al jazeera covers palin speech

dancing

from the ny times oppinion page sunday

There are no black faces high in the McCain hierarchy to object to these tactics. There hasn’t been a single black Republican governor, senator or House member in six years. This is a campaign where Palin can repeatedly declare that Alaska is “a microcosm of America” without anyone even wondering how that might be so for a state whose tiny black and Hispanic populations are each roughly one-third the national average. There are indeed so few people of color at McCain events that a black senior writer from The Tallahassee Democrat was mistakenly ejected by the Secret Service from a campaign rally in Panama City in August, even though he was standing with other reporters and showed his credentials. His only apparent infraction was to look glaringly out of place

273,000 for household help

A blog like a diary

This Blog is more like a private diary.




Someone recently said that they weren't surprised. Allot of people want to talk shit, he said, but no one wants to do shit.





It reminds me of how last semester after a noose was hung up in the quad.







A rally was thrown against the noose. And about 60 yards away from the rally allot of Black kids hung out at the same tree they always hung out at. Allot of other Kids of all races were upset because there was no way to get those kids by the tree to come over. Essentially no African American Kids showed up at the panel discussion that night either. The endless games of pointing fingers started of coarse; and of coarse now that we STARTED THIS BLOG BOTH THOSE AT THE PROTEST AND THOSE WHO COULD HAVE CARED LESS HAVE BOTH NOT CONTRIBUTED.

The decision we have now is giving up and being self righteous in our criticalness or letting ourselves be inspired and supportive regardless of the reception the blog has received. In my opinion There is something freeing about a blog that may never be received. No one owes us their contribution. And we can't force anyone to care or take part and we cant force anyone to contribute their brilliance and talent.

We can only control ourselves and work hard here on this blog because we care about it.But without you we are missing your voice. We are missing your compliments and criticisms that are so valuable to our campus community and to our potential.

Allot of the inspiration for the blog is how the school daily newspaper The Daily Titan has shown such a uncomfortable vibe when it comes to issues regarding African Americans and other communities such as Gay and Lesbian, women, Muslim and South Americans. I have been at this school two years and for two years I have been part of disgust at the Daily Titan. It seems to me that if it is Black it either has to be happy or seen as fringe opinions. With the Daily Titan being the only publication in town allot of students talked about how over looked we felt.

So we started a blog where the students could write there own experiences or comment on others writings.

And now I write wondering if we ever get this blog looked at.

Over the summer I read Parting The Waters by Taylor Branch. It is an amazing Pulitzer prize winning history of the Civil rights movement from 1953 until 1960. I'm glad I read it. Because if it taught me anything it is that the civil rights movement was not what we think it is.

It was as much a struggle in the Black community as it was in the white community. The NAACP did not like or really support Martin Luther King JR. Martin Luther king became the leader of the SCLC because he was the youngest and therefore least hated preacher within the Baptist rivalries, he also was really young and maybe people felt he would be easily pushed around...Very few even marched with him...some of the people we today idolize in our civil rights pictures were not supporters at all just African Americans that got attacked by police.

For example the picture below shook the country into More support for Dr King...but the guy being bit wasn't there to protest and he responded that what he learned was to not hang out with trouble makers..meaning the controversial Dr King. At the very moment of this protest many Black business men were angry that the protests were even happening.






The point is that we think everyone should support us. When they don't we give up and point the fingers we could have used to write something at our Brothers and sisters.

If Dr King accomplished so much with so little early success then its possible that we can accomplish a little by putting our mind into it...and staying positive. Hopefully with this blog we can be a positive aspect of the African American dept and more importantly to our fellow students. But even if we never get noticed I hope we don't give up. I hope we speak honestly and boldly about the issues that the Daily Titan and our classes seem to shy away from.

