Fundamental Zealotry and other Nonsense

I have come to the realization that the lack of the ability of the majority of citizens of these United States, in particular we African Americans, t think critically is intentional and have taken a turn for the worse. It like clear that the main reason for this is that the power that be know and accept that a lot of money is made when folk do not have the ability to think critically.
 

Over the past two weeks, two specific events have drawn me to conclude of such, as that distractions seem to garnish more attention than events and occurrences that actual merit our focus the most: the Donald Sterling Saga and the skit on Saturday Night Live written and performed by Leslie Jones.

Seems that the only thing we black folk get up in arms about is our skin color, confederate flags and the n-word.  It as if we only have our antenna out to pick up what bigots say but can't see the forest for the trees.  The issues that are destroying our community go unattended and are pushed back in our collective unconscious, in particular for this generation in which they believe that just because a politician is black and a democrat you can’t say anything wrong about the person policies, not the man I mind you but policies. If we were in tune to other issues, we would likely in the case of Sterling attend to his message about institutional racism in America and abroad, specifically alluded to by what he stated pertaining to the real manner in which Israel treat blacks and Africans.  But no we do not.  If we had our ears to the ground, we would attempt to address and discuss the bigger issue of how and why owners get public support through stadium subsidies & even antitrust exemptions in cities where the urban areas are mainly African American and Latinos, whom tax monies build the large stadium complexes but is not poured in the despondent and deplorable public education systems the vast majority of us send our kids too.  No we don’t dare address such.

On the real, why are we concerned about multi-millionaires that play professional sports when the quality of life for most black men in America is mostly negative? It seems that the only place black men are over represented where they display a modicum of success are in the sport and entertainment industry, and frankly, I am frequently more offended by the lyrics of rappers like Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, 2 Chains, and Future than by what Donald Sterling said or Leslie Jones performed.

 

The truth is that all that is negative, pessimistic, gloomy and associated with failure is where we as black men are vastly and disproportionately over-represented. Nationwide we account for more than 50% us dropout rate and maintain  the lowest college enrollment than any other group by ethnicity and gender in the nation. In   Mississippi, Michigan, Louisiana, Indiana, Georgia,Florida, District of Columbia, California, Arkansas, Alabama and many other states 10% of less of black males in high school read above an eighth grade level.

Personally I think mass incarceration deserves more attention that a television comedy show or a NBA owner. Those who kill non-Latino whites are over three times more likely to be sentenced to die as those who kill African-Americans. The killer (no pun intended) is that for the same crimes, the odds of receiving a death sentence are nearly four times (3.9) higher if the defendant is black.

Then there is the lucid observation that we as African American men are more likely to be unemployed, under employed, trapped in low wage jobs, have higher rates of job instability, lower wages, and extremely longer bouts with unemployment; which may account for why nearly 49 percent of black men are arrested for non-traffic offenses by the time they turn twenty-three.

I can’t comprehend why a whole bunch of us black folk more concerned and vocal about millionaire slaves and racist owners, or a comedian when, most of us are living from paycheck to paycheck, have suffered huge financial setbacks and are still scared about the future. The cold, hard truth is that we have one microscopic group of folk who have resources, are making loot and continue to enhance their financial position and a president that has increased their wealth. But we do not dare address this, specifically that the economic conditions of African Americans has gotten worse over the last five years more than any time in modern history.

None of this gets us mad, just old outdated bigots that allow us to show our support for political correctness and other cultural Marxist beliefs. Even Ebony magazine chimed in on this by unleashing their racist watch dog extraordinaire Jamila Lemieux on a comedy skit, on the same weekend in Chicago (Ebony’s own backyard) in which 4 people were killed and 24 others are injured in shootings. The same weekend in which Donnell Flora, 25, who uses a wheelchair took a bus to deliver a gun to his niece to shoot a 14 yr. old girl over a Facebook post over a boy. Then there is the fact that in Chicago, 92 percent of African American men are unemployed. But none of this was exciting enough, no racism involved, therefore again pushed deep back in the recesses of the black mind. Maybe they need to talk about the issues that would make folk write books with titles like “Food Stamp Bitches,” or why maternal deaths are on the rise among African American women in the United States, but I doubt it. Even going back to look at Richard Pryor’s slave sketch he did on his show when I was a teen in the 1970s, seems would upset black folk today, which makes me think his comedy would be viewed as inappropriate currently. But these same folk yell free speech when it is Beyoncé, Lil Boosie or some other subject-verb challenged miscreant. 

