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Does Black Prez Need Black Press?
Well….I think it depends on the magazine.
I’ve been a member of the National Association of Black Journalists for years and am a long-time advocate of more diversity in the media. And the White House press corps is certainly lacking in faces of color.
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Should Michelle Obama Support Black Designers?
The First Lady wore a dress by Cuban born designer Isabel Toledo to the inauguration during the day.
The gown she wore to the inaugural ball that evening was made by Taiwan-born designer, Jason Wu.
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Does God Care Who Gets Barack Obama’s Seat?
Roland Burris, the former Illinois attorney general that scandal-plagued Gov. Rod Blagojevich named to President-elect Barack Obama’s senate seat, says that God has ordained him to sit in Obama’s old chair.
“We are hoping and praying that they will not be able to deny what the Lord has ordained,” Burris said to a group of black leaders and ministers at a church in Chicago before he headed off to D.C. for a showdown with Senate Democrats who have vowed not to seat him. “I am not hesitating. I am now the junior Senator from the state of Illinois. Some people may want to question that and that is their prerogative.”
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Mumia Abu-Jamal: Cop Killer or Victim?
Francome was born Dec. 9, 1981, the same day Abu-Jamal, a political activist and former Black Panther, was arrested in Philadelphia for the murder of city policeman Daniel Faulkner, thus the title, In Prison My Whole Life.
The film once again raises the question of whether Abu-Jamal is a cop killer or a victim of injustice. For those unfamiliar with the case, it’s a detailed primer and plays more like a mystery than documentary. In Prison My Whole Life airs on Sundance (Comcast channel 165) at 10 a.m.
Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death row in 1982 after being convicted of murder and is serving his time in solitary confinement in a Pennsylvania prison. He has been a controversial figure since his arrest. He denies he killed Faulkner, whom he says he happened to see beating his brother on a Philadelphia street as he was driving his cab - a second job he did for extra money - one evening. But for the past 26 years, he has declined to say what exactly happened that night.
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Is 1st Black President Really Black?
Regardless of the outdated one-drop rule, doesn’t it go without saying that he’s black? And white?
Obama has said, “I identify as African-American; that’s how I’m treated and that’s how I’m viewed. I’m proud of it.”
The bigger questions are will we get past race identification? And do we need to?
From the article: “Rebecca Walker, a 38-year-old writer with light brown skin who is of Russian, African, Irish, Scottish and Native American descent, said she used to identify herself as ‘human,’ which upset people of all backgrounds. So she went back to multiracial or biracial, ‘but only because there has yet to be a way of breaking through the need to racially identify and be identified by the culture at large.’
“Of course Obama is black. And he’s not black, too,” Walker said. “He’s white, and he’s not white, too. Obama is whatever people project onto him … he’s a lot of things, and neither of them necessarily exclude the other.”
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Slavery Lesson: Did Teacher Go Too Far?
The teacher recruited the students to help her demonstrate how Africans were taken to America in slave ships. Only one of the students volunteered for the exercise. The other was very upset by the incident that prompted outrage by her mother, who says her daughter has been traumatized, and the local chapter of the NAACP.
“What she did was tape their hands together, their feet together, and had them crawl on under a desk,” said parent Christine Shand. “I thought she was insane. I mean, in this day and age, you don’t do stuff like that. There’s other ways to demonstrate slavery.”
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Who Cares When People of Color Go Missing?
Wilson told Heart and Soul magazine that the media largely ignores pleas of help from the families of nonwhites.
This has never been a secret, but rarely do you hear a law enforcement official acknowledge it.
The site, Black and Missing Inc.com, lists three women missing from Florida, one Hispanic, one Asian and one black woman.
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Obama: Quit Smoking, Period!
Not good enough. He should quit smoking everywhere.
I know it’s tough, especially for someone who has the weight of the world on their shoulders. But it can be done.
I smoked for 20 years and was up to two packs a day before I quit cold turkey 11 years ago.
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Beyonce OK, Not The Star of “Cadillac Records”
Though Beyonce was the big name designed to draw the audience, the star of the film was Jeffrey Wright. Wright, who played blues guitarist and singer Muddy Waters, is one of the best - and most underrated - actors in Hollywood. Among the many roles he’s played are Martin Luther King in the TV movie Boycott, a drug dealer in Shaft, a rehabilitated felon in Lackawanna Blues, and Gen. Colin Powell in W.
In Cadiallac Records, he takes a mediocre script and delivers a stellar performance. He also sings in the role.
“Muddy Waters dug this poetry and this music out of the dirt and fused it with his own humanity and celebrated in spite of everything that was denied him,” Wright told National Public Radio. “These folks were heroic artists in that way. They were producing something out of nothing.”
