Stepin Fetchit Negroes: A Profile of Roland Martin and the NAACP

A few weeks ago I wrote an opinion piece in which I listed CNN correspondent Roland S. Martin, among others, as a pseudo intellectual. I still stand by those remarks and this week Martin supported my hypothesis even more.

Yesterday, Shirley Sherrod, a loyal and dedicated public servant of the USDA, was asked to tender her resignation, via text message on the side of a Georgia highway, for allegedly making statements that revealed racist views.

Without due diligence, substantiation or proof, the NAACP and its headless horseman of a leader, Benjamin Jealous, and the self-made pundit Roland Martin, vilified Shirley Sherrod and called for her to be removed from office.

The impetus for their reaction was based on information obtained from a conservative Web site of an event that the NAACP conducted and had stored in their archives.

Martin rushed to condemn Sherrod before he had all the facts like a kid running to get the first seat in the back of the bus. Likewise the NAACP, in using its "I can do anything better than you" modus operandi, tried to refute the Tea Party’s recent allegation that it, too, is racist.

The intellectual deficiencies of both the NAACP leadership and Martin are examples of what is wrong with the black community. First, to pretend that they are the most wise and sagacious among us and should speak on behalf of the masses is feculent, given that they respond to emotion more so than reason. Scholars, scientists, and intellectuals do not make decisions as a function of emotion.

As a scientist, I do not make statements or judgments from one survey or one clinical trial, but rather hundreds and even thousands. I will not publish a scientific paper based on one article but many.

This is not an issue about Fox News or Andrew Breitbart as the aforementioned would claim, but more about how inept and incredible the positions evinced by so-called journalists like Martin and leaders like Jealous really are. The truth is neither is the intellectual equal of a James Weldon Johnson, W.E.B. Du Bois or Ida B. Wells.

They are Stepin Fetchit Negroes that respond to any bait that Master places in front of them. They are pawns who present ignorance under the guise of intellect and are of no value to today's African American community.

They should be the ones we ask to resign, for as Plato stated, "Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”

First Published - 21 July 2010 - Rollingout.com

Flesh-eating bacteria in the Gulf

NOTE: Will Bacterial Plague Follow Crude Oil Spill Along Gulf Coast?

News You Wont See on TV

How the military uses the paranormal for psychological warfare

Cable TV's impending death: 4 signs

Meat tainted with deadly MRSA bacteria is being sold to consumers

City Council Votes To Abolish Police Chief's Position to Save Money

Whooping cough makes a comeback

Taxpayers Paid At Least $9 Million for Signs Promoting Obama's Economic Stimulus

Genetically modified corn 'has polluted rivers across the United States'

White House Science Czar Questioned The Right of Unborn Child to Live Inside Womb

Counter-Terror Operation Stops Trucks On I-20

U.S. Proposes New Laws to Control IRAs

The United States government is preparing new laws to take control and even seize private retirement accounts. The proposed law, which is in Congress now, is called the Automatic IRA bill.

S. 1141, the Automatic IRA Act was first introduced in 2007. It is a bill designed to amend the Internal Revenue code of 1986 to allow employees not covered by qualified retirement plans to save for retirement through automatic payroll deposit IRAs, to facilitate similar savings by the self-employed, and for other purposes.

To put it simply, it is designed to control, confiscate and destroy the private retirement system. Similar in concept to the legislation that recently passed that nationalizes health care, this government program has an identical goal with regards to individual retirement plans.

Congressman Richard Neal, D-Mass., has introduced legislation that would allow companies to set up automatic payroll deposit individual retirement accounts, or auto IRAs, for workers who do not have access to employer-provided qualified pension plans.

Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., introduced similar legislation in the Senate last Friday. In Bingaman's bill, employers would receive a $250 tax credit for each of the first two years that the plan was in operation, even if they contributed nothing to the accounts. However, companies that failed to offer an automatic IRA option to employees would be subject to an excise tax of $100 for each employee who was supposed to be covered. Employers who made an error would have the opportunity to self-correct.

The problem, according to David Salisbury, president of the Employee Benefit Research Institute is that "a very substantial portion of those workers without a retirement plan at work are low-income people.” This means that African Americans, who generally do not invest, will be subjected to the will of people who will not have their best interest at hand. In addition, given that many blacks do not know or understand investing, they will likely accept advice from the government on what to invest in without question.

The concept was proposed in President Obama’s budget and supported by the Middle Class Task Force chaired by Vice President Joe Biden.