As a community we rarely write about our deep issues and concerns like we once did, nor are we black writers interested in such, because to do so would mean looking at the mirror and accepting that a lot of our problems are not and cannot be singularly attributed to racism. How many of US would hold our kids to the standard of nothing less than a 95% being acceptable to bring home as a grade as Kwasi Enin parents did? Parents? How many of us will cut the TV off and sit with our kids and do homework and read to them instead of watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta? How many of us take our kids to the library weekly or even own library cards. Small things can and do make a difference.

Sometimes being distracted by thing we cannot change does our community more harm than good, by taking our attention from what we CAN address and deal with in our own backyard. Truth is, it was Abraham Lincoln who said and wrote: “Free them [black slaves] and make them politically and socially our equals?  My own feelings will not admit of this" (Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II, p. 256). A man clearly who doesn’t or couldn’t deserve the right to own a NBA team in today's, world of intolerance and impracticality.

Segregation in Public Schools Still Thriving | Brainwash Update

Government Schools and Concentration Camps, I mean Classes

Now I want to make one thing clear. As a child I attended school. With that being said, I was educated at home. I say this because many of us do not or cannot see the difference between school and education. Schooling is just that, sending kids to a building where they will unnaturally be around people their own age, learning to be instructed in whatever the system operating the school desires to be taught.

Me, I was reading before first grade, learned addition, subtraction, division, fractions and square roots all at home. Not to mention I learned every type of rock, plant, animal and chemical there was – all at home and prior to any formal government school instruction. I call it government schools because that is what my folks used to call it. They made it clear that the government public schools (at least in the 1960s) didn’t really want to teach African Americans anything of value. So it was common place to learn at home and hope the school supplemented that lesson. Those days are gone and now we have forgotten the mandates of government public schools – to do the bid of the state. Regardless if that means suspending African America males disproportionately to other races, sending students into severely overcrowded class rooms, and graduating a population with a high school degree but 80 percent of the graduates can’t read or do math on a functional grade level when in college.

Even as a kid (and yes I read Hegel at age eleven), I understood the Hegelian Dialectic or "Consensus Process." Simply put it is plain old brainwashing. To quote William T. Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education 1889-1906 (1835-1909), “Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. The average American [should be] content with their humble role in life, because they're not tempted to think about any other role.” But what could be expected, the political father of the modern day public government education system was Woodrow Wilson. As then president of Princeton and addressing the Federation of High School teachers he stated: 'We want one class of persons to have a liberal education and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks,' thus designing a school system that would prevent 'the masses' from learning anything liberating when they got there. Even the courts assert such. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in its Palmdale School District opinion, November 2, 2005 read: a “parents…”fundamental right to control the education of their children is, at the least, substantially diminished. The constitution does not vest parents with the authority to interfere with a public school decision as to how it will provide information to its students or what information it will provide, in its classrooms or otherwise [See Yoder, 406 U.S. at 205].

The reality is that with a closed educational system we will never have an open political system. But politicians and leading educators in history didn’t hide this fact. It was John D. Rockefeller, whose family ironically founded the National Education Association, who said: "I don't want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers." Even Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence even advocated that “our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property.”

This our hypocrisy, on the one hand broadly proclaiming the importance of individuality yet at the same time ignoring that we promote a one-size-fits-all schooling that is forced on us. Thus we proclaim our schools are free when they are not, over-looking that a "free education" is nothing more than a state-owned and socialized education. I suggest this because if the state pays and provides the area of what should be instructed, then they can only accomplish what John Stuart Mill characterized as shaping “people to be exactly like one another; and as the mold in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government.” This is not hard to see, as a parent or a teacher, it is obvious that as Curriculums become more standardized, government from the county to the feds end up having more and more control in the schooling process – notice how I didn’t say education. And since the public school system is funded by tax dollars, the more teachers and administrators are protected and seen as the main stakeholders as compared to the students and parents. It is supply and demand in reverse.

