Saturday, May 21, 2011

The Cornel West Litmus Test




Professor Cornell West on President Obama

“He feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,” he says. “He’s got two homes. He has got his family and whatever challenges go on there, and this other home. Larry Summers blows his mind because he’s so smart. He’s got Establishment connections."

“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West says. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white."


My Response:

Dr. West, you have every right to hold any president accountable for their actions or perceived inactions. Healthy, fierce and confrontational debate is what makes a democracy strong. I have no qualms.

But when you inject race, in a dime-store psychological way, you cheapen and undercut your argument.

Secondly, Dr. West you bring more scrutiny upon the type of company you professionally keep.

Checking your educational resume, one can - using your litmus test - conclude you are only
"...comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,”


Dr. West's Resume:

Tenured professor at four elite universities with minimal minority students. These universities include: Haverford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

He has taught overseas - not Africa, Asia, nor the Middle-East - in Europe at the University of Paris.

Report Card Time:

Sorry, Professor West you have just failed you own Litmus Test.

BTW, it sounds elitist and classist when you say:

And then as it turns out with the inauguration I couldn’t get a ticket with my mother and my brother. I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration

That Pssst sound you hear is the deflating of Dr. West's credibility.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Throw Mamma From The Train




An Amtrak train made an unexpected stop Sunday, as a woman was escorted off for speaking loudly on her cell phone.

Lakeysha Beard, 39, was charged with disorderly conduct after she wouldn't stop talking on the 16-hour trip from Oakland, California, to Salem, Oregon. The train was stopped short of its destination.



She was reportedly in the quiet car of an Amtrak train.

Lakeysha, Lakeysha, Lakeysha... no matter how hard we try to dispell misconceptions and stereotypes, by being a walking cliche, you decided to be an one woman wrecking crew to these efforts.

I can not watch FIX News, but the imagery of this story has to be a gift wrapped present.

FIX News aside, I commute via the DC Metro daily and I have had numerous encounters with Lakeysha's kin folk.

Loud, ignant (check Urban Dictionary), and just flat out wrong - these folks love to put on a show. As a matter of fact, they perform as if someone is paying them.

I have often mused, there has got to be a man (FIX News employee) that distributes checks to these chosen ones who bless us with their unsolicitated talents.

Now back to Lakeysha. Home-girl had the audacity, after 16 hours of running her yap in the Amtrak quiet car, of feeling she was disrespected by the other passengers.

MSNBC reported, Beard herself felt "disrespected."

My injury has now been insulted!

Africa: The Fastest Growing Region In The World?




Found this story on the web. Check it out. To read the entire story click on the link, African Progress.

Sharing his enthusiasm for growth in the economy, CEO of RenCap, Stephen Jennings, said Nigeria has attributes for emerging market investment banking, and consumer finance.

According to him, the country’s huge population presents significant opportunities in the consumer goods, real estate, construction and services industries.

“Strong economic growth is creating jobs and supporting the emergence of a middle class with higher disposable income,” Mr Jennings said.

He added that over the next five years, Africa will become the fastest growing region in the world.

“Africa has much greater scope than any other region for convergence and leap frogging. Africa also stands to be perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the historic movement of capital from the West to emerging and frontier markets and the integration of the emerging markets themselves” he said.

He further said Africans need to begin to have a positive outlook about the continent.

“We are all brainwashed about Africa’s problems and supposed inferiority. The stunning progress made by Africa is beginning to be understood but its tremendous potential is far from being properly reflected in investment decisions and resource allocation. Positive expectations and high aspirations will be key components of the next chapter of Africa’s dramatic growth story,” he said.

According to him, total foreign capital flows into Africa increased from $15 billion in 2000 to $87 billion in 2007, with more than 20 African countries received at least $500 each in foreign investment in 2008.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Breaking News: Trump Not Running




Donald Trump ended his months-long public flirtation with a 2012 presidential run Monday, saying that he will not seek the Republican nomination -- even though he could have won the election.

Did anyone really think Trump was running anything other than his mouth?

Trump was probably gonna stretch this running for president hoax as long as he could. It got him free press. It fed his Empire State ego.

So, why stop now?

'If you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen'.


Obviously, after that triple smack down:

First President Obama at the correspondence dinner:

"No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald," Obama said at the swanky black tie event. "And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter - like did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?"

Then, SNL's Seth Meyers:

"Donald Trump said that he was running for president as a Republican. That's funny, because I thought he was running as a joke."

Finally, when Obama got Osama, the breaking news preempted Trump's Apprentice show.

Hence, Trump left the hot kitchen.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Teen who challenged Bachmann to Constitution showdown is running for class president

Posts by Liz Goodwin Yahoo Reprint

When 16-year-old Amy Myers launched her campaign to be class president at Cherry Hill East High School in New Jersey, the boys in her sophomore class began teasing her. And that crash course in how aspiring female leaders get judged on the basis of gender led, in a roundabout way, to Myers' challenge to debate Minnesota GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann on the Constitution.

"Your slogan for president should be that you're not a witch," Myers' male detractors said, referencing the much-mocked campaign stance of ex-Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, who decided to confront her years-old statements about Wicca head-on in her first TV ad. The boys told Myers she just wanted to be "another girl politician" like O'Donnell and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, whom the boys (and pretty much every late-night comedian) often made fun of.

"And I just said, 'oh great,'" recalls Myers.

Myers was angry that many of the most visible female politicians were seen as fodder for jokes and ridicule, which made her peers think it was ok to mock her political aspirations, too. She singled out Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) after her father noticed the congresswoman had incorrectly stated the Revolutionary War Battles of Lexington and Concord happened in New Hampshire. (She told a group of conservatives in Manchester in March: "You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.") In January, Myers watched agasp as Bachmann said America's founding fathers "worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States." READ MORE

Monday, May 16, 2011

D-Nabb Not Black Enuff Reponse

Ronald, HGP blog reader, courtesy of minglecity.com, responded to the post regarding boxer Bernard Hopkins questioning the blackness of Donovan McNabb.

I just wanted to share his insight.
He writes:


I am definitely black. I wouldn't allow a cretin of any race to define who I am. I was born in the ghetto, but the ghetto never resided in me. Now that I am wealthy, after working my tail off to get out. No one from my family bothers to call or to visit me. They are all still in the hood and proud of it. But they also complain a lot about being there. The hood is not a destination, it is a stopover on the way to a better place. People should realize that they shouldn't let dire circumstances dictate their entire life. We should all be as privileged as McNabb. But Hopkins is wrong. All quarterbacks are tough, just as all boxers are...

Ronald, to those that believe the hood is their destination or station in life, I think they are an embodiment of the premise of Carter G Woods in Mis-Education of the Negro:

"When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one."