However, as it reads, it is not hard to discern why many feel that the Auto IRA is the first step towards controlling a person’s retirement assets and replacing our private system with a forced, government controlled Social Security type of program. Moreover, seeing that it would be government run, the feds would decide where or how to invest your money, rather than the individual making that decision. This means that the government could decide to purchase junk Treasury bonds to bolster a weak dollar or pay down the national debt. Thus subjecting an individual to confiscatory levels of taxes and penalties that will even target previously taxed Roth IRA accounts.

Obama dont like black folk: Mortgage Relief Program Just a Ploy to Pump Money Into Wall Street

When the Obama administration took office, they also inherited the economic troubles worsened by the Bush years and the prior presidents from Bill Clinton to Ronald Regan. Obama's approach was twofold. First was to continue the TARP program that Bush started at the end of his tenure and to try to curtail the massive number of foreclosures across the country. However, it has now been revealed that his only goal was to prop up banks through the use of both.

New reports have documented that the Obama administration's mortgage relief program isn't working. This is to say it is not helping assist homeowners facing foreclosure. Instead it is taking money from struggling homeowners and channeling it to banks. The program, which many purport is poorly designed and executed, has only aided a small proportion of individuals actually seeking and needing assistance.

In theory, the program was supposed to lower monthly payments for borrowers. However, it doesn't even reduce the overall debt burden that many homeowners facing foreclosure experience. Now it has been discovered that top treasury officials admit that the mortgage plan was actually designed to pump money into banks in an effort to protect them from future losses and bad debt — in essence another program implemented in the interest of Wall Street over Main Street.

Timothy Geithner, who wanted banks to make money in an effort to stabilize the economy, has used the mortgage relief program to enrich bankers riding on the backs of troubled homeowners when the focus should be to assist struggling individuals who are trying to keep their homes.

The Home Affordability Modification Program (HAMP) allows homeowners to ask their loan holders for relief on monthly mortgage payments via reduced monthly payments or lowered interest rates, for example. This is a win-win for banks because it keeps monthly payments coming. However, it actually gives homeowners the shaft because the banks do not lower how much individuals pay, thus individuals end up paying more for their homes than they are actually worth on the market.

Although Obama's economic team continues to repeat the mantra "the economy is continuing to recover," the fact remains that in terms of the aforementioned and economic indicators I read, that is not the case. If Obama is genuine about helping troubled homeowners, then his efforts should target having an individuals debt burden from their mortgages reduced. Banks will take a loss, but massive foreclosures will be averted. This is not a recovery and if the advice of folks like Geithner and Larry Summers is what Obama is using, then we will be up the creek for a long time to come. In all simplicity, we need around 2.5 percent growth just to keep unemployment from rising and until we are honest and admit this is not a recovery, things will only get worse before they improve.

Black folks need to wise up and increase their understanding of economics and look at policy as policy, regardless of who it comes from, even if it is a black president. If we don't, then Kanye West may be saying, "Barack Obama don't like black people."

Colbert Has Emmy Performance on Capitol Hill

Rising Global Food Prices Raise Fears

The ONLY Card All People Play

In his book, Africa Must Unite, the great African scholar and politician Kwame Nkrumah explored racism and determined that in order to be a racist, you have to be in a position of power to subjugate other races to adopt your standards. That as opposed to prejudice, which can be equal across all individuals.

In politics though, it seems nothing that involves African Americans can get around the issue of race. It's obvious that people do not know what racism is, judging by the way they throw the word around as if it just means hating someone because of their skin color, which is not the case. However, the fact remains that no matter what is accomplished politically, whenever it involves race, the race card gets played.


A new poll released by the Gallup Corporation illustrates my point: Gallup Daily Tracking shows that President Obama's job approval rating averaged 88 percent among blacks and 38 percent among whites in July of this year. This is the first time that African Americans' approval of the job Obama is doing fell below 90 percent. In comparison, whites' approval of Obama is down 24 percent from the high of 62 percent in January 2009. These findings are based on data collected via telephone interviews with a random sample of 15,467 adults, age 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

The query should be what does this data tell us? First, it is emblematic of the political ambience that we exist in as Americans. Today's landscape of unconscious bias demonstrates the influence of its real-world application. And although some Obama detractors are African Americans, the vast majority are white people who develop nugatory beliefs based on simple and extreme claims like if he wears an American flag on his lapel or the belief that he was not born in America. Even his slight bit of color has the capacity to prompt negative associations among white Americans.

But the only reality is that Obama is the president of America, even though for many whites he is just another black man, and is accorded the historical and negligible respect that African American men have received since this great and hypocritical nation was founded.