In last year’s state of the Union address, President Obama advocated that every state should require that “all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18,” which in simple terms is a federal. This is a bad idea and an omen. On the real, government public schooling isn’t education at all and serves to advance political dogma in the form of reducing opposition to wealth transfers via the old communist instructional tactic that such is the American democratic way (namely because systems of state-controlled and managed schools will only be free to teach whatever the state desires).

The Public government school System is in creation to continue “social re-engineering of the minds of our children. Folk forget or rather don’t know that the government public education machine prevalent today is rooted in what Massachusetts did around 1850, and that the people resisted, even with guns until the 1880's when the state militia forcibly took children to school. I can even give a real life example. My daughters school is teaching that General Olgethorpe was a great man. Ironically I had talked to her about it when she was in the first grade when she asked “who invented Georgia.” I told her about Oglethorpe, his treachery and the manner in which helped to colonize (take Georgia from the people who lived there) America. I received a not from her teacher indicating that my daughter, all seven years old of her stood up and informed here teacher that General Oglethorpe was not a hero in her eyes as the school was attempting to teach. The teacher shared it with the other teachers in the school and she asked me if we talked about that type of stuff a lot. I responded yeas, and she knows all the halogens on the periodic table also.

If America was truly free, then Obama would not make such a statement - a free nation doesn’t compel parents to send their children to school. If history is any indication and the objectives of the individuals I quoted are on the inside looking out, then it is no wonder that in most cases if one is an African American in an urban areas, our kids generally receive a poor quality of education. Making a segregated world exist even if the law states otherwise for the gap between the haves and have-nots, is growing. Some states are so open with it that they have set different standards of academic performance based on racial ethnicity. Other states have even stopped teaching certain subjects like algebra based on race. Maybe this is why the government and others are against home schooling, because it makes people think for themselves and produces people like me. I do not want to even think of where I would have been if my parents and realitives had not instructed me, or taught me the constitution at age 9 or how to hunt or fish. I know for certain I would not have learned such sitting in a Government Concentration Camps, I mean Classes, especially if I expected them to teach instead of school me.

Texas Systematically Removing Black Males From Public Schools

African Americans have traditionally valued and reinforced the importance of education, but recent generations serve to show the opposite. Not to abrogate personal responsibility for the lack of many African Americans noting the significance of reading and math, or even having a semblance of comprehension of the economic crisis confronting the nation, the reality is that young African American males are disproportionately the target of systematic forms of exclusion. The state of Texas provides a prime example of this and is a general reflection of practices prevalent across the nation.

The Council of States Government Justice Center just released a report on outcomes of disciplinary procedures in the school systems across the state of Texas. The results are alarming. In Texas, 6 out of 10 students across the state were suspended or expelled at least once between seventh and 12th grades. Specifically, African Americans, other minorities and students with disabilities were statistically more likely to be removed from class than white students.

More problematic was the observation that approximately 83 percent of African American males had at least one suspension or expulsion and were more often given harsher out-of-school suspensions, compared to in-school suspensions, even for their first infraction. This was the case despite the fact that larger studies with representative samples provided evidence that African American students are no more or less likely to commit offenses that require their removal from school.

When such practices are unchecked, they contribute negatively to the community in general, often resulting in African American males being held back and more likely to end up involved with the criminal justice system, especially during the year such suspensions occur.

Yes, the school systems are not servicing the needs of African American males as effectively as other ethnic groups. Many years ago, a black man who knew how to read was a threat to mainstream America, and during slavery such a skill was punishable by death. Now, education is no longer considered as a valuable, revolutionary act and we eventually victimize ourselves, just as much as the school systems our students attend.

Detroit: African American Students Test Scores Worst in State, Nation

New Data from U.S. Department of Education Notes Racial Educational Inequities in Public Schools.

New data from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights reveal an unsettling observation about the nature of the U.S. Public Education system. In summary, findings suggest that African American and Latino students across the nation are far more likely to be suspended than white students – as well as be more likely to have lower and limited access to rigorous college-prep courses.