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O.J. Going To Prison. Is It Karma?
He was acquitted 13 years ago of double murder in the death of his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. A crime many believe he’s guilty of. So is going to prison for stealing back his own stuff payback for getting away with murder?
The judge in the case says one case has nothing to do with the other.
I think the universe would beg to differ. What goes around comes around.
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Michelle Obama: Drawing Respect for Big Butts?
Others say that since the First Lady works out regularly and looks fit, she’ll hopefully inspire those of us who are overweight to exercise, get healthy and take better care of ourselves.
Then, there’s the writer who says Michelle Obama’s more than ample rear-end will finally bring respect to the black woman’s butt. In Salon.com blog entitled “First Lady Got Back,” Erin Aubry Kaplan says professional black women will be able to stop hiding their booties under long suit jackets.
“Thanks to Michelle, looking professional and provocative in a distinctly black way will become not only acceptable but also part of a whole presidential look that’s more, well, inclusive. Now we’ll all be able to wear leggings to board meetings; we’ll sport pencil skirts sans the long jackets meant to cover the offending rear at big conferences where we have to make a good impression.”
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Will Obama Positively Impact Rap Music?
Diddy made his comments in response to Maher’s question: “Now that we have a black president, do you think we can stop with the bragging in the rap music?”
“I think that you will see a change. I think that you will see another level of consciousness and also another level or responsibility,” Diddy said. “To be honest, I think this is something we needed as a people. This is going to go a long way in the healing process. We never got the 40 acres and a mule and we didn’t get a lot of other things promised, so we’ll take this one and maybe we’ll clean up the lyrics now.”
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Obamas Held To Higher Standard Than Whites?
“The standards of personal behavior for the Obamas are very high,” Mundy says. “Michelle Obama - in her life she has been controversial and she’s been the target of criticism - if she had at any point succumbed to an addiction to pain killers, taken drugs from a charity…or if the Obamas had a pregnant teenager daughter like Sarah Palin, this would’ve be seen as sort of playing into stereotypes of African Americans and I think it would have been very hard for them.”
Cindy McCain, the wife of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, had a painkiller addiction and took drugs from a charity.
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Racial Slur On Receipt Prompts Call For Boycott
The college student was at home visiting parents and had left by the time KMBC Channel 9 reported the story. (Click on the link to see the news video)
His parents, however, are pretty upset. When they went back to the store, they were told that the employee entered a generic code that automatically imprints those words on the receipt.
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GM Names 1st Black Female Design Director
Ms. Windham will head the interior design for GM’s Global Midsize Car, Global Compact Car, and Global Small Car.
She was a lead designer on the 2008 award winning Chevy Malibu “Car of the Year.”
“A mentor guided me towards automotive design. Without guidance and support from family and co-workers, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I truly love my job- it’s creative, expressive - but it is not easy. Enjoying what you do, however, makes it all worthwhile. I hope other young women will look to what I have done and be inspired to consider automotive design,” she said.
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Miriam “Mama Africa” Makeba Dies
Often called ‘Mama Afrika’ and ‘the Empress of African Song,’ she left South Africa in 1959. When she tried to return for the funeral of her mother the following year, her passport was taken away and she was banned from the country. She addressed the UN in 1976 to denounce apartheid, after which her songs were banned in South Africa.
The singer lived in exile for over thirty years in the United States, France, West Africa and Belgium. She went back to South Africa in 1990, when the then President, FW de Klerk, began to introduce reforms which eventually ended in the dismantling of apartheid and the release from prison and subsequent election as President of Nelson Mandela.
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KKK? Restaurant Owner Goes Too Far
According to a Palm Beach Post story by columnist Frank Cerabin, Gatti told her black employees they’d be fired if they voted for Barack Obama, and on Tuesday when he won the race for president, she wrote “KKK” all over the restaurant.
“I’ve got a hot head and I’m crazy,” she said. “It’s my hot Italian blood.”
I’ll buy the crazy part, but what the heck does being Italian have to do with it?
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Obama Time!
My family bleeds politics.
They have walked in civil rights marches and worked on dozens of campaigns, including their own.
Before we were able to vote, my mother had us stuffing envelopes, standing on street corners with signs and passing out literature at polling places for people we didn’t even know. But she knew them and that’s all that mattered.
When you turned 18, you registered to vote. Period.
There were no such things as secret ballots in our family. We got a list of who were supposed to vote for and instructions on how to do it. My mother taught us about bullet voting before we learned to read.
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CeCe Peniston National PTA Ambassador
Peniston, known for her 1991 international hit single “Finally,” will visit schools and speak directly with families, urging them to become more invovled.