'Stop, Question, Frisk' Tactics in NYC Reminiscent of Slave Patrols

In order for slavery to be effective as practiced in the United States, the peculiar institution had to maintain strict control over slaves both on and off the plantation. Runaways represented a loss of labor and productivity, so to reduce the chance of that occurring, plantation owners established slave patrols.

Slave patrols had the authority to question, and sometimes punish, any slave they encountered traveling between plantations. Their general objective was control of the slave population through physical intimidation. Kenneth Stampp described slave patrols as a pseudo-police force that were even sanctioned by local political bodies. In her book Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters, Sally E. Hadden pointed out that the system of slave patrols that existed from the 1700s through the Civil War, helped give rise to the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction.

That was history, but today in Brooklyn, N.Y., this practice continues. Nightly on the streets and around the public housing complexes in the Brownsville neighborhood, large contingents of police officers, most fresh to the beat patrol, question, frisk and detain people via the controversial tactic known as “Stop, Question, Frisk.”

Just entering a public housing project for these officers is reason enough to ask for identification, and run warrant checks. They even stop youth for riding bicycles on the sidewalk.

The Center for Constitutional Rights and the New York Civil Liberties Union reported that between January 2006 and March 2010, police made nearly 52,000 stops in an eight-block area. Police recorded the names of those stopped regardless of whether they were arrested or not. This is roughly equal to one stop a year for each of the estimated 14,000 neighborhood residents.

These activities result in very few arrests (less than 1 percent), in contrast to the 6 percent of stops that result in arrests across the entire city.

The United States Supreme Court has held that in order for the police to frisk someone they must have a reasonable belief that the person is armed and dangerous. Reasonable suspicion of a crime is not a legal justification for a policeman to frisk an individual.

People need to recognize that these activities are similar to those of the night riders. The only difference is that these individuals drive cars instead of horses and wear blue uniforms instead of white robes. This is not an indictment of individual police officers, but rather a system that continues to practice intimidation tactics that were used during slavery to control and keep the population enslaved.

You a Tea Bagger if....

I Before E except after C: This is their mantra. They hate Islam and immigration, except that is after colored Folks.

They believe that if their children , in particular daughters, swim in a pool with men they will certainly get pregnant.

They actually only watch one television station - Fox, but they both think every thing on it from Football on Sunday to Glee is actually NEWS and fact taken from Revelations - Fox News Most Trusted Channel In News.

You applaud the assertion that Obama is a Muslim, non-christian, off the main Land born Kenyan, yet find it inaccurate and offensive when you call Christine O'donnell an tax cheating, masturbation crazed warlock apprentice.

The father, the son and the holy ghost are code words for David Duke, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh

You believe the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Rev. Jerry Falwell and not Jesus.

You believe only racists, homophobes, Nazis, polygamists, rednecks and Republicans are the only real Americans

You believed that Sarah Palin actually can see Russia from her front porch or that she has even read anything written by Shakespeare or anything other than what someone writes on the palm of her hand for her.

You have someone in your family that fly's the rebel flag and/or lives in a trailer park.

You believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

Target Marketing: Black folk make less so sell them dolls at higher prices

Note: I first wrote this story for a weekly I write for but they did not run it because Target advertises with them.

I have always thought that many of us are not too astute when it comes to economics. Spending habits aside and the general lack of understanding of micro- and macroeconomic theory, we often accept and buy things without question. Take the Target store in North Miami.

On Sept. 15, Ketrina Brown approached the cashier with two boxed dolls. Both dolls were of the Baby Alive variety, the dolls that digest and release food in the form of excrement. The only difference was that one doll was white and one was black. Both dolls were priced on clearance at a reduced price. However, the white doll was on sale for $22.48, and the black doll was priced at $31.48.

Brown wanted to know why the two dolls, which do exactly the same things and the only difference being color, had a 10 dollar gap in price.

Her answer was that the prices were set by the corporate headquarters. The store manager also attempted to suggest that the difference was due to "different items" going on "clearance at different times." The official statement from Target spokesperson Tara Schlosser was that items are put on clearance based on their popularity and sales.

Until we actively accept and manage our purchasing power, African Americans will always be on the short end of the stick. I cannot say if there was any racial intent in the pricing, like many stores do when they sell items at higher prices in black neighborhoods, but it does beg the question, how frequently does this occur and what's the logic behind this type of intentional pricing?

Are Democrats and Republicans Trying to Ruin Black Politicians?

The current climate in Washington is tense. Not only are the upcoming midterm elections expected to change the future political landscape, but so too will the recent rash of ethical complaints leveled at prominent Democrats.

Two longtime members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters are being investigated for alleged ethics violations.