The study, which was conducted by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) is a first-of-its kind and was designed to examine educational inequities around teacher experience, discipline and high school rigor. The data was collected from 72,000 schools serving 85 percent of the nation's students and revealed major disparities in the public school experiences of minority and white students.

For example, African-American students, particularly males, are far more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than their peers. Although African American students comprise just 18% of the sample, 35% of the students suspended once, and 39% of the students expelled were black. Findings also indicate that one in five African-American boys - and one in 10 African-American girls - was suspended from school during the study period, the 2009-10 school years. Meaning African-American students are 3-1/2 times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers. And 70 percent of students arrested or referred to law enforcement for disciplinary infractions are black or Latino.

The study also notes that nationally, students with disabilities are also more than twice as likely to be suspended as students without disabilities and that teachers in high-minority schools were paid $2,251 less per year than their colleagues in teaching in low-minority schools in the same district.

Academic opportunities also vary widely by race. Among high schools that serve predominately Latino and African-American students, just 29 percent offer a calculus class and only 40 percent offer physics. In some school districts, those numbers are even more glaring. In New York City, for instance, just 10 percent of the high schools with the highest black and Latino enrollment offer Algebra II.

The data breaks down the national data district by district and school by school. In addition, it examines racial disparities in r access to pre-kindergarten programs, success in Advanced Placement courses and the use of physical restraints on students with disabilities. One finding of note was that Just over a quarter of high-minority high schools offered Calculus, while over half of schools with the lowest black and Hispanic enrollment offered the course.

Black and Illiterate: We Can't Read, But We sure Can Watch TV

Hypothetically, let us assume there is a young man who has just finished school, and he is attempting to decide where he will move on to for his personal professional development. In this process, he meets with several interesting entities, of which many offer him incentives to select their organization, for they see great talent and how he could add to their bottom line in being profitable. In some cases he is wined and dined and set up in expensive hotels with access to host who are female. In others he is given envelopes with money and in one case a backpack or briefcase filled with stacks of money. My question is what is this persons occupation and is it illegal?

A while back I wrote a piece describing the manner in which many African Americans do not take full advantage of social media. In addition I am frequently speaking out to bring attention to the fact that reading is slowly falling off among members in our community. Each time, I obtained vehement ridicule and slander for my assertions, especially when I assert that African Americans watch more television than they read; or that they use cell phones more than any other ethnic/racial population in the United States.

Now a new report has just been released confirming that Blacks watch and spend entirely too much time watching television. Nielsen’s latest State of the Media fact documents that in the second quarter of 2010, the amount of television viewing in the U.S. remains high suggesting that the average person watched more than 143 hours of television per month. African Americans indicated the highest rate of total TV usage, according to study released this past Wednesday.

Based on data collected In November 2010, African Americans used their TVs an average of 7 hours, 12 minutes each day — above the U.S. average of 5 hours, 11 minutes. In addition, African Americans reported using their DVD players and video game consoles more than average. In contrast, Asians watched TV the least, at just 3 hours and 14 minutes a day on average.

This in concert with African Americans being be among the most active users of the mobile web and . On average more than 1,300 a month, may eventually become a problem behavior. Many health problems are the direct result of lack of regular physical activity which African Americans report more than other ethnic racial groups including, Heart Attack, Stroke, Diabetes and High Blood pressure. Do not been mention obesity, for which we know the largest racial/ethnic disparity in obesity is between US-born black women and other ethnic population in America.

Reading is definitely a major concern. A recent study in Wisconsin noted that 91% of Black students are not reading proficiently by 4th grade. These were comparable to findings across the nation. According to the Schott Foundation for Public Education, only 41 percent of African American male youth graduate from high school in the United States and acording to the National Association of Educational Progress, nationally 69 percent of African American children canot read at grade level in the 4th grade compared to 29 percent among whites.

Maybe this is why Africa Americans (including women), albeit just 12% of the U.S. population comprise only 3.2% of lawyers, 3% of doctors, and less than 1% of architects. A strange phenomena when Africans Americans make up 85 percent of the NBA, 68 percent of the NFL and 98 percent of all rappers. This may be an additional sign that we as a community watch too much television and need to read more, for I am certain when they do see African American males, if they are young boys, they are not scientist or people reading books.

