Power of Social Networking

I love Facebook. Via FB, I, like millions and millions of FBers, have reconnected with old classmates, friends, family, fraternity brothers etc. The updated status reports provides me real time shout-outs to birthdays, reunions and anniversaries.

Gossip, amusing comments, pictures, party announcement aside, I also hope that we can maximize FB as a tool for community empowerment and continue a substantive dialog that addresses issues that impact our community and society.

The template for this type of activism is the phenomenal uprising in the Middle-east and Northern Africa. There, young people networked and interfaced via Twitter and FB to demand more accountability from their respective governments.

In particular, I hope through FB we can organize and mobilize to counter the covert and diabolical war that the well finance far-right, Fix News, Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch and others are waging against the middle-class.

The far right agenda is anti-union, anti-worker, anti-public education and anti-immigration and against Health Care Reform. In addition to be against a much needed energy policy (think five dollar gas), their policy position denies the link between carbon emissions and climate change. Needless to say, their agenda is 100% pro-business.

I am not saying FB should not be about socializing - no let's continue to have our fun - but let us this tool to the max. We can host voter registration drives, virtual rallies, government petition signings and so much more.

As historical election 2008 was, 2012 is going to be much more significant because the far-right is ginned up (by mid-term 2010 success) and they want to repel health care, dismantled medicare, give more tax cuts to the ultra rich and implement the Tea Party agenda.

Stay tuned.

GOP Fat Cats to Middle America: Let Them Eat Cake

The May Economy Report:

The May jobs report is a disaster -- the weakest reading since September. The recovery has stalled.

Many economists blame the slowdown on a witches brew of temporary woes that hit the economy in this quarter.

Higher gasoline prices have cut consumer spending, analysts said. A lack of key parts from Japan due to the earthquake has had a negative impact on output. At the same time, deadly storms have ripped though many regions of the country, especially the Southeastern states.

GOP response to obscenely high gas prices - continue the billions and billions of oil company tax subsidies dollars - yes, corporate welfare must continue.

GOP response to Job creation - Just say no to more stimulus and yes to more tax breaks for the wealthy 2%.

GOP response to a middle-class agenda - Just say no and call it a radical socialist agenda.

GOP reaction to Medicare - Just say no. The GOP congress voted affirmative for a medicare plan that even ultra-conservative Newt Gingrich called

right wing social engineering

.

GOP governors' state budgets: Cut school budgets but give the wealthty school voucher tax breaks, cut police department budgets, cut collective bargaining and more tax breaks for the wealthy top 2%.

And while making cuts, New Jersey's - balance the budget on the backs of the middle-class and poor while giving more money to the uber rich - Gov. Christie boarded a state police helicopter to get to his son’s high-school baseball game, leaving New Jersey with a $2,500 bill (he reimbursed the state after the outcry).

All in All:

The GOP's reponse to the poor and middle-class reminds me of another aristocratic and out of touch leader, French Queen Marie Antoinette. When responding to the needs of the poor, she is attributed the oblivious utterance:

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche
Well let them eat cake.

This is the only menu the GOP has intended for us.

Black Wall Street: 90th Anniversary of the Attack

Today marks the dubious anniversary of the race riot and aerial attack by thugs, KKK and various hatemongers that destroyed the Black Wall Street of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Never heard about the Greenwood Street district of Tulsa - well you are not alone because it has been all but erased from American history...

Greenwood was a district in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As one of the most successful and wealthiest African American communities in the United States during the early 20th Century, it was popularly known as America's "Black Wall Street" until the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. The riot was one of the most devastating race riots in history and it destroyed the once thriving Greenwood community.

The business district, beginning at the intersection of Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street, became so successful and vibrant that Booker T. Washington during his visit bestowed the moniker: "Negro Wall Street." By 1921, Tulsa’s African-American population of 11,000 had its own bus line, two high schools, one hospital, two newspapers, two theaters, three drug stores, four hotels, a public library, and thirteen churches. In addition, there were over 150 two and three story brick commercial buildings that housed clothing and grocery stores, cafes, rooming houses, nightclubs, and a large number of professional offices including doctors, lawyers, and dentists. (sources: Wikipedia and computerhealth.org)

While this day marks a tragic chapter in American history, it also should serve as a template on how much can be accomplished by Economic Community Building.

If with meager resources and in an overtly dangerous environment they can create a Black Wall Street, what can we build in our community today?

The Beauty of Black Women

Earlier this month, the popular magazine Psychology Today published an article by evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa titled “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?" that was met, expectedly, with mass outrage.

