Live from H-Town Part 1

The first addition to the video blog series is kind of a ramble, but it was the mood I was feeling at the time.

Oh its time for the Stop The Violence Chants....

For days I've avoided watching the Derrion Albert video like it was the plague. I couldn't bare to watch this young man be killed on a medium so trivial and insensitive as Youtube. For days, I thought that watching this video could do me no good, when I've knowingly seen people shot at and other atrocities within my own community. I didn't want to watch another young man, so full of potential and full of precious life, be snuffed out like a flame. But finally I submitted to the trend and watched the video.

This week in the media and within our own personal circles, those who are asking and pleading to "stop the violence" are apart of a trend of silent acquiescence using this terrible and tragic moment as a chance to minimize and offset their guilt for doing nothing ever to actually stop the violence. Why does it take Derrion Albert's life to realize that Black on Black male violence in America is a problem? Why is it that we're still asking a question that was posed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other Black scholars and thinkers years ago? Does it take handheld videos of each death to actually make an impact?

My overall problem is not that people are outraged; they should be. My problem isn't even the fact that celebrities, media, and everyone else are calling for an end to the death and destruction that we see in our inner cities. My biggest problem is that I am worried that his death and the call for an end to inner city gang violence is a trend, which will end once this story goes away. Periodically, the media fires us up with specific cases of murder in our poorest communities often perpetrated by other young & impoverished men (be they Black, Latino or the wave of Asian gangs). But what each of us fail to conceptualize is the fact that with these singular documentations of lives cut short are THOUSANDS of other deaths that the media and we ourselves ignore. Everywhere were there is a community of poor Black, Latino, or Asian young men, there are violent deaths caused by gangs and present grieving communities asking "Why was this vibrant life cut so short?" This summer in Ypsilanti, another young man, someone I actually met, was killed for trivial reasons. It is happening right next to you and it is happening at a rate far greater than what young black males die of natural causes.

This does not mean to mitigate or trivilize the death of Derrion Albert, but I hope that with your new found outrage, you aren't trivilizing his death either.

Actually go forth with that outrage instead of use it for a PR stunt. Challenge someone's thinking in regards to the value of life. Take young man aside and mentor him as to believing in themselves and striving for more than what their surroundings present. Yes, racism and economic discrimination, and horrible schools in minority areas are real life threats too and they are partly to blame for these deaths. But if we stand back and do nothing with our youth and allow them to kill eachother, then we are also to blame.

Yelling "Liar" In A Crowded Chamber

Tonight's focus was supposed to be the scheduled speech by President Obama on Health Care reform in front of Congress. And yes, President Obama did address the critics, answer many of the fears and misinformation that had been floating around and summon the ghost of Sen. Ted Kennedy and all of the other politicians (including Repub favorite Teddy Rosevelt) who have tried to reform health care and failed. Tonight we were able to see the President challenge and call out those who would rather kill the bill than improve it. This was supposed to be the signs of leadership on this issue that we desperately need.

Instead what many will be talking about for days to come is the continued signs of hostility displayed tonight by many on the conservative side of the isle. For weeks we've seen hostile town hall meetings, television debates that center mainly on fear and misinformation, rather than intelligent discourse. Buzzwords have been more important than the actual wording of the bills itself.

Nothing has been more evident of the viciousness than at tonight's Congressional address than the interruptions and sheer childishness of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) who yelled "liar" at President Obama during his explanation of what the bill will have and what it won't.

We need to have more respect for the office of the President regardless of who is in the position. Period.

I am all for health care reform and an inclusion of a public option to provide health care to those who can't afford it and do not have it. But if you aren't, that's fine with me; we can agree to disagree. We have to fix the system and we have to respect the politicians who we elected to do so. We can disagree with them. We can organize for and against them, but we can't and shouldn't smear and degrade them. Calling President Obama Hitler is horrible, just as calling President Bush a terrorist is (regardless of what you feel about his actions). No one runs for President to make the country worse. Even if their focus is mainly career and self aggrandizing, no one wants the country to be worse.

Our bipartisanship isn't creating a healthy discourse. We aren't solving the problems that have ailed the nation by bickering. Nor are we saving lives and improving the lives the middle class and working poor by skirting around the real issues of health care. Working together and challenging each other in shaping our future is what's important and we as leaders and citizens must take on this endeavor.

The Infamous School Speech

I'm late, but please forgive. Here is the highlights of the September 8th back to school speech by President Obama.

PS - notice the attempts at appealing to the rural & working poor conservative White community by doing an advertisement with Nascar?

Phony Outrage

For weeks we've heard neoconservative outrage about the planned first day of school speech by President Obama. Conservative leaders such as Rush Limbaugh have argued that the planned speech would be liberal indoctrination. Others feared it would be primarily political and would be used as a trick to sway the opposition in favor of the Democratic proposal on Health Care reform.

Little was said about previous addresses to school children by former presidents. No one mentioned in most media outlets that Bush I and Regan both did addresses to school children. The last address to America's schools was 1991 by President H.W. Bush.