Reading as well as regular physical activity is essential for the development of a health mind, body and spirit. Let us move away from the televisions, go outside and pick up a book before it is too late.

New Georgetown University Report Shows College majors Disproportionately Segregated By race

A new study released by Georgetown University in Washington has found that majors in college are highly segregated disproportionately by race as well as gender. Using census data, the report categorized 171 majors into 15 fields, discovering different majors led to different industries.

The report, “What’s it Worth? The Economic Value of College Majors” produced out of Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce analyzes data from the 2009 American Community Survey, whose results were released last year.

Findings indicate that white men are concentrated in the highest earning majors, such as engineering and pharmaceutical sciences, and have higher median earnings across all fields except three. For example, Petroleum engineering majors make about $120,000 a year, compared with $29,000 annually for counseling psychology majors, researchers found. Math and computer science majors earn $98,000 in salary while early childhood education majors get paid about $36,000.

Moreover, the areas with the highest concentrations of whites was noted to be agriculture and natural resources (90 percent), while the highest concentration of Asians is in computers and mathematics (16 percent).

In comparison, law and public policy has the highest concentration of African-Americans (14 percent) and Hispanics (10 percent). Also, School Student Counseling has the highest proportion of African-American Bachelor’s degree holders (38 percent), followed by Human Services and Community Organization (21 percent) and Counseling Psychology (20 percent).

In addition, African-Americans earn the most with a major in Electrical Engineering (median: $68,000) which is significantly less than the median for Whites ($90,000) and Asians ($80,000) in these majors, but just slightly ahead of the Hispanics ($60,000). African-American Bachelor’s degree holders earn the least with a major in General Medical and Health Services (median: $32,000) which is $18,000 lower than Whites with the same major.

The significance of these findings is that college graduates overall make 84 percent more over a lifetime than those with only high school diplomas. Fields with virtually no unemployment: geological and geophysical engineering, military technologies, pharmacology and school student counseling.

What China-US Talks Mean for African Americans

If you ask the average African American about China, they will probably say very little with the exception of the query, why do they own the neighborhood soul food restaurant. If you asked what impact does US-China relations have on them, you may draw a quixotic stare, as I did recently.

This week, China’s President Hu JinTao was in the United States for the first time since 2006 to meet with President Barack Obama. The goal I suspect based on the needs of the United states, the Economic tension with China and other concerns is to both reframe and redefine the relationship between the US and China. So far so good, Already Obama has encouraged the President to acknowledge that China has a long way to go with respect to human rights as well as secured $45 billion in investments from the nation. Add to that, the announcement affirming energy deals that will engender partnerships with US and Chinese energy companies to develop clean energy.

But what of importance for me is to discern how these efforts will impact the African American community and what does it mean for us? What I can surmise thus far is that if we are to benefit equally from interaction between these two nations, we must get our stuff in order. First, it means that we will have to become financially literate. Most of us do not know anything about the Yuan, let alone exchange rates and currency markets periods as it relates to the dollars in our pocket or our economic bottom line personally.

It also asserts that we need to become innovative as a community to take advantage of any opportunities that may engender due to stronger US-China economic interaction. This mean making our children learn Mandarin, study harder, and focus on the sciences and math as opposed to sports or music. Otherwise we will not be in a position to take advantage of the skills required to go after the marginal dollars in available in these areas around the world.

Looking at it logistically, the only other option for us will be to join the military if we don’t, for unlike China, that’s where a large corpus of US spending is directed. The Chinese spend billions around the world on natural Resources to expand and sustain their manufacturing base while we spend the same amount on funding two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Education and immigration issues will be of major importance for the Obama administration and African Americans need to push for changes that will enhance both. Mathematically, we need to be able to sell things and services and skills if we are to move forward on an equal economic footing. We are a nation of 300 million compared to 1.3 billion in china – we need to be involved in this market. Thus, the importance of education specifically for African Americans and all Americans for that matter cannot be overlooked. The deal with energy companies mentioned earlier mainly deals with developing carbon capturing technologies and clean coal technology. And frankly, we will miss the boat if we do not engage in these areas and understand what is at stake for us.

