american black

Abortion, Genocide and Garbage Can Lids

Life, in general, is a minefield. You take one step in the wrong direction and find your legs staring you in the back.

I'm a pro-abortion guy. Not just because I'm a guy but because I truly believe in my heart that grown folks should be able to do to what they want with their bodies. No one should suffer for the rest of their lives because of a one-night stand. We don't give most murderers life sentences but the fact that some of us want to do it to women is ludicrous. America is the land of second chances, ask Donald Trump, Martha Stuart and your next door neighbor. Mistakes happen.

But like I said, life is a minefield. And you never know who to trust.

Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. 78% of their clinics are in minority communities. Blacks make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America. Are we being targeted? Isn't that genocide? We are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population. If the current trend continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant. Did you know that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a devout racist who created the Negro Project designed to sterilize unknowing black women and others she deemed as undesirables of society? The founder of Planned Parenthood said, "Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated." Is her vision being fulfilled today?

Tough questions. And I am not the only one twisting the abortion/genocide question in their mind.My take is a little different, though. It makes me wonder how important is history?

My favorite poet as a kid was e.e. Cummings. The verbal and visual inventiveness of his work fascinated me. But then as I got older I found his depictions of society's hypocrisy and monotony elitist and self-indulgent. Then one of my teachers claimed that some of his work features racist and anti-Semitic overtones. No matter what the truth is, I never looked at his poetry the same. It's like steak served on a garbage can lid.

So am I aiding my race's destruction by supporting abortions?  I really don't think so. It is a woman's right to her life that gives her the right to terminate her pregnancy. There are many legitimate reasons why a rational woman might have an abortion--accidental pregnancy, rape, birth defects, danger to her health. The issue here is the proper role for government. If a pregnant woman acts whoreish, then she should be condemned morally--but not treated as a murderer.

The anti-abortionists' claim to being "pro-life" is a classic Big Lie. You cannot be in favor of life and yet demand the sacrifice of an actual, living individual to a clump of tissue. It is serving women life on a garbage can lid.

 

Canada court delays hearing on ex-Black Panther's extradition to Chicago

A former Blank Panther who was apprehended in Toronto last year for allegedly shooting a Chicago police officer 36 years ago had his extradition hearing delayed Wednesday because his defense attorneys said he has a hearing problem, authorities said.

Joseph C. Pannell, 55 at the time of his arrest last July, is wanted in Cook County on charges of attempted murder and aggravated battery for the 1969 shooting of Officer Terrence Knox and for jumping bail, officials said.

Pannell, who has lived in Canada under the alias of Gary Douglas Freeman for more than 20 years, suffers from tinnitus, a condition that causes ringing in the ears. Pannell also had surgery on his ears, which hinders his hearing too.

The judge ordered Pannell to have tests done Thursday and have an informed representative from the Toronto jail report back to the court the following day.

While in Canada, Pannell married, started a family and had been working as a reference librarian for 13 years.

National Museum of African American History and Culture

Lonnie G. Bunch has been named the first director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

If you never heard of it, don't feel bad, the museum has yet to be built – there are four sites, including one on the National Mall, currently under consideration. Bunch also will help define the museum’s mission, develop exhibitions and public programs, acquire artifacts to illustrate the stories it tells and coordinate its fundraising efforts and budget development.

Bunch is still formulating his vision for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, but he has several ideas of what he believes the museum must address – such as slavery, the Jim Crow era and issues of urbanization.

“In some ways, what this museum also has to do is to help people understand that American values – like resiliency, optimism, spirituality – that many of these are shaped and formed and sometimes initiated by the African-American community,” he says.

“So in a way, part of what the museum will also do is to say, ‘This is not an African-American story. This is quintessentially an American story.’ That is one of the real challenges – to frame it in a way that it does that.”

Bunch can’t estimate how much the African-American museum might cost to open because the site hasn’t been chosen yet. He expects it to be at least as much as the $214 million spent on the National Museum of the American Indian.

I predict that 20 years from now, when the museum of African American History and Culture is opened, few will care. I know I haven't had the urge to go see the National Museum of the American Indian which opened last fall. Of course it took 15 years to build. But the real reason I don't feel the urge is the fact that as an American, I really don't care too much about other cultures.

We have a bad habit of mariginalizing every culture. the only real culture is American culture, which includes fucked up versions of every race, creed and culture in the American melting pot. It's sad.

Celebrating Malcolm X

Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.

Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, 1965

This year marks both the 80th anniversary of Malcolm X's birth on May 19, 1925 and the 40th anniversary of his assassination on Feb. 21, 1965. Commemorations took place last week around the country. Oakland celebrated with a jazz festival Saturday. In New York City, a major exhibit at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem opened Thursday.

Only in Berkeley does Malcolm X get the same treatment as MLK, Washington and Lincoln: City government offices were closed for business Friday. The Berkeley school district also formally recognized his birthday by closing for business last Friday.

Even cities with large and powerful black communities such as Oakland, Richmond, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago haven't followed Berkeley, where whites are 55 percent of the population and blacks make up 13 percent. In fact, news that Berkeley has had a Malcolm X holiday since 1979
came as a surprise to officials elsewhere.

Deborah Bolling, spokeswoman for the mayor's office in Philadelphia, applauded Berkeley when she heard about the holiday. But she added that even though city workers there might welcome another paid holiday, she didn't think the City of Brotherly Love would follow Berkeley.

