Tale of 2 America’s: Separate and Unequal

America is falling apart and is reverting to what it always was: two nations inside of one. A frightening prospective but not unexpected given the lack of leadership in Washington; both party’s included as well as each branch of government. Maybe unbeknownst to the President also, given that he is asking people to fight on his behalf yet forgetting that it is hard for people to fight when they are hungry or homeless.

Once the call of this nation was separate but equal, a statement that cannot be validated even by simple algebra. Unfortunately in today’s parlance, all indicators reveal the overt reality that as a nation, we are separate and unequal – a lucid fact visible in black and white. If this divide is not mended, there will be hell on the avenues across this great nation.

Although we excel in some things, as a people, African Americans comprise 13% of Americans but only 4% of U.S. physicians, 3.2% of Lawyers, and less than 1% of architects but 69% of NFL, 80% of NBA and 98% of all rappers. The infant mortality rate of African Americans is 13.4 deaths per 1,000 live births compared to 5.5 and 5.7 for Hispanics and whites accordingly. Just 12 % of AA fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 % of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.

What is real is that we are our worse enemy and that the American oligarchical powers have used this to their advantage. A new report has just been released confirming that as Africa Americans we watch more TV than any other racial/ethnic group in the U.S. according to figures released on March 30, 2011. Moreover, 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. Yet still, the disparities across the board are due to systemic practices of racism that elected leaders, regardless of race and political affiliation ignore as well.

Between 2003 and 2007, African American mothers had infant mortality rates at least twice as high as white mothers and AA children ages 17 and under were nearly 50 percent more likely to be without private or government health insurance than white children and that AA children ages 18 and under were three times more likely to live in single-parent households than white children. Nearly two-thirds of all AA children lived in a single–parent household and were twice as likely as white children to live in a household where no parent had full-time or year-round employment. Just one-third of AA children had a parent with a high school diploma, 24 % had a parent with at least some college experience, and less than 15 % had a parent who held a bachelor’s degree. These figures are not from the Ante-bellum south or during Jim Crow, but from the past few years and are just some of the reasons why one out of every three AA children lives in poverty compared with one out of every ten white children.

We are poor, jobless and in pain yet the nation’s first African American President and his political party ignore our desperate pleas as equally as the Republicans. Although Obama has proposed a job plan, it is difficult to see, unless targeted in urban areas and toward African American businesses, how this will aid in reducing the massive rate of unemployment we face.

For example, the dramatic difference with respect to access to capital. According to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau data, the median level of net worth among blacks is $6,200, eleven times lower than whites. Evidence shows that at startup, black entrepreneurs experience higher loan denial and tend to pay higher interest rates than white-owned businesses. Moreover, white-owned businesses have more than $80,000 of initial capital on average compared to black-owned businesses have less than $30,000 startup capital.

Regardless of the systemic constraints, we also must face the truth of aiding in our own demise and allowing these two nations within one to exist. From education to the correctional system this is observable. More than two-thirds of African American male dropouts are expected to serve time in state or federal prison. It would be idiotic to overlook the impact that arrests and incarceration have on African American families and communities. Since the 1990s, nearly one in three African-American men aged 20-29 were under criminal justice supervision, while more than two out of five had been incarcerated. Making African American males being incarcerated (4,618 per 100,000) 6 times more likely to be held in custody than white males: resulting in an estimated 1,559,200 children had a father in prison at midyear 2007; almost half (46%) were children of black fathers.Something is wrong with this America, the segment that has basically forgotten the sacrifices others made decades before them in order for them to be complacent, for they believe that they have theirs and that is all that matters.

But this is not reality. Today’s African American youth watch TV around 6 hours a day compared to 3 hours to whites and are exposed 6 hours more in total to all media when compared to white youth Even worse is that reading newspapers or books is basically none existence for African American youth, with whites and Asians reading way more each day, especially books, which if data is accurate, African American read on average 11 minutes a day and 33 minutes in total in terms of all print media.

If they do reach the point of completing High school and attending college, the nationwide graduation rate for African Americans is 42 %, most of which are females. As of five years ago, fewer than 8 % of young African American males graduated from college compared to 17% of white males in the same age group. What does this mean? It means that "The 4.5 million African American men ages 15 to 29 represent 14% of the U.S. male population of that age and
12% of all African Americans in the U.S. Their high rates of death, incarceration, and unemployment, and relatively low levels of college graduation rates raise concerns for African American families and the nation’s economy."