Both of the aforementioned have declined plea offers and have accepted to fight the charges publicly prior to the November elections.

Since the establishment of the Office of Congressional Ethics by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in 2009, all eight individuals cited for alleged ethics violations have been members of the Congressional Black Caucus, meaning all are African American. As such, many are starting to question if these investigations are racially or politically motivated.

The recent allegations against Congressman Rangel, who faces 13 ethics charges, including improper fundraising and tax evasion, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters, whom the House ethics subcommittee has alleged broke ethics rules by lobbying Treasury officials for a $25 million bailout of OneUnited Bank in Boston, have given Congress a witch hunt environment. Waters’ husband, former NFL player Sidney Williams, has a financial stake in OneUnited.

In addition, the GOP has incessantly promoted an all-out ground assault against President Obama. Ironically all of this is happening while Republicans are trying to make the upcoming elections a referendum against the Democrat-controlled Congress and White House.

If the trials of Rangel and Waters do manifest, they may serve the interests of the GOP by driving a wedge between the Democratic Party, mainly the Obama White House, and his large corpus of African American supporters, and white Democrats.

The strange thing is that what Rangel and Waters are charged with is historically no different than activities conducted by former President George W. Bush.

Although to the dismay of many Democrats, Obama refused to charge the Bush administration with any criminal acts regarding his war against Iraq and his involvement with Enron.

During the first nine months of his administration, Bush used his presidential powers to assist his personal friend, Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, in covering up criminal activity. Bush fought vehemently against imposing caps on the price of electricity in California when Enron drove up prices artificially by manipulating and controlling supply. In addition, under the Bush administration, Lay was able to influence the administration's energy policies. In fact, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was replaced in 2001 after he started an investigation into the now-illegal complex derivative-financing schemes practiced by Enron.

However, the Republicans are willing to take the opposite road if they are able to win back the U.S. House of Representatives in November. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., has stated that he will launch several investigations of the Obama administration if he becomes chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Of specific importance to Issa is the Obama administration’s alleged interference in U.S. Senate races in Pennsylvania and Colorado. Issa has attacked the administration with ethical wrongdoing charges consistently since Obama took office.

The double standard with respect to how Republicans and Democrats are being treated in regards to ethics violations sends mixed messages to the African American community. First it looks as if the white Democratic leadership, in concert with the GOP, is targeting blacks singularly. Second, it lets the world see America’s hypocrisy in regards to how Republicans are treated compared to black political officials, especially if one happens to be the first African American president of the United States of America.

Tea Party Aint racist - they just hate Muslims, Hispanics and Blacks

In theory the Tea party is supposed to be a grass roots organization. It obtained its name from the historical time period in which the British Politician Charles Townshend , implemented some Acts for the colonies, in an effort to boost his political career (sounds familiar). This was the time after the Stamp Act. See the Original colonist objected to the Stamp Act saying it was an unneeded form of internal taxation. So Townshend decided to develop another tax that would be external that they could not possibly be against. As a result, the Townshend Act was passed in England which imposed taxes on selected produced that was imported to the colonies, one of which was Tea. Add to that a few years later the British Parliament also passed the Tea act which was designed to help the East India Company make some loot and form a monopoly on Tea around the world. To make a long story short, folk didn’t like this, especially Samuel Adams and his Sons of Liberty. Now the rest is history.

If you did not know The Tea Party is all the rave this season. There is so much to go through that I will only name a few with brief bullet points and then make my comments.

Carl Paladino: This cat may take the cake. First he admits to sending or should I say forwarding emails with bestiality and racist jokes to his boys, for some strange reason I don’t see being Muslim, Black or Hispanic. He is best known for the photo shopped images of President Obama and the First Lady “dressed” for a White House ball as a pimp and bottom bitch. Then there is a December 2008 email showing a video of African tribesmen performing a traditional dance. The video is entitled "Obama Inauguration Rehearsal." I could go on but just in case you want to you can find the emails here. And of Course Paladino states for the record he is not a racist. But what can you expect from a man who looks up to Grover Cleveland - a self proclaimed, staunch racist and supporter of white supremacy.

Tom Tancredo: During the Tea Party National Convention , which was held in Nashville, Tennessee at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel , this former Colorado Congressmen took the lead talking about Immigrants and Obama – which seems to be the hip thing to do nowadays. He is remembered for asserting that many of the people who voted Obama into office “can’t even spell the word vote or even speak English.” He also spoke on what he called the “cult of multiculturalism” which is “aided by leftists.” Lastly he placed emphasis on letting the group know that “our culture is at stake” a culture “based on Judeo-Christian values whether people like it or not!” Tancredo also announced that he was going to be working with Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA (an anti-immigrant group with strong ties to white nationalists) . In 2005 Tancredo suggested that that it would be OK to wipe the Muslim holy city of Mecca off the map in response to al-Qaeda.