Plain and simple, many of us write off the importance of understanding the china-US relationship yet wonder why we maintain the same economic status as a community decade after decade. If we truly desire to reap the benefits of an African American President, then we need to study policy and make it work for us and stop kvetching about things that are not really that important.

when a 70 is an F

There once was a time when education, regardless of gender, race or economic status was valued more so than anything else. It was seen as the great equalizer and the one intangible that was attainable by every one.

Today seems that the value for education has diminished greatly, and that the transformation of values as such has turned for the worse. I had conversation with my folk this morning about his. As usual we saw this from different angles. He suggested that the values have not changed; it was that people tended to finish college but would still have no job, so I was not as important as it used to be in past days. My position was not based on securing jobs, but rather the value of pedagogy in general.

Although I do not remember the time when my mom and her siblings went to school, I do remember seeing pictures. First it had to be hell and high water for them to miss a day in school and second they always had books in their hands.

My grandma would always say she never went to school. She had to work and getting married at sixteen meant she placed her family first. But this was in the late 1930s – a few decades before Brown versus the Topeka Board of education.

Today, it seems to be just different. Told him that 70% of the young African American males that enter the 9th grade wont graduate or finish school with their peers. That means that only 3 out of ten graduate high school, at least on time. Because of this 70 percent, nearly 80 percent eventually drop out.

I consider this foul on two fronts. First is our disposition and concern of materialism in the form of objects versus what one produces with his mind. Add to that our inability to want to work hard and delay gratification for the attainment of easy money. The last front is governmental, being that more money is spent on subsidies for oil companies, big business and given to places like Israel and Pakistan than is spent on education with respect to our public schools and the pay of teachers and institutions of higher learning with the reduction of grants, student aid and loans for those interested in college.

Again, I’m just venting, and sad. I used to hate being one of the two or three African American male professors at Emory University. I felt like I had to represent all of the African American men in the world and could only kick it with the building and grounds crew outside of the two aforementioned professors. In my book, this 70 is not a C, but really an F.

fck boy goes to college

Many of you know that I am an appreciative person and as so, often write about blessings and how people take their blessings for granted. As well, you know I have a vehement disdain for types of folks I have labeled to be Fck Boys. This past Monday, LSU head coach Les Miles suspended Quarterback Ryan Perrilloux for an indefinite period. Again using coach speak, it was for violating unspecified team rules. Perrilloux was a big reason why LSU went to the BCS championship game in January.

In the past, Perrilloux has missed mandatory team meetings. One, in which he was the only one not in attendance, was during the week after LSU won the national championship. Although there is nothing wrong to miss a few classes to attend ones father’s funeral, but being responsible suggest that you would inform your coach and teachers of such.

This is Perrilloux’s third team suspension. Last year he did not make the trip to Alabama after he was alleged to have been apart of a fight in a Baton Rouge bar. Then there was the time he attempted to use his older brother’s driving license to gain admittance to a Casino in Baton Rouge.

Add to this, that Perrilloux is being watched by federal authorities as being allegedly involved in a federal counterfeiting ring. Now this behavior is from a person that was looked at s being one of the nation’s top high school quarterback prospects in 2005.

It is hard for me to see how a person given so much, after earning such through athletic performance, could take his opportunity, to maybe even a future professional career worth tens of millions of dollars, not to mention the greatest reward of earning a college degree. It makes no sense how one can go to a solid university, not attend class, and worse not expect that he should attended class when he is own scholarship. Guess this is what thugging will get you. I aint know they had libraries in Casino’s.

Now I know it may be hard to be an African American Quarterback at LSU or in the state for that matter. But that is no excuse. Still he has squandered a major blessing.