Yes America used to be a tale of two nations, black and white and separate but equal. Now this has returned however this time these two places are substantially unequal. Yes Obama wants us to get to marching, but he is missing the big social picture. People cannot march when sick and hungry. And they will not if the president is not open equally to hearing their pain. Instead they will be stealing copper from air conditioners and telephone poles, forming flash mobs and robbing stores and driving truck through beauty supply stores and stealing natural Indian hair.This is the new America and once people really get hungry, there will be hell to pay.

Lost in Translation From a Child of Monday Night Football

Let me put this on the table, I was born in 1962. The golden age of struggle and liberty of family and real sports. I was blessed to have seen the greats many today have forgotten. I used to go to the Memphis Blues AAA baseball team field to see games when Eddie Murry was a minor leaguer because some of my best friends at the time, Anthony and Ricky Duncan cousin Taylor Duncan played Third Base for the Rochester Redwings. We would shag fly ball before each game they were in Memphis, leaving me with more than 100 balls and a cracked Eddie Murray bat – which I cherished.


I was blessed. I was a child of Monday Night Football. I saw the first game. I remember the night Howard Cosell announced John Lennon had been killed, the Colts were playing. I remember bump and run coverage for in football my idols were O.J. Simpson, Dick Butkus, Fran Tarkenton, Conrad Dobler, Jack Tatum and Lester Hayes among others. I cried when my Vikings lost four supper bowels and celebrated when my Steelers won four. That was football. In baseball, I loved Luis Tiant, J.R. Richards, Oil Can Boyd, Steve Carlton, and every player on the 1971 to 1973 Oakland A’s. And Dave Winfield, well I remember seeing him win the college World Series and being MVP as a pitcher. A pitcher would would smack a ball so hard and slide head first because he was competitive and serious. But not as serious and mean as Bob Gibson. And there was difference in the NBA. With Jack Sikma, Bernard King, Walt Frazier and Mr. Sky Hook himself.



But it is not like that anymore. Now, I do not look at sports the same. Maybe it’s the plethora of commentators and sports talk folk that have never played high level sports or the prices of tickets or the salaries players make that turns me off. It really rubs me the wrong way when professional athletes and owners alike think they are not making enough money to the extent players would strike. When I was growing up, players worked regular jobs when the season was over – a sign of character and integrity blatantly missing from professional sports today.




All this talk of a strike or a lock-out, NBA or NFL is beyond reason. I mean It doesn’t make any sense. Especially when people speak of how dangerous their jobs are. When I grew up, professional athletes worked during the year – regular jobs in addition to playing their sport. Sure times have changed but the greed avarice has to stop. Like I said, I know some of yawl will say they deserve the money, that they risk life time injury, that they spent their entire life playing these games. Yes games. By this logic, they don’t deserve what they are being paid. I mean military personal (by choice) like athletes select what they desire to do. And no one anywhere can tell me that a running back or power forward does more to deserve millions of dollars than a solider or a teacher.





But again, objectivity is not of importance. What is stated as being of importance is what they do, which is entertain. Which is strangely curious to me for I cannot understand why they need more money than a person risking his life for their freedom when they already make millions? All of this is lost in translation. It’s just a game; it’s not life or death. Sure a knee injury could destroy an athlete’s career, but it aint like they stepped on an explosive device. Maybe if most athletes would finish or even attend classes while they were in a school they would be able to discern such.

helmet to helmet - humbug

America has been increasingly falling down the global ladder of intellectual sophistication and astuteness. From our schools to our politics, this is a self evident truth. No more real is this observation than the aforementioned is what is observed in the world of Professional sports.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love sports, but I must admit, it is more than apparent that from the new proposed rule changes in professional basketball to the attempt to change the contact ethos in football, that these organizations are run by imbeciles who do not have any knowledge or understanding of science math, physics or physiology, or worse, that they themselves ma have skipped a few too many classes while in school or had the old noggin cracked one too many times.

I state this for two reasons albeit the latter will be my main focus. In summary, you cannot legislate obviate natural occurrences via technical fouls (as in the case of emotions and fouls in the NBA) or the mechanics of physics or physiology (as in the case of the NFL with respect to helmet to helmet contact).