The juice still geten squeezed

Agaign the OJ trial is revealing more about the criminal justice system then it has about OJ simpson. The story here is of coarse the trial. Of coarse we should think about if OJ has created an attitude of abuse and negitivity in his personal life. But the story here is also the culture within American police force and goverment that attacks and bites down on whoever fits a specific prejudice. A culture that I would say is so screwed up and prejudice that they cant't even fairly convict OJ Simpson. Now that is a dirty culture.
Abrahim Appel



Defense seizes on secret recording in O.J. Simpson case


ISAAC BREKKEN, AFP / Getty Images

By Harriet Ryan and Ashley Powers, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
11:27 AM PDT, September 18, 2008
LAS VEGAS -- Shortly after police began investigating armed robbery and kidnapping allegations against O.J. Simpson, a crime scene investigator was caught on tape laughing that Las Vegas police "got" Simpson when authorities in California had failed -- an apparent reference to the former NFL star's acquittal on double-murder charges in 1995, according to testimony today.

Under questioning by a lawyer for Simpson, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Det. Andy Caldwell read part of a transcript of an audiotape in which colleagues discussed the case, unaware that they were being recorded.

"This is great. John said uh, yeah -- he is like California can't get him. ... Now we'll be like ... got him," Caldwell read. The transcript indicated portions of the conversation were inaudible.

A Los Angeles jury acquitted Simpson of the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in 1995. That trial shined a spotlight on the potential bias of investigators, with the defense suggesting officers planted evidence against Simpson.

Caldwell maintained that he did not know what the speaker, who he identified only as "Perkins," meant or who "John" was.


"They are prejudging this about that they want to get Simpson," defense attorney Yale Galanter charged, noting that the transcript indicated the remark was greeted by laughter.

"I cannot testify as to what someone else is thinking," the detective said.

Simpson, 61, is accused of masterminding the armed robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers in a room at the Palace Hotel & Casino last year. He and a co-defendant, Clarence "C.J." Stewart, 54, face a dozen charges, including kidnapping, which carries a life sentence.

The conversation in question was recorded on a device owned by Thomas Riccio, a collectibles dealer who set up the meeting between the Simpson and the alleged victims. Riccio later told investigators that he accidentally left the device in the hotel room and running as crime scene analysts collected evidence. Jurors have not heard the resulting 10-hour recording or reviewed a transcript of it.


to read full artical

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oj19-2008sep19,0,1558084.story

Muslim Sheikh on Arabic TV says "sad to see Black american solders representing racist american regime."

solders

Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis

After a Century, a Literary Reputation Finally Blooms

By LARRY ROHTER
Published: September 12, 2008
When the novelist Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis died 100 years ago this month, his passing went little noticed outside his native Brazil. But in recent years he has been transformed from a fringe figure in the English-speaking world into a literary favorite and trendsetter, promoted by much more acclaimed writers and by critics as an unjustly neglected genius.




Susan Sontag, an early and ardent admirer, once called him “the greatest writer ever produced in Latin America,” surpassing even Borges. In his 2002 book “Genius,” the critic Harold Bloom went even further, saying that Machado was “the supreme black literary artist to date.”

Comparisons to Flaubert and Henry James, Beckett and Kafka abound, and John Barth and Donald Barthelme have claimed him as an influence.

All of that makes for a change of fortune that Machado, with his exquisite sense of the improbable, would surely have appreciated. After all, his most celebrated novel, “The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas,” purports to be the autobiography of a decadent aristocrat reflecting on his life’s disappointments and failures from beyond the grave.

In recognition of this belated vogue, “Machado 21: A Centennial Celebration” is being held Monday through Friday in New York City and New Haven, slightly ahead of the actual Sept. 29 date of his death. The commemorations include round tables and seminars discussing the author’s life and work; readings; screenings of films based on his work; an exhibition of art inspired by his writings; and a performance of some of his poems set to music.

Mr. Bloom describes Machado as “a kind of miracle.” Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1839, Machado was the grandson of slaves, his father a housepainter and his mother a white immigrant washerwoman from the Azores. Enormously cultured and erudite, he was largely self-taught, working as a typesetter’s apprentice and journalist before becoming a novelist, poet and playwright.