Sonny Thomas: Thomas is the founder of the Springboro Tea Party. It is obvious that Twitter gave him more balls than he really had., when he tweeted “Illegal’s everywhere today! So many spics makes me feel like a speck. Grrr. Wheres my gun!?” on March 21 of this year. Thomas, is an uncontested candidate for a seat on the Warren County Republican Party’s central committee in Ohio.

Now I don’t really care about these folk. All I do know is that they seem to be both unknowledgeable of American History and civics and intolerant of others. They claim to be patriots and proponents of liberty but likely couldn’t tell you about William Penn – the most tolerant patriot of the new world. The man for whom liberty and especially religious freedom, were lived and observed in his every word and action. But most Tea party folk wouldn’t know about that. And don’t take my word for it – ask Meghan McCain, daughter of John McCain. She said not all but a good portion display various forms of “innate racism.”

I find these troubling times in America, and even reflective of a time when anything other than white was attacked, lynched and dismembered. The Tea Party may not be racist. I do know they hate being called racist but at the same time hate Muslims, Hispanics and black folk – Heil Hitler. But dont trip, I just had a revelation, maybe Floyd Mayweather is a Tea Party Support - afterall he a racist too.

Note to self: All Politicians Are Crooks Regardless of Color

Since Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, African Americans without question have voted hook, line and sinker for the Democratic Party. As a consequence of this blind allegiance, we often fail to see the similarities of Democrats and Republicans — namely that regardless of race and gender, they all — for lack of a better term — are crooks and place themselves and their interests above that of the commonwealth. Take the example of Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas.

The longtime congresswoman from Dallas is a member of the renowned Congressional Black Caucus. At 74, she is expected to easily win a 10th term in November over Republican Stephen Broden. Recently, Amy Goldson, counsel for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, said that Johnson violated organization rules when she awarded scholarships to her relatives and those of an aide, Rod Givens. Givens served as the district director for the people of the 30th Congressional District.

According to the Dallas Morning News, over the last five years, Johnson awarded up to $20,000 and a total of 15 scholarships to two grandsons, two great-nephews, and aide Rod Givens' children between 2005 and 2008. Each year, each member of the Black Caucus is given $10,000 to award scholarships. In 2009, Johnson selected 12 students to divide $10,000 from two scholarship programs; according to foundation records released Monday. Eight students got one scholarship. The four other students — the congresswoman's grandsons, Kirk and David Johnson, and her staffer's son and daughter, Julian and Mariyah Givens — got two apiece.

These scholarships were awarded in violation of Congressional Black Caucus Foundation eligibility rules, which require that winners live or study in the lawmaker's district as well as the anti-nepotism clause. Initially, Johnson denied violating the anti-nepotism regulation. Now she has changed her position, saying that she "unknowingly" broke Congressional Black Caucus Foundation rules. "While I am not ashamed of helping, I did not intentionally mean to violate any rules in the process," Johnson wrote in a statement released Aug. 30.

Johnson intimated that she might not have picked relatives had there been more qualified applicants. Johnson says she'll repay the scholarship funds by week's end. Johnson's actions are troubling since awarding the scholarships violated anti-nepotism rules and went to students who neither live nor study in her district.

Newt - a slimy idiot with a PHD

Newt - by definition any of various small amphibious salamanders with amphibian in the latter sense meaning having two natures. For Newt Gingrich this means slimy and full is do-do. In an interview with the National Review Online, speaking of Obama Gingrich said, "This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president."

The supposedly astute scholar of history went even farther saying "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?" He continued his bazaar and inaccurate proposition on Fox News Sunday, criticizing the president's economic policy saying, "The thing that the president doesn't understand and the thing that Keynesian economics get wrong is real simple: Do you want people to have enough money to invest to create jobs? If they have a surplus of income so they can create jobs, that's somehow bad and the president wants to take away the income. That means he's leaving them with no money to create jobs."

He admitted that his thought was influenced by an article written by Dinesh D'Souza for Forbes Magazine in which D'Souza extended the psychotic paranoia of the Tea Party and so-called Birthers saying "the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s." This being a specific reference to Obama's father. He connected this to Obama by writing "Here is a man who spent his formative years--the first 17 years of his life--off the American mainland, in Hawaii, Indonesia and Pakistan, with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa." As if to say being from Hawaii is less valuable than being born on mainland USA or being a descendent of Africa is even worse.

