american black

Robert Johnson's Legacy (or My Dad Started BET But All I Got Is This CBS T-Shirt)

Robert Johnson deserves credit for a lot of things. You have to respect the man for creating a commercially viable cable channel for Black folks.

In a world where very few Blacks have "fuck you money", it's nice to see Mr. Johnson's estate.

But I'll be honest. I am not a big BET fan. And the fact that the founder and CEO of Black Entertainment Television, is finally stepping down is not a bad thing in my book. (Of Course, what no one is saying, is that he has to step down. When he sold the company he was told he could stay for at least 5 years. Those 5 years are up.)

What is his legacy?

Slate said the following in 2000, after BET was sold to Viacom::

Black leaders and artists have repeatedly whacked Johnson for BETs dismal programming, but he is not interested in uplifting the race. If something wonderful appears on BET, fine, but no tears if it doesn't. Johnson shuttered the critically praised magazines Emerge and YSB because they were losing money. He started the "BET on Jazz" channel not because he wants to support the art form, but because he wants to profit from it. He launched a pay-per-view channel specializing in action movies and soft-core porn. BET was the only channel to accept hard-liquor ads and one of the few media companies that refused to adopt the voluntary TV ratings system. He has fought savagely against efforts to unionize his employees and has been raked for paying performers sub-union wages.

But Yemi Toure explains it best to me:

He should have taken a lesson from John H. Johnson, owner of Johnson Publishing   Co. (JPC), another Black-owned, privately held media company, which publishes Ebony and Jet magazines.   White firms have been salivating over JPC for decades, but John H. Johnson   has not sold out. Is it that JPC is too small to be bothered with? No. JPC   is larger than BET--it is the largest Black-owned private company in the   United States.

John H. Johnson has resisted offers to sell his company to Whites because   he has a greater vision and a stronger sense of the importance of Black ownership.   He also has more of a sense of legacy--he has trained his daughter, Linda   Johnson Rice, to run the business. She is president and chief operating officer   of the empire, set to take over when the old man dies. When Bob Johnson's   daughter, now in the 9th grade, gets older, can he tell her to prepare to   run his empire? No. But he can help her fill out a job application.

Nancy Grace, Lisa Wayne and the reasons people climb cranes.

Former crooked prosecutor Nancy Grace complained that she lost respect for her guest  Defense Attorney Lisa Wayne,for saying that the murder suspect on the crane actions "may lean toward his innocence."

Here's why Lisa Wayne is right and Nancy Grace is  just a blowhard.

Carl Edward Roland, 41, whom Florida authorities are seeking in the death of Jennifer Gonzalez, is Black. If he is innocent, the idea of going to Atlanta and drawing attention to his case by climbing an 18-story crane at a construction site, was brilliant. Black folks run Atlanta. They won't let the city destroy some Black guy just because the victim was Hispanic. If he was arrested in Pinellas County, Fl. where the victim was found, the case would be considered solved. Now everyone is paying attention. And everyone now wants to know what he has to say.

Now even I will admit that the Brother looks guilty but it was nice having a smart Sister giving another view.

Dave Chappelle Speaks

Time Magazine managed to track down Dave Chappelle. And they didn't find him in a mental institution or on crack. They found him in South Africa and spoke to him for 90 minutes...

The first thing Chappelle wants is to dispel rumors—that he's got a drug problem, that he's checked into a mental institution in Durban—that have been flying around the U.S. for the past week. He says he is staying with a friend, Salim Domar, and not in a mental institution, as has been widely reported in America. Chappelle says he is in South Africa to find "a quiet place" for a while. "Let me tell you the things I can do here which I can't at home: think, eat, sleep, laugh. I'm an introspective dude. I enjoy my own thoughts sometimes. And I've been doing a lot of thinking here."

The picture he paints—and it seems a fairly honest and frank assessment— is of someone struggling to come to terms with a new position and power who's still figuring out how to come to grips with how people around him are reacting to the $50 million deal he signed last year with Comedy Central. Without naming specific characters, he seems to blame both some of his inner circle (not his family) and himself for the stresses created by last year's deal.

Right now Chappelle is taking a break and spending some time with a close spiritual Muslim friend with whom he is “filling up his spirit”.

Some say Dave is just not equipped to handle the pressure but I think it's a good thing to take some time and get your head together. The man suddenly makes a lot of money. That changes everything. People start telling you what they think you want to hear.

As he said in the Time article:"If you don't have the right people around you, and you're moving at a million miles an hour, you can lose yourself. Everyone around me says, 'You're a genius, you're great, that's your voice,' but I'm not sure that they're right."

But they didn't ask the one question I had. Will he be suing Entertainment Weekly?

6 Black women dead, 4 missing and no clues

Leaders among the African-American community in Peoria, IL. are planning a second town hall-style meeting for Monday to discuss the deaths of six women and disappearances of four others.

Now this would probably be headline news around the country if the victims were maybe pregnant and white but here are the details:

Weekend Notes

In Tampa we had a visit today by Kerry. They expected 1200 to attend the rally. Over 15000 showed up.

CinemaNow Gets "Fahrenheit 9/11" Exclusive: Which doesn't really mean anything, firstly because
you can easily find copies of the movies for streaming and download online...example, check out Russell Beattie's site or if you are really into democratic online video propaganda (like I am!) check out the Never Forget site.

It includes fun clips like Rice's 9/11 Commission Testimony and the other famous female cheap labor conservative Britney Spears' and her gum smacking support of Bush.

Keith Olbermann had some interesting things to say on his MSNBC 'blog':

...And I think the political analysts have forgotten to examine the psychology of an electorate under the stress of war and fear. For the longest time, even when Mr. Bush’s approval ratings were at their apex in the post-Afghanistan and immediate post-Saddam periods, I kept wondering if he wouldn’t fall victim to the Winston Churchill effect.

Mid-20th Century British politics aren’t taught much in American schools any more, but it has fascinated me always that in the spring of 1945, with Hitler dead, England’s gamble to fight the Nazis having been vindicated, and his own gallantry and leadership acclaimed universally, that the British promptly voted Churchill out of office in favor of a first-time Prime Minister in Clement Attlee. It astonished Churchill, and British pollsters, and world leaders in general...

And in case you didn't hear: The Miami Dolphins have filed a lawsuit against former running back Ricky Williams, who retired abruptly before the start of training camp and owes the team nearly $9 million.

The O'Reilly Factor

EBrown over at Vision Circle on the topic of GroupThink and Bill O'Reilly, implyed that some people are too powerful and off limits for conservative commentators. I think differently.

To me it's interesting to watch cheap labor conservatives treat Bill O'Reilly like he's a crackhead because it's all part of a pattern they have.

Some see the silence among cheap labor conservatives on the Bill subject as a way for them to circle the wagons, protect their own. It's not. Look at the history of these compassionate, so called Christian conservatives. Remember Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston? Practically pariahs among the conservative commentators of note.

Remember Rush Limbaugh? They acted as if they were on his side but they were not. Even though his ratings are still high as fuck the conservative intelligentsia have basically washed their hands of him. And watch the same thing happen to Bill O.

Even the 'free-thinking' black conservatives can't find the balls to say one thing about the allegations. It just proves what a lot of folks know in their guts, conservatives are not forgiving. Instead they are opportunistic users who will drop you like a bad habit when things get tough.

It's really quite sad.

Liberal's Bill (Clinton) had his sexual escapades but we are compassionate enough, and have enough sense in our haeds not to judge a man on his mistakes but instead on what he does right. Cheap labor conservative history has shown that they do just the opposite.