.

john.gill@tsleducation.com.

Unemployment Climbs to 17.5% for Black Men

2011-06-20T12:10:00.000-04:00

Repost from North Star News:

Unemployment Gets Worse for Black Men
The unemployment rate during May climbed to 17.5 percent for black men 20 years old and older on a seasonally adjusted basis, up from 17.0 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported June 3.

There were 1.411 million black men out of work and seeking jobs in May compared with 1.382 million who were out work and looking for a job, according to the bureau.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, however, among African-American women held steady. The jobless rate among black women in May was 13.4 percent, nearly the same as it was in April. Some 1.210 million black women were out of work in May compared with 1.217 million who were jobless in April.

The overall unemployment rate in the black community continued to rise on a seasonally adjusted basis.

In May, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for black men and black women 20 years old and older was 16.2 percent compared with 16.1 percent in April. Bureau officials reported that 2.882 million African Americans were out of work in May compared with 2.882 million black men and women who were out of work in April.

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate among African Americans is much higher than other racial and ethnic groups. May's unemployment among whites was 8 percent, the same as it was in April. Among Hispanics, May's unemployment rate rose slightly to 11.9 percent, up from 11.8 percent in April. The jobless rate for Asians was 7 percent, but that was not on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Last month, nonfarm payroll employment added 54,000 jobs and the overall unemployment rate was essentially unchanged from the previous month at 9.1 percent.

My Love to the Fathers, Happy Daddy Day!

2011-06-19T14:00:00.001-04:00

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-19T13:53:00.000-04:00

Dear Dad,

I love you for being my black superhero. Fuck Green Lantern, Superman, Spiderman, Wolverine, and all the X-Men. I had you.

Black Male Oedipus Complex

2011-06-19T07:06:00.000-04:00

I don't know if it's just me, but Kanye West's song brings up memories of me dating black men who never stopped dating their mothers, and really never removed themselves off of the tit. I think I'm going to throw up as these flashes of men who had these bizarre pseudo-sexual, intimate relationships. This song is honestly raw and disturbing as it shows that Kanye is still a young boy trying to navigate his affections for his mother and his mother's affections for another male.

I never thought that a man calling his mother every night and regulating her evening activities was healthy. And real talk, I got a cousin who said his mother can never have a boyfriend. He's married with children and lives miles away, while she is alone and going through major health complications. So she's been dickless for about the last 15 years.

Interestingly, in time for father's day, I would like to thank all the men who planted seeds and left little black boys to create a manhood that was wrapped around their mother's frustrations from absentee father's and complicated dating life. And I want to congratulate all the mother's who kept their children from their father's as a tactic of vengeance due to a funky relationship with their baby's father.

All of you's who were raised by women, this is not a stab. Black women have raised millions of beautiful children. But I'm not going to front, some of my friends biggest pains are men who simply cannot let go of their mother's to develop an intimate relationship.

BTW, single mothers, your son is not your n*gga, and never will be. He is not the man of the house, and please let him be a child. But I forewarn you, don't take him anywhere near Eddie Long's church or Longfellow program.

Mama Jones Is The HBIC: "In this bonus clip from Episode 7 of Love & Hip Hop, Mama Jones is furious with curious for not giving her a heads up about the proposal!"

25 Ways to Support Black Farmers

2011-06-17T17:00:00.004-04:00

Food and water shortages will be the next major issue worldwide, and we have the opportunity to prevent hunger and the rapidly developing diseases that are occurring due to GMO foods, foods with too many pesticides, and mass produced produce that just ain't produce any more.

This statement will not sound like anything close to a conspiracy theory when we are hungry. Hell, we already are fat and sick due to the chemicals in the food.

At one time, US agriculture was solely done with black hands, nowadays, African-Americans can barely maintain farmland since they are only 1% of the agricultural population in the country.

However, black farmers are still fighting and need the resources of the blogging community to step up, and let their stories be known, and as well, our dollars to support.

Black farmers market in Savannah.

Donate to the National Black Farmers Association, or Save Black Farmers, or the Southeastern African American Farmers Network.
Volunteer time in preparing farmers, assessing needs, and recovery process
Get your university and school involved in sponsoring and advocating for black farmers
Purchase as much of your goods as possible from black producers
Provide legal services especially in the following areas: land preservation assistance and remediation Services
First Response Services
Use social media and Internet skills to provide free Media Services
Research and Implementation Services needed for farmers to know the various resources available
Provide the following supplies: Seeds (untreated or organic only, Seedlings (untreated or organic only, Compost, Hoop houses, Fruit trees, Tractors, Wood, Nails
Remediation Equipment, First Aid Supplies, Tillers, Green Houses, Pole Buildings
Field trips to visit black farms
Encourage your local stores to purchase from black producers during this week
Do community events around issues in black agriculture,
Youth outreach and engagement to encourage more children of color to go into agriculture
Host a black farmers market
Run stories in news papers about Black Agriculture
Advocate for more services and programs that help increase the number of black producers
Advocate and help make black producers self-sustaining
Help create innovative ways that allow farmers to get their produce consumed by the larger communities, especially in the cities.
Donate transportation services like drivers and refrigerated trucks
Seek mentorship and plant knowledge from a black farmer because the average age is 63-years
Create list of farmers markets where black farmers and/or growers are featured.
Join an urban growers network like the urban growers network primarily in the boroughs of New York. Click here for more information.
Add to this list of black farmers. This list was taken from the Southeaster African American Farmers Network's list of organic farmers. For list, click here.
Grow your own shit. At least a vegetable, an herb (cannabis doesn't count) or something!