Both Gingrich's and D'Souza's assertions are sentiments only a country built on racism could support. It is unlikely that such would be said of a man who was president who's father was born in Ireland or any other European Nation. I would even venture to say that neither man has ever lived in Africa nor are even astute on the history of colonialism and it's impact on the political psyche of Africans around the world. We are always reminded of he impact of colonialism and imperialism in the for of both slavery and the stealing of natural resources that Europe and the West continue until this day.

The Luo comprise around 12% of Kenya's population, making it the 3rd largest ethnic group after the Kikuyu and the Luhya. If Gingrich or D'Souza had any remote understanding of African culture or history they would see the absurdity of their position since the Luo were not particularly troubled by the arrival of the white Europeans and settlers, did not have their land taken like the Kikuyu and the Luhya and were not particularly involved in the Mau Mau rebellion. What they did was help to create an independent Kenya through politics as opposed to violence. Unlike the radical colonialist who formed this nation we live in here - America. If I am not mistaken, Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Franklin and Hamilton all were self described ant-colonist.

Gingrich and D'Souza's are what is wrong with the republican party and they wonder why they are seen as being extremest zealots with distinct phobias against anything other than white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. If this is all the GOP has to offer, and their thought is a continues to be a hodgepodge of flippant inaccuracies and attempts to divide instead of amalgamate, then I say GOD save America, and any person in America who is not white.

Young Jeezy: Dope Boy or F--- Boy?

Some people just don't get it. Or maybe some people just don't understand or maybe even care about others or feel that they should be responsible for what they say. Take Young Jeezy, for example. Jeezy is well-known and liked in the world of hip-hop, and may even be a good person, but it is obvious that his mental prowess has yet to match or equal his creative acumen.

Recently, Jeezy released his latest mixtape titled, 1,000 Grams Vol.1. On the cover are stacks of what appear to be bricks of cocaine, stamped with a black scorpion logo. I was asked to listen to the mix tape by a friend via my blogtalk radio show and I have just finished. I have one phrase to describe this piece of garbage, which by definition is discarded or useless material and inaccurate or useless data. That phrase is "assimilation of criminality."

Although it's funky, with some semi-decent production, this mixtape gets an F on content, substance and usefulness. What is the value of 12 songs that all talk about selling cocaine and killing folks over cocaine and money? None. Has he looked out of his window lately and noticed that he isn't living that life anymore, or does he still live in the poverty-stricken area he was raised in outside Macon, Ga.

If anything his name fits him. When I think of young anything, I think of a boy, which he obviously is, maybe even a "f--- boy," a term he uses frequently in his music. A man should have some desire to empower and be socially responsible to his community and put that above money and avarice. But not Jeezy. And I know he as well as his defenders would say he "just keeping it 'hood" or is "telling what's going on in the streets." To this I say: nonsense. As for the claim that he is being "black," that is equally nonsensical. Since when does proclaiming and keeping it gangster, thug or street mean being black? If it does, tell that to 13-year-old Robert Freeman Jr who was shot 22 times last week in Chicago or 8-year-old Tanaja Stokes who was shot while playing jump rope outside her home Tuesday.

This CD reflects what is wrong in our community and basically reinforces sociopathic behavior. You cannot promote this type of behavior in 2010 when on very corner in urban neighborhoods DEA agents are watching and waiting to reach their quota. Young Jeezy needs to become a man and stop preaching ignorance and placing greed over substance. Grow up and stop acting like Mel Gibson and Dr. Laura.

The Lost art of saying F*** it

It is difficult for me to understand why politicians and our civilian population in America are so distracted and seem to display the ability to see through the shady penumbra of what is promulgated both in the media and inside the beltway.

I have been told by the aforementioned that we as Americans should be worried about what a fringed right wing psychopathic zealot in Florida plans to do on this up coming anniversary of 9/11. I cannot see how this man with a following somewhere around the size of a professional football team.

The more it is discussed the more I am able to figure out why it is news worthy unless there is some unseen or unspoken back room motive behind it. The truth is that I could care less as to what this man does as well as other Muslim fundamental extremist. So what really can this idiot do to put us at risk after all that we have done in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan already?

I obviously have a different purview than Secretary Clinton and General Petraeus. It is lucid that they separate what our military and political actions are and have been in the past. From our documented torture of detainees, targeted assassination and drone strikes, our incessant occupation of Muslim countries, tens of thousands of civilian casualties and the recent report of US soldiers killing Afghan civilians for fun and collect their fingers as trophies.