It appears unbeknownst to those in professional football any knowledge of the Potassium Argon Theory of Bilateral symmetry. This defines why the human body of Homo sapiens sapiens is the way it is, or in other words why what we have on one side is on the other as well as why we walk up right, lead with our head and walk on our feet. Yes, Homo sapiens sapiens, which translated means “man wise wise”. But you cannot tell these from idiots who think they can make rules that are contra to human anatomy, physiology or the natural laws of physics.

As a creature with bilateral symmetry, the fact is that man, when using his complete body as a projectile, will always leads from his head, for force originates from acceleration from our feet in relation to the ground and gravity. This is proven factual from the entire known math in the world as postulated from Euclid, to Pythagoras to Einstein. Since perpendicularity originates with the understanding of right triangles, when mass and force are added, we end up with corresponding positions with motion – these are called vectors. Vectors are mathematical objects best explained by physics; however I will attempt to simplify it for the commoner.

A vector is characterized by a direction in space like a Safety on a football field hey are They begin at an Origin “O” which is a starting point like the feet of a Safety on the field. It leads from that initial origin “O” to another point “P” in space. “P” is the end point. This is why vectors are symbolized by an arrow, because al force from an origin is targeted to the end point f the head just as an arrow from the string of a bow. All vectors eventually intersect the target plane (Ball Carrier) and are called projections. Projections end up translating all of the force obtained by the mass of the particles push from the ground to an end point (Ball carrier).

This is why we have the concepts of momentum, energy and elasticity – since the velocity of a particle in motion has direction and magnitude. Plainly stated, the momentum of a particle with velocity and mass is a vector. The elasticity of these resulting forces acting between colliding particles (ball players) is reinforced in Newton’s laws of mechanics. Otherwise we would have inelastic impact, or where the two particles hit each other and stick together.

The point is if men play football in our gravity and they start on the ground, and project with mass and acceleration, it is both physically and mathematically impossible for the human body not to lead with the opposite end where the energy transfer started (the head). No matter what we do, humans by anatomy and symmetry will always lead from the head whether it is walking forward or standing up. The only way to change this I football is if you allow folks to drop kick each other because all the rules in the world they come up will never refute the laws of mechanics.

busted

Jones, you know my granny Hazel died the prior week. And being such, folks seem to come out the wood works, in respect. A good thing, 99% of the time.

An additional disclaimer, I am a reformed Memphis mac, meaning that at one point in time, I ascribed to the “bone and disown” school of thought. Yes i was foul, but that was before I manned up to life and mutual respect for all, especially women. Check this, one of the past histories was a riend, female in gender. We said hello, that she said sorry about my granny’s death and said:

"You remember when I walked in on you and that BROAD in that Bar?"

I instantly went back in my head and said "yes."

What had happened was that we were dating. I think we were even informing one another of out love for each other. I had spoken with her earlier and informed her that I would call her back after I finished using the bathroom, but I did not. Truth was that I had spoken to another women before her and had planned to meet her at the bar. While there with her, the other young lady called twice and I intentionally did not take her calls.

Lord behold, if she did not walk into the bar a few minutes latter to pick up some food. Ironic thing is that the bar was a place that she had introduced me too in the first place. The woman I was with introduced herself to her. She was humble and did not make a scene and proceeded to take a seat at a booth in the corner as she waited for her food. I left the bar and with and set with her for a few. We spoke briefly but she didn't say much, except for to ask me to by her a drink. I made up some excuse, walking off and didn't honor her request.

After my date, I attempted to call her, but she didn't return my calls. I could not blame her, I mean before that time she trusted me. Although I understood then, now I really do understand. I did not apologize then and selected to blame her instead for coming by a lace she always stopped by.

I could not have meant what I said if I would do such a thing. I felt bad and I was busted. I tried to blame it on her, but the truth was i was the wrong one. Saying I was in a relationship with her, and meeting another woman, even if she was my friend, at a bar, and ignoring her calls. As a man, I should have just answered her call out of respect, and told her what I was doing, but I was a coward, a liar, and just tried to hide it from her. No matter what I said then she responded, "the eyes don't lie" and that "if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and talks like a duck, chance are it is a duck."

So now Im looking in her eyes and I say, "you were right, I was wrong and it was disrespectful."