In division 1 football, 50 percent of scholarship athletes are African American, but less than half of that number graduate or finish. Ryan, you were given a valuable opportunity and a blessing. Do you know how many folks are struggling to send their kids to school, or how many students have to take loans or work two jobs to pay for tuition? Does he know some folks dying in Iraq and other places just because they want money for college? You had a gift a blessing, and what do you do? You squander it like a fck boy as opposed to taking advantage of it as a man. Maybe you should have gone to Mississippi State, cause like Sylvester Croom said; “I will not send a young African American student athelete into the world unprepared, if they come here, they are going to class.

aint that a bomber or an iceberg?

To the honorable Mr. Henry Waxman and Tom Davis:

Why in the fuck are you wasting my tax money to hold Reform Committee hearings of Human Growth Hormone? I mean, it’s nice for me to perceive that you are concerned, but forgive me if I find it hard to fathom that you actually care. I would like to say you both do have top-shelf tie game, but you are no doubt wasting my money.

Honorable Mr. Waxman, forgive me, but I prefer to get my information on science from scientist, of which I consider myself to be, and academic and scientific journals, of which I am certain you don’t read, from the manner in which you stumbled over words and concepts you orated during the segment of CSPAN called Health Effects of Human Growth Hormones.

Of all folks Mr. Waxman, you need to consider HGH given your age, but that is another story. For some reason or another, I feel that the time and money (of which your salary is paid) would be better spent on dealing with education or the issue of the homeless or prison. I mean, more folks are actually affected by the aforementioned than those that inject or consume HGH. Not to mention, your concern for B12 injections appears on the surface to be disingenuous and more prone for a discussion of fans of Roger Clemens.

As I looked at the lot of you listening to the scientific experts, I could not help but feel that they were talking over your heads, and that you all actually felt like sleeping. I say this for you all offered the penumbra that you were the kind of folks who slept through science class. I bet if I gave you a test on what the experts presented, you all would fail (without it being open book, or open note, or a take home).

If I were a gambling man, I would extend the prior assertion to spelling (albeit I can't talk) and or grammar, for I am willing to bet that you do not know what PERNICIOUS means. In either case, I would most likely have to give yawl a make up test to pass.

So Honorable gentleman, please spend my money on important stuff, and don’t even think about giving yourself a raise because you did this shit - conducted a study session on HGH.

Thank you sir, and I would like to reserve the remainder of my remarks, but I would like to add, that it is B-12, and not B-15 Mr. Waxman (u keep saying B-15 sir). B-15 is Pangamic acid and used for folks with high cholesterol, it is also an Ice Berg as well as a form of Military aircraft. I’m sure you have been in the House long enough to may have signed funding for it.

I thank you for your time and the chance to testify before your committee.

Black, Brown, Beige and Undereducated.

Just as there is a change occurring with respect to the new image of Europe, a similar occurrence is going on here in the U.S. Europe by contrast, is becoming increasingly African and Arab. As such, the political reference point of the past – one of traditional unchallenged Anglo-Saxon province – no longer can exist. In The U.S. As the decades add up, we will be completely a country of darker shade peoples as well. However, unlike in Europe, where the Muslim, Arab and Africans merge their political interest under a well educated populous, they do and command the governments consider their views valid. We in the U.S just foggle away opportunity and disregard liberty. Shit, we probably don’t even understand the concept of Liberty.

The future seems even bleaker. I mean it is not like we should expect the government to do for us anyway. But rather it should be a view is that this is what we do for government and this is what we expect government performance to be based on that contribution. This will never happen because we aid in the degradation of our own community. If more than 50% of students drop out from high school generally, speaking, how many do you think will be coming from our schools in our neighborhoods? Take it a step farther, if 80 percent of high school drop outs end up in prison and 40 percent of all inmates are darker people, yet these people make only 13 percent of the population, what kind of educated populous will remain to do battle, represent and demand that what we put in we should get back?

I wonder how much money in our neighborhoods is loss as a result. How many more homes, books, cd’s, and service that we provide in dollar terms could we be making? We can see this yet we select to motion toward and support being other than educated.

We allow this to happen on our own and it’s a shame. Simply put until we are proactive in our thinking such that they reflect action, we will force all to value education regardless in the understanding that our kind were killed and maimed just for learning to read. We should value and internalize this image. We need a well-educated populous or else American in the future of us as the majority, will just be Black, Brown, Beige and under educated.