How quickly we forget or worse do not see, that we are doing exactly what extremist desire for us to do. To hate and openly discriminate, to retract the freedoms we take for granted from others. I am an American and although and African American, I know there is much more that can be done to make this country support me as the mainstream. However, still, I am not afraid

I just don't see how this is less of a provocation that a confederate throwback preacher oral plan to burn Qurans. We as Americans are so used at deflecting blame and impetus too others that we can't even own up to our own shit. Personally, I say fuck it, fuck what the extremist think here and abroad. But I do see that America has become sissified, for saying such is truly a lost art.

Still Discriminated Against in Jury Selection in South

The history of the South is replete with documented practices of prejudice and racial discrimination. From slavery to the Black Codes, Jim Crow to segregation, the general tenor was to implement practices that placed white people as being pure and close to God and African Americans as being less than human and akin to livestock. Those days have changed, or have they?

A new report published and released by the Equal Justice Initiave called “Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Selection: A Continuing Legacy,"paints a different picture. The two-year study was conducted in eight southern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee), and includes interviews with more than 100 African Americans who had be absolved from jury duty. In addition, the study looked at historical court records to complete its report. Findings of the study suggest that the "variation among states and counties concerning enforcement of anti-discrimination laws that protect racial minorities from illegal exclusion" is wide, and that defense lawyers often fail to present adequate challenges regarding racially discriminatory jury selection.

The report also supports the notion that racially biased use of preemptory strikes with regards to jury selection is a prevelant practice in the South, even noting that prosecutors have removed African Americans for reasons ranging from appearing to have “low intelligence,” wearing eyeglasses, and even having dyed their hair. In some communities such as in Houston County, Alabama, 8 out of 10 African Americans who qualified for jury service have been struck by prosecutors from death penalty cases. Likewise, in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, African Americans have no representation on the jury in approximatelly 80 percent of criminal trials.

These findings are serious and show the slow nature of change in the United States, especially in the South. Although we may have an African American president, America is still super-saturated by race. These findings come more than 130 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was passed by Congress to eliminate racial discrimination in jury selection. The objective fact is that race is still a major construct in the judicial process of America.

Planned Parenthood's Goal is African American Genocide

The black community is plagued by many problems from drug abuse to violence and high incarceration and dropout rates. But shockingly, abortion is the No. 1 cause of death in our community. Yes, abortion.

In a recent feature by Rev. John J. Raphael written for the Black Catholic Monthly, a publication run by the National Black Catholic Congress, it was noted that abortions in the black community occur 1,452 times a day, accounting for more than 13 million lives lost within the last 30 years. This figure is equivalent to approximately 1/3 of our present population.

Since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973 legalized the practice, more blacks have been killed by abortion than have died of AIDS, cancer and murder combined. Although we comprise less than 13 percent of the U.S. Population, data indicates that we account for 37 percent of the abortions performed, meaning blacks in utero are 5 times more likely than whites to be aborted.

The biggest sponsor of abortions in America is Planned Parenthood. According to their Web site, the organization runs more than 840 health centers. What they fail to state is that about 80 percent of these centers are located in minority neighborhoods.

In the past, investigations have documented that the organization accepts funding that is directed specifically toward the termination of blacks. A few years ago, a UCLA student, Lila Rose and a friend, called Planned Parenthood clinics in seven states. One played the part of a racist male and asked if he gave money would they use it specifically for the termination of black children. All of the clinics indicated that they would accept donations specifically for the termination of black babies.

"We have received contributions from people who want to support us because they want all welfare mothers and all black women to stop having children," said Faye Wattleton, a former director for Planned Parenthood.

It should be noted that Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger, once wrote "Where Negroes dwell one finds them, in fat times and lean alike, contributing a disproportionate number to the rolls of dependents and delinquents. They make excessive demands on the white man's charity and over tax his patience."

Although some states are debating whether or not to defund Planned Parenthood, the group receives more than $380 million annually from the federal government.

FAMU and University of Miami Students Brawl

Obama to Sign Fair Sentencing Act That Is Still Unfair

Congress just passed a bill to address disparities in sentencing based on crack and powder cocaine possession. The House passed the legislation under suspension rules after it was passed by the Senate in March. The bill, the Fair Sentencing Act (S. 1789), will now go to the president, who is to expected to sign it into law.

The new law modifies the 25-year-old statue that has been employed to send thousands of African Americans to prison for crack cocaine convictions while giving lesser sentences to whites arrested with the same amount of cocaine in powder form.

Provisions of the modified law include reducing "the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1, with a five-year mandatory minimum for 28 grams of crack cocaine and a five-year mandatory minimum for 500 grams of powder cocaine." In addition, it "eliminates the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine." In the original law penned in 1986, crack was the only drug that had a mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession.