The article used data based on another study to make several claims such as "black women are objectively less physically attractive than other women" yet "subjectively consider themselves to be far more physically attractive than others."

First, with a last name like Kanazawa - close to being Afrocentric - you'd think his perspective would not be so Eurocentric.

Second, here we go again with this silly racist ish that is masqueraded as objective science. Remember the Bell Curve that professed we were stupid?

If folks have to devote so much time and resources to promote their superiority, I think it's an attempt to over-compensate for their shortcomings.

To be clear - and continue another racial stereotype - perhaps my Japanese brother is struggling with a very small er ahem ego (thank you Kanye West).

Jokes aside, from Kenya to Trinidad to Brazil to USA, black women are the most beautiful, graceful, dynamic and intelligent females to walk the earth.

Don't hate because they got a self-confident swagger!

Gil Scott-Heron Dies-age 62

NEW YORK — The author of the song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" – which helped pioneer sounds that would fuse to become rap – has died in New York City. Musician Gil Scott-Heron was 62. read more

Gil Scott Heron, a true giant of commentary music, understood the power of how to move, groove and teach through his music. He, along with The Last Poets, effectively married the spoken word with hypnotic beats.

His searing insight will truly be missed...

Bishop Eddie Long and the Mega Church Failure

My faithful reader, Barbara (thanks mom) wrote,

I have a negative opinion of most mega churches. There are so many positive things that they should be doing

.

Not to make light of Bishop Eddie Long's sordid affairs and troubles, but it raises the question of the role of the Black Church in an era of high crisis (we all know the statistical data) in the black community.

Instead of using church funds and resources to buy mansions, private jets, exotic vacations, fancy cars (plural) and other extravagant material bling-bling, just maybe the church could use more resources to uplift our community from economic chaos and Depression like conditions.

Or, are we as a people, so vested in materialism and individualism - I got mine, you got to get yours - that we fail to see that collectively we are greater than our individual parts?

Heru Ammen of the Urban Village Blog writes:

The black church is the worst culprit of what I term purveyors of conscious neglect. This institution, which should be standing in the gap for its poor and disenfranchised constituents represents the worst exploiter of the poor and disenfranchised that has ever existed in the African American community. Its raw embrace of individualism and materialism is couched in a feel good message of salvation and prosperity. Unfortunately the message of salvation and prosperity that the black church promotes seems to only apply to a few of its select clergy and members

He goes on to explain:

Their are approximately 70,000 black churches in the United States. Partial statistics show us that the median-average income of black churches is $200,000 annually. With a combined annual income approaching fourteen-billion (or more), the black church has the financial capability to effect change within our urban communities on a scale that is as wide as it is deep

All I can add is, preach on my brother, amen.

Bishop Eddie Long's Settlement

Bishop Eddie Long:

Do You remember what you pledged?

“I’ve been accused, I’m under attack. I want you to know, as I said earlier, that I am not a perfect man,”

“But this thing, I’m going to fight.”

“And I want you to know one other thing, I feel like David against Goliath, but I’ve got five rocks and I haven’t thrown one yet.”

All this cage rattling bravado and now this:

And finally, Long settled out of court for a reported $15 Million and an apology to his accusers.

So much for, I will never surrender. Not only do you have to raid the church's building fund for your trysts, you have say:

I am sorry!

The hypocrisy is not that you fell from grace nor that you are not perfect - we all fall short of the Word.

There go I but for the grace of god.

The problem is you threw the most and hardest (Goliath not David) rocks, while you lived in the thinnest glass house.

Tupac and Biggie: Still unresolved

A man suspected in the high-profile beating of San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow at Dodgers stadium on March 31 is in custody, Los Angeles police sources told the LA Times.

The arrest comes after a month of public appeals from the Dodgers and Los Angeles police for anyone with information to come forward.

Giovanni Ramirez was arrested by an LAPD SWAT team on Sunday and is being held on one-million dollars bail.

I applaud the LAPD for their sense of urgency to collar the 1st suspect of this heinous crime. Mr Stow, in critical condition, by all reports, did nothing to provoke the attack.

The LAPD assigned 17 detectives to work full time in the investigation and raided the residence of the alleged attacker with a 60 officer strong SWAT team.

Now LAPD could you muster the same sort of urgency to bring the killer or killers of Biggie Smalls to justice. And while you are at it, teach the Las Vegas PD how its done - so that they can solve the Tupac murder as well.

Dr. Barbara Sizemore: BLACK PEOPLE STILL DON'T GET IT

Dr. Barbara Sizemore on the high black incarceration rate:

They come from a culture that doesn't save them because the people don't have enough sense to save their culture



Do you get it?

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.