Eventually Machado took a post in the Ministry of Agriculture, married a Portuguese woman of noble descent and settled into a middle-class life that allowed him to build a parallel career as a translator of Shakespeare, Hugo and other literary lions. But around 40, when he was already suffering from epilepsy, his health worsened, and he nearly lost his sight, a crisis that seemed to provoke a radical change in his style, attitude and focus.

to read more of this New York Times artical
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/books/13mach.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Oprah gives Palin the cold campaign shoulder

Its only the second week of Palin's occupation of the Republican VP canidacy and she's already getting the cold shoulder from big name celebs. But for good reason. 

If Gov. Palin ever hopes to rub elbows with Oprah, one of America's current most powerful women, she's gonna have to wait a while.  Yesterday it was announced by TMZ that Oprah was specifically asked if Palin would invited to speak on her show to which Oprah basically replied...no.

First of all, who would have thought that tabloid press like TMZ would be digging up stories on our political candidates before all the "legitimate new sources" out there. Secondly, does this surprise anyone? O has made it abundantly clear that she's already thrown her support behind Obama, who appeared on her show a couple times before becoming the Democratic candidate. But not only that, she also announced that she would have niether Palin or Obama on the show now that the race has officially begun between the two parties. 

To some, Oprah's rejection of a Palin cameo on her show may seem bias considering her political affiliation. On the flip side, some may think that the last thing Sarah Palin deserves is another round of soft ball questions that she can duck and dodge with rhetoric and smiles. Let's face it, during a presidential candidacy, she should be trying to get on some legitimate news programs talking about real issues with Anderson Cooper or Brian Williams. We're not saying Oprah doesn't have credibility (Oprah, please don't have your people hunt us down), it's just not the same as being on a legit news program. Save the warm sentimental stuff for last, or until the campaign is decided... it's either that or let The Daily Show's John Stewart loose on her. But we all know McCain isn't senile enough to let that happen.

Rap On the run from New Statesman

Rap on the run
Rob Sharp

Published 21 August 2008

Wanted by the FBI for black activism in the States, Nehanda Abiodun fled to Havana, where she became the "godmother of Cuban hip-hop"


Music



Outside a run-down apartment block in the eastern suburbs of Havana, a group of teenagers plays football in the street. They meet and greet each other like long-lost friends with hugs and slapped handshakes, and gesture to the top of a nearby building. If you follow their instructions to climb four flights of stairs, you can hear the sounds of local rhythms echoing down a corridor where a party is in full swing. Inside a tiny flat, a dozen people sit around a sitting room where the conversation and white rum flow freely.

The occasion is the 58th birthday party of the apartment's owner, Nehanda Abiodun. She cuts a fine figure, a black woman who looks younger than her age, and she's in celebration mode today, but her happiness belies the intensity of her life's struggle. Abiodun, who was born Cheri Dalton, is wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation in connection with a string of robberies, including a 1981 hold-up of an armoured car near Nyack, in upstate New York. An exile in Havana for the past 20 years, she is now known as the "godmother" of Cuban hip-hop and founder of a Havana chapter of Black August, a seminal group that promotes hip-hop culture at the grass roots. Since the chapter's formation it has held charitable concerts in New York and Havana featuring high-profile artists such as Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Common and Dead Prez, and until 24 August its work will be one of the highlights of this year's Havana Hip-Hop Meeting and Festival.

Abiodun's life has been inextricably linked with protest, and the music of protest, since her youth. Born in 1950, graduating from Columbia University in 1972, she formed her extreme political beliefs - those of "New Afrikans", political idealists who believed in the foundation of a black-only state within US borders - while working at an experimental drug detox programme in the South Bronx, New York. The programme operated under the banner of a militant black rights group that viewed the political radicalisation of its patients as essential.

"I came of age during the 1960s, a time of unrest, sit-ins, student strikes, mass protests and urban rebellions," explains Abiodun as various friends, and their relatives, sit on her knee. "The music that was being composed at that time reflected what was happening across the nation. Songs like [James Brown's] "I'm Black and I'm Proud", [Marvin Gaye's] "What's Going On" and [McFadden and Whitehead's] "Ain't No Stopping Us Now" were tunes not only to dance to, but which had lyrics that made you think and want to be involved in positive social and political change.

"Hip-hop for me was a continuation of that tradition. At the beginning it was a very important contributor to community debate regarding the conditions that existed, and still persist, in US cities," she says.