The new bill, which is authored by Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin and co-sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Jeff Sessions, still is unfair, and represents a compromise made with Republican Senate Judiciary Committee members who objected to equitable sentences for the drugs.

Originally, it was introduced to completely eliminate the discriminatory 100:1 disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentencing under federal law. The fact remains that it does not obviate the proven disproportionate impact such sentencing has on African Americans when compared to whites, nor does it remedy the many who are currently serving sentences under the old law.

Unfortunately, this law on paper may be seen as a move in the right direction but it still will result in disparities in incarceration rates for Africa Americans when compared to whites. Based on 2009 data, although African Americans comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population and 14 percent of monthly drug users, they are 37 percent of the people arrested for drug offenses. Moreover, according to Human Rights Watch, across the nation, African Americans are arrested for drug offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher than the rate for whites.

The Pre-Fuctual agreement

In this age of harlots, infidelity, groupies and celebrity fascination, I have come to the conclusion that the legal world has not kept up. In particular when it comes to voice mail transactions, text messages and tweets between both parties’s. So here today I propose the establishment of a new legal document call the pre-fuctual agreement.

The way I see it, if a man has any status in the form of wealth or fame, he will need to protect himself legally from the money hungry groupies that tend to amass like pigeons on a wire (did I say pigeons?). We have legal trust and wills and in the case of prior to marriage pre-nuptial agreements, but what is there for us who just want to bone and dis-own? We have nothing.

For us, I mean, many of us like to slang penis on a regular, but what grounds do we have availed to us if we one day, find ourselves in the same light as Tiger Woods. Now true he is married and it is foul to creep when one is under the union of holy matrimony. Likewise it is foul for a woman to have sex with a married man, but that is beside the point. For us regular men need to know that the wrath of a woman, when in pursuit of a free meal ticket is ravenous. So I have decided to have my lawyer work on a new legal tool call the pre-fuckuial agreement. It will be signed prior to sex and extends to the woman the premise that if she agrees to sex, she cannot keep the sperm filled condom or take it out of the garbage upon completion of sex, as well as obviates her rights to share or publicize any text messages, emails, voice mails or any other cyber communication to any third party,

Yes this should help out greatly. So before you pick up some skank, trick or woman in a club, Kroger or on Face book and desire to take her in your bed – have your pre-fuctuial agreement in hand and don’t leave home without it

Why Black Folk Will Always be Broke

In these times of economic turmoil and instability, many are tightening their purse strings across the nation. However, a large segment of the population continues to spend and live above their means — African Americans.

The simple fact is that African Americans do not save money and tend to spend before even considering putting a few coins away. The average African American’s savings level is about 1 percent of annual income when compared to other ethnic groups. This represents the percentage of disposable personal income held in retirement plans and liquid financial assets.

This is strange given the massive spending power that we have as a collective. African Americans spent $645.9 billion in 2002, an increase of 104 percent from 1990, according to Target Market News, a consumer market research and information company. In 2004, blacks' spending power increased to $723 billion, according to U.S. consumer market data, and is currently estimated to be $913 billion.

If African American spending power were considered Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — the measure of a nation’s wealth, we would be ranked 13th, lower than Russia and higher than Mexico, Australia, Netherlands and South Korea. Given this accomplishment, why can't we save some of this money?

We comprise less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, yet account for 30 percent of the country’s Scotch whisky consumption. Detroit, which is 80 percent African American, is the No. 1 market in the world for cognac consumption. According to Target Market, African American consumers spend a significant amount of their income on depreciable products such as $30 billion on clothes and around $15 billion on furniture to put into homes that are mostly rented. The average African American household has also increased its annual spending on entertainment by nearly 30 percent over the past few years.

Regardless of age or income, African Americans contribute less often, and less money to 401(k)s than whites and Asian-Americans. African American employees who earn $120,000 or more have saved $154,902 in their 401(k)s on average compared to $223,408 for whites. Even when comparing households with roughly the same incomes, whites saved nearly 20 percent more each month for retirement.

From income to homeownership to household wealth, we continue to lag behind whites, according to a United for a Fair Economy study. This report observed that a typical white family had six times the wealth of a black family in 2001 and that the gap is growing continuously, particularly with respect to savings and investing.

If we truly desire economic empowerment, then the burden is on us to save. We cannot copy the attitudes of celebrities like Ciara, who in a recent issue of Pride magazine stated that she spends "about $11,000 a month" on shoes and that she owns "maybe a thousand pairs."