Recently, Peniston performed at PTA’s Commitment to America’s Children Gala where Mathew and Tina Knowles received the National PTA Commitment to America’s Children Award for their work across the country on behalf of families and children in need.
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D.L. Hughley On CNN: Yeah or Nay?
Unfortunately, the debut left me and my 17-year-old, wise beyond her years and politically astute cousin less than impressed.
We both are fans of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher so perhaps our expectations were a little too high.
D.L., despite having had his own sitcom and doing standup, was clearly nervous. But this is CNN, which means a bigger and broader audience, so you can’t blame him.
Still, his jokes were lame and the bit with Freddie Mac the pimp was tired.
He gets props for getting Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary to President George W. Bush, to admit he’s endorsing Barack Obama on his show. And his visit to the Sarah Palin rally inspired some laughs.
But overall the show offered little to inspire either my cousin or me to put down our laptops and give it our undivided attention.
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NAACP Sues Virginia Over Election
The NAACP is suing Virginia’s governor saying the state isn’t ready for next week’s election, especially in places with large numbers of black people.
The suit asks the court to order the state to reallocate voting machines to precincts most likely to have long waiting lines, specifically minority polling places, and to keep polls open for an additional two hours.
The NAACP says failing to provide more voting machines, particularly in majority black precincts, violates the state and U.S. constitutions and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
An election commissioner told CNN the state has gone above and beyond what the law requires.
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The Black McCains: Senator Wants Bond With Slave Descendants
On a visit to the website TheRoot.com, I came upon a link to an interesting Wall Street Journal article about the descendants of slaves held at the Mississippi plantation Teoc owned by the family of Sen. John McCain’s great-great-grandfather.
Says the story: “The black McCains of today were raised to believe that they were blood relatives of the white McCains, dating back to slavery times. White McCains say they’re unaware of any biological connection between the families. A spokesman for Sen. McCain declined to comment.”
Lillie McCain, who along with her five siblings descended from two of about 120 slaves held at Teoc, says, “I think that since we can’t undo what has been done, that the most effective thing for us to do is figure out how to put things in perspective and go from there. To harbor anger and hostility and all that is counterproductive.”
That’s a great attitude.
The story says the black and white McCain families have long acknowledged their shared history at the plantation and that the white McCains have attended family reunions organized by the African-American McCains.
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Riviera Beach’s Best Bet: Jazz After Dark
They’ve been working on a redevelopment plan since Jesus was a baby and after millions on consultants that yielded nothing but nasty catfights - only this year did they finally start knocking down the Ocean Mall.
Residents say the city council meetings, that last into the wee hours of the morning, are like watching an episode of Jerry Springer.
And the annual jazz festival is known more for its drama - a collapsing stage, a crying Patti LaBelle, and losing half a million dollars each year - than it is for entertainment.
But if tonight’s Jazz After Dark concert is like last month’s, it will be an example of something the city does do right.
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There’s Just No Escaping Race Issue
I am too. It gets pretty exhausting.
If race weren’t so intricately woven into the fabric of America, or if we were at the point where we could discuss it openly and honestly without being politically correct, maybe, just maybe, we could move on.
But, as thisstory, In Voting Booth, Race May Play a Bigger Role on the race between Barack Obama and John McCain for president in today’s New York Times illustrates, we’re not.
Says writer Adam Nagourney: “Political strategists once assumed that polls might well overstate support for black candidates, since white voters might be reluctant to admit racially tinged sentiments to a pollster. Newer research has cast doubt on that assumption. Either way, the situation is confounding aides on both sides, who like everyone else are waiting to see what role race will play in the privacy of the voting booth.”
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Selling The Politics of Hate
Candidates attacking each other is nothing new.
Neither is the public attacking the candidates they don’t like.
This year’s historic race for the White House, however, is bringing out the worst in Americans. Our worst fears based on our worst prejudices.
Jane Caputi, a professor of women’s studies and communications at Florida Atlantic University, has put together an exhibit that shows just how bad it is out there.
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Sisters, Check Your Breasts
I have never had a mammogram, but this month I’ve committed to finally getting one.
Not only because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but because the disease is hitting too close to home.
In August, a dear friend of mine, who’d already survived one bout with breast cancer, had a mastectomy, only to discover that she has it again. She now faces, with tremendous courage and faith, years of chemotherapy treatment.
She’s under 40, but started getting regular mammograms nearly a decade ago because her mother died from the disease.
Last night, my mother called to tell me my cousin, only a couple years younger than me, has been diagnosed with breast cancer, weighing down even more my already heavy heart.