It is alleged by the US authorities that the group Abiodun was involved with went on to form the core of "the Family", a politically motivated, New York-based underground crime organisation. They began robbing banks, and by late 1979 were hitting armoured cars. In the 1981 attempted robbery, a guard was killed. Then, in the shoot-out that followed, two police officers were killed and a third was wounded. The FBI believes Abiodun was driving a getaway car with several Family members, all of whom escaped.

By 1990, Abiodun had settled in Havana. "People like me are here for a reason," she says. "I believe there is solidarity from the Cuban government with the struggles we are involved in. So even though the US might consider us criminals, it depends who you are talking to or where you are in the world. Are you a criminal or a freedom fighter? Mandela was considered a terrorist but in reality was and is still a hero."

She began working with Cuban rappers when she was first introduced to local hip-hop artists such as Primera Base, Doble Filo and Amenaza. "In the late Nineties a delegation of young people from the hip-hop generation [New York-based writers and "socially responsible" creatives such as Danny Hoch, Cristina Verán and Clyde Valentin] came to Cuba to participate as journalists in the island's hip-hop festival," she explains. "And some of the individuals were friends with people in the US who are members of the organisation I belong to [Black August]. Some of these people in Cuba asked me along to the festival and I was like, 'I'm not going to any hip-hop concert.' I was really disillusioned with hip-hop at that time."

It was the time when east coast v west coast friction was at its apotheosis, manifesting itself in the 1996 shooting of the west coast rapper Tupac Shakur and death of the east coast hip-hopper Notorious BIG the following year. Shakur's godmother and Abiodun's close friend, the former Black Panther Assata Shakur, is another high-profile Havana exile (in 2005 the FBI placed a $1m reward on her head for the alleged murder of a New Jersey state trooper in 1973).

"Part of it was the kindness of young people, inviting an old lady like me," Abiodun continues. "It was the last night of the festival and I am sitting there, and there was this song performed by Primera Base about Malcolm X and I was like, 'Whoah!' It kind of overwhelmed me, and all of us in that stadium. The chorus was not to my liking." She goes on to explain that it included "the N-word". "As a person who has struggled for the dignity of African people, I found the usage of the word offensive." But she says she saw enough "positivity" from among the new-wave Cuban rappers to inspire her to become more involved.

"The Cuban hip-hop community had earned my respect. To put on the festival like that, they had worked miracles with the very few material resources available. So I said I would make a commitment to the young people; that it would be nice if those of us in touch with hip-hop communities in the US would give material support to the Cuban rappers. Young people from the Havana hip-hop community started coming to me and asking about Malcolm X and various issues regarding progressive struggles in the US and other parts of the world. So we just talk all the time. It is very rewarding to me."

The history of Cuba's hip-hop scene is defined by two phases. Up until the mid-1990s, it generally consisted of imports of American material, but the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba's main trading partner, crippled its economy, forcing more home-grown alternatives to prosper. One record epitomised this transition: Amenaza's 1996 release "Ochavón Cruzao" - the title plays upon antiquated categories of racial classification, and the song addresses racism and Cuba's mixed-race population. Members of Amenaza later emigrated to Europe and formed the nucleus of Orishas, a Grammy-winning group that has released four critically acclaimed albums and now has a worldwide following.

Having initially tested the Cuban government's tolerance for freedom of expression, the genre is now backed officially, through the Agencia Cubana de Rap (Cuban Rap Agency), which provides a state-run record label and hip-hop magazine.

Racism is a topic still hugely relevant to the Cuban hip-hop scene. "It manifests itself as the retaining of certain ideas and language within people of a certain generation," says Abiodun. "I am a lighter-skinned black woman. If I were to marry someone darker-skinned some people would describe me as 'taking the race back'. If I were to marry someone who has European features I would be seen as 'taking the race forward'. And if you do something worthwhile people might say, 'Oh, that's a very white thing to do.'

"In Cuban hip-hop, most of the lyrics speak to what the artist feels she or he is confronted with daily," she says. "I of course cannot speak for them, but I can safely say that they have been responsible for bringing to the stage topics that in the past were discussed or debated only in small intellectual circles and not made available to the public at large."