School Districts and principals across the country decided to ban the speech from being played in the classroom. Some parents even threatened to keep their children out of the schools for the first day. Team Obama decided to release the transcripts to cool any further animosity. Protest continued until 12pm today when the speech was finally given.

But here's the real issue: what was really the problem with the speech? What syllable from his speech would you not say to your children or mentees? Has politics in America become more important the the greater good of America itself? Is the need to be right more important than the actual debate? What good came from protesting a motivational speech from our president besides showing that our nation has a clear lack of respect for the office of president?

Our disrespect stems from our overt racist ideas about a Black leader, regardless of if he's president or not. Not only have we sunken to a new low as a political culture, but we've let fear or canned fear get in the way of actual progress. It's like the red scare all over again. Instead of getting to the real issues, we're going to let fear dictate where we will go and what problems will be solved.

Only in America

Eww, not a good look GOP (Post-State of the Union)

Bobby Jindal has officially killed his chances of becoming the next voice of the Republican Party. Not because of any scandal or any failures in his office (although Louisiana does rank among the bottom in almost all catergories including education, health care, crime prevention, environmental safety, etc). Jindal will not revitalize the Republican party because he suffers from a lack of pizaz, a lack of swag, missing a certain je n'ais se quis that took President Barack Obama from being just a Senator with a book deal to the iconic President that we all know of.

In his response on behalf of the Republican party after Obama's first State of the Union address, Jindal showed absolutely no charm or grace in delivering what exactly is the conservative idea on getting America out of this economical quagmire. Delivering analogies that didn't work and just a lack of optimism for setting America straight, Jindal fell flat on his face last night.

But its not just Jindal thats lacking right now. The entire Republican Party is lost and admist an identity crisis. Newly elected Repub chair Michael Steele has absolutely no idea on how to recast the conservative movement or for that matter, appeal. Now he's idea of bringing a hip-hop sensibility to the Repub party. Watch the clip from the Rachel Madow show to see what I'm talking about

oh yeah, by the way.... 17,000 troops to Afghanistan

President Barack Obama plans to announce Tuesday night that about 17,000 additional troops are headed to Afghanistan in the coming months, administration officials said.

This bit of information was lost in the news of the stimulus package press release but isn't that kind of funny. The war that will never end will continue under the President who pledged to end the war. Don't get me wrong, I'm just as big of an Obamanite as the next Black college student. But if you though that you were going to see an end to this war sometime soon, then you thought wrong.

$$$$$$ OBAMA SIGNS STIMULUS PACKAGE IN DENVER $$$$$$$$

So now that we have this stimulus (without HEADSTART and a ridiculously reduced education package), how long will it take to begin to curb the recession? In addition, if you look at the language of this bill it doesn't come off as a quick fix, but yet a long term plan for economic rebuilding. There's plans for green jobs (shout out to Van Jones) and even infrastructure development. So this may be the blessing that Detroit and other failing cities/states who desperately need the development money were looking for.

Your thoughts?

Sean Bell would be 25 yesterday...

By now, you've heard of the 2006 incident surrounding New York City Police that resulted in the death of an African American man named Sean Bell as he was leaving his Bachelor party. If If you haven't heard about this incident, shame on you. Most of the news media has talked little about the specifics of the police officers firing upon this unarmed man and his friends 51 times. Some aspects of the media, including Wikipedia and the NY Times, even place more of the emphasis of the incident on the fact that Bell and his friends had been arrested on separate occasions within their life. Much of the media attention also fails to mention the fact that Bell was shot 31 times by a single officer and the officers failed to identify themselves to Bell's party. For most of us, if we really think about it, we realize that you can't shoot a person 51 times without reloading multiple times.

Well, if you know these details then you also know that all 3 police officers in the incident were acquitted recently. Not only were the officers found not guilty, but since November 2006 when the incident happened, there has been no sort of administrative disciplinary action.
One part of the rationale of the State Supreme Court in finding the officers not guilty in the murder of Sean Bell is that they considered the witnesses, including Bell's 2 friends who were also injured in the assault, testimony that wasn't believable. What type of testimony is believable in the eyes of a city government that has rarely convicted members of a police force that have committed similar atrocities in the past (Also in case you wondered, search for the documentary "Every Mother's Son". It is a testimony of other murders by NYPD officers, this time against men of different races and ethnicities).

My biggest question to everyone reading this as well as the New York Supreme Court is what does it take to consider a human life, especially the life of a black male, valuable in the United States? Where is the line drawn that says a black man in the United States can get justice? If our background and upbringing are bad, is that justification that I could be killed by the police if they see fit? More importantly, who's going to explain to Sean Bell's daughter that her father isn't there in her life not because he didn't love her or her mother, but because of the actions of those who are sworn to protect us?

For most Black males, to live till 25 is not a guarantee and in many areas it is against the odds placed upon us by statisticians and the whatnot. For many of us, we live in a society that sees black men as either a threat, entertainment (rappers, actors, and athletes) or a burden on the nation's economy with the idea that we are all drug dealing welfare recipients just waiting to impregnate countless black females who are also drug dealing welfare recipients.

It may sound corny, but today cherish your life and enjoy what you have. As this case proves to me and to many other Black males throughout the country, in the right place and time, our lives are expendable.