Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

Yes, I'm clearly politically biased. This is awesome though. Enjoy.

Someone is going to PAY!!!

I'm sure most of you have read or at least heard about the financial crisis that has occurred on Wall Street. Well for some reason while sitting at work, (lol yea I'm not doing anything today) and reading an article, it hit me that I am furious over what happened. These CEOs and brokers sit back and steal all this money from these hard working Americans who put their trust and their money in them and they go and blow it. They sit back and play Russian roulette with peoples money and when the bullet comes up they point the gun right at you. I just find it strangely ironic how ass-backwards the United States is. Someone who holds up a bank or store so they can feed their family is considered a criminal and goes to jail, but rich executives who make a career off of thievery get a government bailout and stick the American taxpayer with the bill. O well we pissed your money away trying to make ourselves rich and we messed up sorry...so ummm you think you can give us more of your money so we can do the same thing again? Something is not right here and one day all of those thieves will pay. It may not be when we want it or how we want but you know what they say about karma.

Nigger...Nigga....The N-Word....What does it mean to you???

While in my boredom I happened to stumble across Dr. Phil (yea I know) and the topic for the show was...The N-Word debate. And he had 4 guests on the panel, some white conservative radio talk show host, black comedian Sheryl Underwood, black comedian Paul Mooney, black actor/writer Hill Harper, and the Rev. Al Sharpton. Throughout the show they would play clips of audience members and what they thought about the word. Some people, black and white, said it was okay for black people to use it and not okay for anyone else to say it. They also had people, black and white that said no one should use it. And they had people up there, black and white that said everyone should be able to use it. Some of the audience members said that black people should get over slavery and the word because it didnt happen to them and they are perputating racism by using the word and by always talkin about it. The guests, well I should say Paul Mooney, came off like a militant black man but everyone else sounded someone educated. I know this is poorly worded and all over the place but it leads to this one question and I know there has been this debate before and some people are tired of hearing about it but, what does the N-word mean to you? And how do you react/feel when anyone says it?

What Would You Do???

No... not the TV show.

I warn those of you reading, this video may be "disturbing." You can always just read the post in the link to get the gist of what happened.





Seriously, though. What can they expect other passengers to do? I'm sure we'd all like to say that we'd stop him, but unless it was my family or friend being attacked, I'd be moving away as quickly as possible.


I think sometimes people expect too much nobility from others.

O...M...G... ... W...T...F... Are you fucking serious???

"For four days in Denver, the Democrats were afraid to use the words 'Islamic Terrorism'. I imagine they believe it is politically incorrect to say it. I think they believe it will insult someone. Please tell me who are they insulting if they say 'Islamic Terrorism'. They are insulting terrorists!" (cheers, applause, laughter from the crowd)

- Rudy Giuliani

Holy crap. This is serious.

I haven't been watching the R.N.C.... but I don't have cable yet so I'm not watching anything. But I read on another website that the former NYC mayor said this in his speech Wednesday night. This is one of the most ridiculous, offensive, and blatantly discriminatory statements I have ever heard. Giuliani, in attacking Obama's ideas on international relations, is saying that being a Muslim is worse than being a terrorist.

Yes. He's really saying bullshit like that... and being cheered by a crowd.

I don't even know what else to say. Rudy Giuliani is viewed by many as a "moderate" Republican, but here he portrays himself, and dedicated party supporters, as extremely ignorant concerning the Islamic faith and relations among people in general.

"Terrorist" is a broadly defined term, but simply reading Wikipedia articles about terrorism reveals that Europeans and Euro-Americans have often committed acts that could be described as terrorism (see the Crusades, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, Indian "removal" in the 19th century, the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Charles Manson, Timothy McVeigh, Columbine, etc.)

What Giuliani is essentially saying is that all of the people responsible for the acts mentioned above are BETTER than ANY person who subscribes to the Islamic faith. He's saying that men like Thomas Jefferson (lifetime slave-owner), Andrew Jackson (lifetime racist), and Adolf Hitler (come on now...) should be offended at being categorized with Muslims.

As upsetting as it is that a "prominent" American politician can go on TV and say this proudly, It is even more troubling that he is applauded by a crowd that represents AT LEAST one-third of the U.S. population.



This shit is ridiculous.

Equality to suck

For those of you who were disappointed with CNN’s Black in America, there is an alternative. For whatever reason *cough*Barack*cough*, television seems to be focusing a lot on the lives of African Americans in this country. HBO recently aired part one of a documentary titled The Black List – perspectives from 22 prominent black people ranging from Serena Williams to Al Sharpton. As imperfect as Black in America was, this special is not really any better at depicting life for the average black American (if that person exists). The Black List is better, though, because it doesn’t claim to do that. If you have HBO, or like me are staying in a hotel where it’s free, you should definitely watch part two next Monday.

Some of the folks in part one didn’t say anything really significant, but I did enjoy Chris Rock and Colin Powell’s segments. Always funny, Chris Rock said “True equality is the equality to suck - like the white man. That was Martin Luther King’s dream.” When discussing Jackie Robinson, Rock said that baseball wasn’t really integrated until there were bad black professional players. I felt like this was an excellent way to show how tokenism can create illusions of equality. Outstanding individuals who achieve highly do little to indicate progress in general for a minority group.

Colin Powell (viewed by many as a “token,” but that’s another discussion) said some interesting things, but the one that stood out to me was that “A lot of white people still have not crossed over [i.e. acceptance of minorities], and it is an obligation to us as black people to help them progress.” I wasn’t sure how to view this statement; I don’t think it’s fair that we should have to work to be accepted by people who have shown that they don’t want to accept us. I wonder how others feel about this “obligation” to fight ignorance among people who have chosen to remain ignorant.

here's a link to a clip from Chris Rock's segment
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6hj0p_the-black-list-vol-1-chris-rock-hbo_shortfilms"

In response...

I would like to quote a bit of Ellisonia back at you.

"What I am suggesting is that when you go back you do not find a pure stream; after all, Louis Armstrong, growing up in New Orleans, was taught to play a rather strict type of military music before he found his jazz and blues voice.  Talk about cultural pluralism!  It's the air we breathe; it's the ground we stand on.  It's what we have to come to grips with as we discover who we are and what we want to add to the ongoing definition of the American experience. ...It is very difficult in this country to find a pure situation." -RE on Alain Locke in The Collected Essays of R.E.

I think Mr. Ellison might respond to your post with something like this in his own blog. He might remind us that while we are all human, there seems to be a certain significance in the cultures through which we are borne and that for Americans, and especially Black Americans, this is a cause for celebration.  It should go without saying that we are all fundamentally human, and while this has not always been the case, we should consider it our job to elevate this discourse and claim the complexity and difference between us. Mr. Ellison might even playfully ask why we insist on speaking on the, ahem, "lower frequencies," when we could bring to light the richness of this cultural pluralism. (10 points for the lower frequencies joke)

My sense is that while there is certainly something unifying about Americanness, and Humanity in the broadest sense, some would resist throwing Race out with the bath water. 

Here's one more for the road:

"Speaking of language, whenever anyone tells you that you're outside the framework of American culture, and when they deflect you into something called 'black English,' remember that the American version of the English language was born in rebellion against proper English usage, and that the music of the African voice and the imagery coming from the people who lived close to the soil and under the conditions of slavery added greatly to that language."