Now, Abiodun's focus is back on the US, where ex citing political change could spell a sea change in the lives of young black Americans. "I really hope that [the Democratic presidential hopeful] Barack Obama wins," she says. "I'm not sure what I feel about this, because if it's generally known that people like me support him it will be used against him. One day I hope I will go home. One never loses faith. He could bring that about if he was president. He would have the power to do that . . . though I doubt that he would." A broad smile settles across her face, and the party continues well into the night.

Rob Sharp writes for the Independent

if Bill Cosby rapped would it be cool with us what he said

bastards of the party

Too quickly we look at poverty as a sign of failure. Not just failure of economics but as a moral judgment of a person. But don't we see all thew values that every self-help book preaches when we watch people segregated from the American economic opportunities refuse to be negative, and push themselves further than many of us ever will with all of our extra advantages?
America teaches us that to not be a member is to not belong. So our whole lives are spent in doubt, guilt and unsatisfaction. But here in the ghetto workouts every quality that a person needs to be successful is shown.

mccain chooses vice president

obama as a snob is a proud day for America (fake news)

Obama takes democratic nomination on 40th aniversary of I Have a Dream

Have you ever listened to the whole I Have a Dream speech? As Barak Obama accepts the democratic nomination tonight, the 40th anniversary of Kings speech, let us feel the pride and the amazement of what we are watching, while also remembering that King spoke of the ending of poverty, the ending of police abuse and social inequalities as part of the dream fulfilled. The Media will highlight certain aspects of this speech, as if King only wanted little kids to hold hands. And many will see Obama and only see this as the dream fulfilled. Today is a beautiful day for sure, but to the hungry, the uneducated, the sick, the falsely imprisoned and the solders, it can end up meaning so little if Obama does not come with the right policies.

20 years after "straight out of compton".

POP MUSIC
Rapper Ice Cube talks about the 20th anniversary of N.W.A's 'Straight Outta Compton'

Eric Williams
SCOWL: The attitude is still there on Ice Cube's new release.

Twenty years after 'Straight Outta Compton,' Ice Cube considers its ramifications.
By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 16, 2008

THE JHERI CURL is long gone, and the scowl, well, Ice Cube still has that, but he uses it selectively now. It was 20 years ago this month that the group N.W.A -- with Cube as its most vital lyricist -- released the shocking "Straight Outta Compton."

They called their music "reality rap," but everyone else just called it gangsta, and music history was made.On a recent morning, in a hushed Burbank music studio, Cube sat down in a solitary corner with a Sharpie in his hand and a pile of posters showing his famous scowl. Over and over, without even looking down, the man born O'Shea Jackson signed his more famous name. "I can't tell you," he said, "how many times I signed that name in my life. . . ."

The rapper and actor will have a new album in stores on Tuesday and a new film in theaters three days after that, but most of the posters in front of him were from years ago. He had just come back from a European tour, and the loudest cheers were for his oldest, angriest anthems. It was 20 years ago this month that the N.W.A album "Straight Outta Compton" changed the course of American music, and somehow 21st century kids in Amsterdam and Leipzig are bellowing along to its vintage black rage and uniquely Southern California sound."They know every word," Cube said with a bewildered sort of pride. "That music is still echoing, which nobody could have predicted. That's what I'm proudest of, the impact that we had. N.W.A changed the rules."
Related



Hip-hop came from the clubs and sidewalks of New York City as a party music made with turntables and rhymes by performers who usually couldn't afford music instruments.

It was party music, but then it came west and got a beat-down by a swaggering collective that called itself N.W.A. Run-DMC gave rap its commercial shape and Public Enemy provided the politics, but it was N.W.A that took the genre to the dangerous side of the street.

There was that one song in particular, that one with a three-word title: The first word began with the letter F and the other two were "Tha Police." It was a sonic Molotov cocktail. There were protests and outrage, and, not surprisingly, police officers refused to provide security for their concert tours.

It's hard for music fans today, who are accustomed to gangsta rappers as corporate pitchmen on television, to understand how jolting it was when N.W.A hit the scene.