"We just named our first street in Philadelphia after Martin Luther King, and he's not nearly as controversial," she said of her predominantly black city. "So it will be a long time before we celebrate Malcolm X Day."

Official Malcolm X Website

Free downloadable Audio Of Malcolm's speeches

Malcolm Quotes

20th Anniversary of the bombing of MOVE

On May 13, 1985, the Philadelphia police dropped a firebomb on the home of the MOVE organization, a radical organization that protested police brutality and government policies. Five adults and six children were killed in the bombing. Despite two grand jury investigations, and a commission finding that top officials were grossly negligent, no one from city government was criminally charged.

Ramona Africa was the only adult survivor of the police bombing on MOVE. She escaped by crawling through a basement window with a 13 year-old boy then known as Birdie Africa. Ramona served seven years in prison on a riot charge. She was awarded $500,000 -- $400,000 for pain and suffering, and the remaining $100,000 for disfigurement.

Interview with Romona Africa

Planned protest to commemorate anniversary

The Soon-To-Be Death Of Black Studies And How To Save It

We live in a graceless age. This is the age of the rockstar. An Army of One. Brand You.

In times such as these, when everything is about the individual, where everyone's a broadcaster and everyone's famous for 15 minutes, certain institutions die. The smart ones adjust and tailor their message to the times. The Catholic Church has been around for thousands of years and has changed it's message constantly. It needs to change again many are saying, and it will. Because Christians are ruthless.

Another institution is struggling as well. And needs to change tacks quick. As we Black folk influence the world around us with music, clothes and fashion, the study of us, Black Studies, Africana Studies and the like, are dying at colleges everywhere. The following comes from Robin Wilson's article on the subject.

The number of students seeking degrees in African-American studies nationwide is minute. In the 2001-2 academic year, according to the U.S. Department of Education, just 668 undergraduates earned bachelor's degrees in the field, representing only 0.05 percent of all degrees conferred. That doesn't mean black-studies programs are short on students. In fact, on many campuses the courses are quite popular among students who are majoring in other subjects but want to have a black perspective on history or literature, for example. Within the financial politics of most universities, however, it is still the number of majors in a field that matters.

To stay alive, black-studies departments at many public universities are scrambling to reinvent themselves. They are changing their names to "Africana" and "African diaspora" studies and broadening their courses from a focus on black Americans to black people in Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean.

In my opinion, that will not be enough.

Why Everyone Is So Dumb Nowadays

Prometheus 6 wrote an interesting post back in April on intelligence. He followed it up a few days ago with a podcast(?) on the subject. Pro seems to have a problem with the anti-intelligence streak which is sweeping the planet. As a person who has been called, among other things, an anti-intellectual by folks who think it's important to read the NYT everyday, I read the post and listened to the podcast with interest.

First, I think that he's using the wrong word. In my view, there isn't an anti-intelligence movement going on. I think the real problem is the lack of knowledge sweeping the fucking planet.

Knowledge is the awareness and understanding of facts, truths or information gained in the form of experience or learning. Knowledge is an appreciation of the possession of interconnected details which, in isolation, are of lesser value.

Intelligence is a general mental capability that involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn. In psychology, the study of intelligence is related to the study of personality.

Of course the words are used practically interchangeably so I'm just nit-picking.

But I think his theory is wrong. This is what he thinks is the reason for anti-intellectualism:

The problem, you see, is that we humans want predictability. We want a nice, stable set of rules to operate under. But intelligence screw up any chance of stability. Intelligence changes the ground on which operations take place. And we're all past masters of ignoring the observations of other in order to maintain our stable set of rules but it's hard when the source of the new is internal.

Nah Bro'. Here's what's really happening.

 

"first-ever Latina lesbian sheriff"

One-time migrant farm worker Lupe Valdez made history this week when she became the first woman and the first Latino elected

Dallas County sheriff, not to mention the first Democrat to win the post since the mid-1970s.

Oh, she also is openly gay. The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a political-action committee that endorsed Valdez and trained her on answering questions related to her sexual orientation, hailed her as the "first-ever Latina lesbian sheriff."

The churches are already on it and the Sheriff's office "is in shock."

In other law news... Claims of racism tarnish a tight race for sheriff near Tallahassee.

African-American candidate Morris Young leads in the race for Gadsden County sheriff by 70 votes, but some of his white supporters still complain about harassment at the polls. They say people hassled them, and one said someone spray-painted racial slurs on his car.

update-After a six-hour machine recount, nonpartisan candidate Morris Young again won this year's race for Gadsden County sheriff, expanding his margin of victory to 115 votes.

Justice For Emmett Till?

DebWire takes the time to fill us in on the Emmit Till investigation.

For many, the name Emmett Till may not sound familiar, but what happened to him in 1955 stunned the nation, causing shock waves that still reverberate today.

Till was a 14-year-old black youngster who was murdered in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman. His death was a spark that ignited the civil rights movement in America. Two white men were put on trial for killing him, but in spite of strong evidence against them, an all-white jury acquitted them in about an hour.

This past spring, the U.S. Justice Department opened a new investigation, based on evidence suggesting that more than a dozen people may have been involved in the murder of Till, and that at least five of them are still alive. Those five could face criminal prosecution.

Civil rights fighter Ernest Waits dies

Ernest J. Waits Sr. - a pioneering civil rights activist and the dean of local African-American radio - died Tuesday at his home. He was 84.