So ladies and gents, tell me how bad was what I did, albet plus some 10 years ago, and was she right to not to call me anymore and did I get what I deserve. I guess I am asking, what whould u have done if u walked in on your partner, mate, girlfriend, boyfriend, man, woman, or lover, having drinks with another, when they intentiojnally ignored your calls, and how would you perceive such a person. In hindsight, she was a great person, and would have done anything for me.

But she obviously never forgot, should she have?

SHOUTS OUT 2 TROMBONE SHORTY DURING START OF ALL STAR - YEA I LOOKED AT THE GAME AND I AM EMBARRASED TO SAY SO, BUT IT WAS A GOOD GAME

The New Freaknic

Yesterday I read the take on the All-star game that was held in Vegas. The perspective was from a man I respect, admire, and actually personified the term student athlete while enrolled at Ball State University – Jason Whitlock. The article was called “Mayhem Main Event at NBA All-Star Weekend.” He suggested that the NBA and the local communities like Atlanta, Houston and Las Vegas have experienced this for years.

He described all star weekend as an “unmitigated failure” and said it was merely a”new millennium Freaknik. I guess the shoe may fit somewhat. After all, I consider myself old school ATL folk and was a participant at each one. Everybody I have talked to that attended the All-star game said they game itself was not the attraction, but mainly talked about the wild parties, the freaky women, folks shooting guns and smell of Purp everywhere. But then again that is what people talk about whenever they go somewhere expecting to have a wild time. Then again, it is Las Vegas, a city that sells itself on the statement “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” They have some responsibility for this also.

Over a three-day period, it is reported that a total of 403 arrests were made by police with a large amount of these being vice-related. Others have stated that 362 people were arrested during the All-Star Game. The say one man was shot at 4 a.m. in the front e of the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino as late as Monday and that a brawl broke out around 30 minutes later in a club at the Wynn hotel. NFL player Pacman Jones, Nelly and Jermaine Dupri were at the Minxx Gentlemen's Club. The way I have heard it from news and blog outlets, The Tennessee Titans Cornerback Jones had a bag with $10,000 worth of singles and started to “make it rain” being the College Park Native he is., took the singles out, and threw them in the air all around the club for strippers and patrons. After a few fight broke out, the club owner told him he had to leave. After which one of his boys who was sitting with him while inside went back and started shooting. It was also alleged that by the owner of the strip club that PacMan slammed and punched a stripper before the shootings.

I can expect this from Pacman, given his poor decision-making and penchant for “keeping it real” – really stupid. CBS says that the professional football player was just a “witness to the triple shooting early Monday that left two critically wounded.” The owner of the strip club with the shootings was on the radio saying one of PacMan's crew was the shooter. Also said PacMan slammed and punched a stripper before a bouncer got there and they closed the club all-leading up to the shootings.

Then there was the little altercation between Young Buck and Game. It too occurred durinmg the early morning hours of Saturday (February 17) when Game attended a party hosted by T.I and Jeezy. The event, called The Las Vegas Takeover and was held at the The Ice House Lounge nightclub. All over non sense because Buck got on stage, grabbed a mic and started a freestyle dis of Game on one of Games Tracks [ACTUAL VIDEO HERE]. Security had to hold back Game and his folk escort Buck and rapper Young Jeezy who came together, out of the club.

Now I do not get Mr. Whitlock with his nearly 350 pound self. But he sounds more like ESPN’s Bill Simmons than a brother. Simmions described the event as the “hip-hop Woodstock”. I would expect Mr. Simmions to be afraid but not Mr, Whitlock. I am 6'2" and barely 180 pounds but I am not afraid of anyone. The only thing I am afraid of is not being able to take care of, provide, and protect my family. However, Whitlock basically said that he was afraid of his own folk in 2007. Now I am hard, extremely hard on my folk but I am not afraid of them nor promote to feel uncomfortable or threatened by people that look like me. Mr. Whitlock I still respect you but let’s attempt to expose the problems without stereotyping all our folks. We do need to check our behavior. Especially those behaviors that are self-destructive and artifical and rooted around money defining who we are. However, you have picked the wrong side, and may even be the personification of what Frantz Fanon called “Black Skin White Mask.” I do respect your opinion, I am just not afraid of my own kind.