An assistant director of the FBI famously sent a letter to Ruthless Records, the label for N.W.A, in 1989, excoriating the music and its message. If you want to read it, it's on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

The group's lineup was as stacked in its own way as the Beatles: Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E and MC Ren would all go on to be platinum-selling solo artists. Yella worked on Eazy's albums. The lineup's time in the spotlight was as fleeting as the Sex Pistols'; "Compton" was the group's second album, and Cube, angered over the royalties split, went solo the year after the landmark release. Now, as an elder statesman of rap and a film star, he can look back without anger."I'm proudest of the impact of the record," Cube said.

"The thing that people don't talk about, really, is that it opened artists up to being themselves in a lot of ways. They didn't have to try to figure out what to do or be to become stars, they could just be themselves. . . . After N.W.A, you didn't have to put on the polish to be a star."

That's an interesting statement considering that while Cube may still snarl on his albums, his film persona is often very polished and mass-audience safe, especially in clean family fare such as "Are We There Yet?" His upcoming film is another family-minded project, "The Longshots" (directed by, of all people, Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit fame), which has Cube as a somewhat unsavory guy who, through coaching his niece in Pop Warner football, learns some life lessons.Cube's new album, "Raw Footage," on the other hand, is intense, laced with social commentary and, compared with contemporary rap releases, far more spare and funk-minded in its production.

He may be going to the center in movies, but he's looking for the edge in rap. Rolling Stone gave the album 4 1/2 stars out of five and said of Cube that his new music "proves that even though he's middle-aged, he's still hungry."

Cube turned 39 in June, which seems young, really, considering how long he has been in the public eye and ear. He was 16 when he wrote N.W.A's anthem against cops and authority and was ill-prepared to become a political figure before age 20."We were coming from a straight, pure place," he said. "We thought our music was going to land on the shelves with the dirty comedy albums. The blue stuff. We never thought our music could possibly get above the underground. That wasn't part of the plan, believe me. Did we expect to get rich or turn the industry on its ear? We were doing music we thought our buddies up the street might like."When I was 16, if someone asked me what kind of career and life I wanted to have, I would have shortchanged myself. If I wrote it out then, it wouldn't have come close to the reality. There was no template then, no way to picture where hip-hop was going to go."

\

As he talked, Cube continued scrawling his moniker across the posters, some of them emblazoned with the logos of "War and Peace" or "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted," albums that came out years ago. He started talking about Dre, the other kid-turned-titan from N.W.A. Cube is contributing to Dre's upcoming (and oft-delayed) album, and it's clear that he's happy old rifts have healed. He reminisced about their scruffier days, toiling on "Straight Outta Compton.""I think about going to Audio Achievements at the end of Van Ness right there in Torrance. That's where we recorded. It was a textbook '80s studio, the wood paneling on the walls. It was cold in there too.

We were used to working out of the garage, man, where it was sweaty and muggy. We were in jackets, and our teeth are chattering."What made the album so special? Cube said it was a moment in time bottled up and shaken until it exploded. The inner-city black experience, in the land of palm trees, was suddenly given a sound, and it was like an air raid siren.

"You can hear the frustration with the situation. We tried to have fun with it, but the music was reflecting what was going on in the neighborhood. Living in the 1980s: Just trying to get by day-by-day in places where crack was huge and the police were crazy."

Cube said history showed that that raunchy, wildly violent album might have been plenty of pulp, but it also wasn't entirely fiction.

"Then the Rodney King thing happened a few years later, and then all over the world people looked and said, 'Hey, those guys from Compton were right.' "Cube isn't a fan of the rap on radio these days -- it's too formulaic, escapist-minded and predictable, he said. He went back recently and listed to the old record one more time. He winced when he heard his old cadence ("Do you like everything you made when you were 17?") but marveled at Dre's music architecture.He grinned: "Looking back on things, you know, it's not the healthiest thing to do, right? Especially when you're only 39. I still feel like my best work is ahead of me. But going back and listening, I understand why people liked N.W.A. I understand why it changed things. I liked it too."geoff.boucher@latimes.com