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Gay Marriage Not The Issue For Black Clergy
Last week, the Florida Baptist Witness published a story online about a group of 40 black pastors gathering at a Tampa church to announce their support of Amendment 2, the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment that seeks to “protect traditional marriage” by prohibiting marriage between same sex couples.
“America is in moral freefall,” the story quotes Bishop Harry Jackson Jr., founder and chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, as saying, “This is not a partisan issue. This is an issue in which we are believing that Democrats and Republicans, blacks and whites, rich and poor should come together.”
“Our job as clergymen is to speak out against the moral ills of our day and we’re saying marriage is right and we want people to vote ‘yes’ on Amendment 2,” Jackson said.
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Lord Help The Next Mrs. Bishop Weeks!
The Bishop Thomas Weeks III, still serving probation for attacking Bynum last year in the parking lot of the Renaissance Concourse Hotel in Atlanta, was to launch his reality Web show “Who Will Be the Next Mrs. Weeks,” yesterday.
According to a story by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Weeks says the webcast was delayed because he’s in negotiations with the many TV stations that want to broadcast the show.
Says the article, “Weeks is inviting his followers to observe his personal life so they can get a Christian perspective on dating and coping with the desire for intimacy.”
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Are Blacks for McCain Not Black Enough?
Simpkins says that blacks who vote for a candidate just because he or she is black play into society’s racism. And those who question his blackness for not supporting a black candidate stifle independent thinking.
“All too often I am challenged by peers and by “friends” on how really committed I am to my community. There is generally an underlying and sneering disbelief and sarcasm evident in these conversations, as Blacks “on board” with Obama (even those that supported Hillary Clinton before Obama showed himself a viable candidate, and “Black enough”) assume they have a monopoly on Blackness. Often times this criticism comes in the form of good-natured ribbing, but sometimes it is more insidious than that.
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Many White Democrats Prejudice Against Blacks
A story on politico.com says that percentage is roughly the margin of President Bush’s victory over John F. Kerry in 2004.
The study found that one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views of black people, calling them “lazy,” “violent” and responsible for their own troubles.
This is the party of most black registered voters!
“There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn’t mean there’s only a few bigots,” Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman, who helped analyze the survey, told the Associated Press.
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O.J. Gets No Black Jurors This Time
O.J. Simpson’s kidnapping and armed robbery trial begins Monday in Las Vegas and the big news so far is that not one of the main jurors is black.
Lawyers for Simpson and his black codefendant cried foul after the prosecution got rid of the one black panelist who had been in contention for the jury.
The judge, in essence, said so what. The prosecution did nothing wrong. Let’s keep it moving.
Besides, a couple of the alternate jurors are black.
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Kwame Kilpatrick Is Not Every Black Man
When are black folks going to stop feeling responsible for the bad behavior of other black folks?
Newsweek posted a story this morning headlined Friends Like These How the Detroit mayor’s fall hurts Obama.
In it, writer Keith Naughton lays out how Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s fall from grace could hurt Barack Obama’s campaign because Obama has called Kilpatrick a friend.
Also because Kilpatrick, who pled guilty to two felonies and resigned yesterday as a result of perjuring himself by lying about an affair he had with a coworker, can’t help Obama get out the Detroit vote.
My favorite quote from Naughton’s story?
“This Kwame Kilpatrick mess has splattered over onto the Obama campaign at the worst possible time,” says veteran Detroit political consultant Sam Riddle. “Kilpatrick’s brand of leadership has fed into the worst stereotypes that white voters have about black leaders.”
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How to Help Storm Victims in Haiti
If you are interested in helping, following is a list of organizations and what they are seeking.
• Catholic Charities of Miami wants to provide monetary assistance. Checks may be made payable to Catholic Charities of Miami with a notation in the memo line designating the donation for either Tropical Storm Fay or Hurricane Gustav or both and mailed to: Catholic Charities, Storm Aid, 9401 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami Shores, FL 33138. Donations can be made online via a secure internet site by accessing http://www.ccadm.org http://www.ccadm.org/ clicking on Donate Now, followed by designating the amount to be contributed and the donation option.
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How to Help Storm Victims in Haiti
If you are interested in helping, following is a list of organizations and what they are seeking.
Catholic Charities of Miami wants to provide monetary assistance. Checks may be made payable to Catholic Charities of Miami with a notation in the memo line designating the donation for either Tropical Storm Fay or Hurricane Gustav or both and mailed to: Catholic Charities, Storm Aid, 9401 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami Shores, FL 33138. Donations can be made online via a secure internet site by accessing http://www.ccadm.org http://www.ccadm.org/ clicking on Donate Now, followed by designating the amount to be contributed and the donation option.
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