As a community, we should do our part to educate ourselves. Where we complicate things is not learning and not practicing safety. We must protect ourselves because statistically, Black men and women are found to be having unprotected sex with others who have HIV/AIDS or other STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), and/or are sharing drug needles with someone who does.

A lot of politicians do a whole lot of talking, but who should be held
accountable on the Black unemployment crisis?

It all began in 1960, when Black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, walked into a Woolworth’s store and sat down at the lunch counter. No doubt this sparked a campaign that spread like wildfire and successfully desegregated many businesses in big cities and little towns across the South.

No longer can they wrap themselves in the flag and strut around in their ineffectual, faux patriotism while they accuse the President of the United States of “palling around with terrorists.” The quiet and effective way in which you’ve gone about carrying out America’s business clearly distinguishes who’s the adult in the room, and who’s the true American.

“These banners are not a fair representation of the school,” the message said. “We should support diversity, not just African-American males. The portraits and paintings in the law school sing the same song. It is a shame that the only place many groups see representation at the law school is with their reflection in the bathroom mirrors.”

 No one cares that this family has no home. No one seems to care about what will happen if this child grows up without the only woman on earth wired to love him unconditionally. No one seems to care about the massive costs to the state of prosecuting this mother and eventually the child, as we deliberately trap them in an intergenerational cycle of poverty and criminal justice.

In Democrat-leaning California, this is not insignificant. Orange County is one of the reddest counties in Southern California, and a traditional bastion of GOP conservatism. The Orange County Republican Party can still muster tens of thousands of votes for local, state, congressional and presidential candidates. Republican presidential candidates have beat a steady path to the county for decades to secure votes and money.

Danroy "DJ" Heny

Henry, who was 20 years old on the night he died, is accused by officers of being drunk behind the wheel and speeding away without stopping according to the officers’ instructions.

Time and again, to the frustration and consternation of large swaths of his base – Mr. Obama cajoled, coddled and courted Republicans on Capitol Hill, offering them scotch and crudités in the White House by night, only to get no respect from them in the morning.  The president found that compromise wasn’t good enough; he had to capitulate. Witness, the absence of a public option in the health care bill and, more recently, the tax breaks for wealthy people, and the decision to keep Guantanamo Bay up and running.

Everyone gets down occasionally, sometimes you have a good reason, other times you’re down for reasons unbeknownst even to yourself, but you’re still down. And then we all moan and complain about being depressed until we snap out of our mood and carry on life as normal. Psychologist Dr. Yolanda Brooks agrees, stating; “Black women tend to present themselves to society as strong, resilient human beings… you can trace this dynamic back to slavery, when a woman had to pretend she was okay when she was actually suffering inside.”

The Black community is going to have to stop sitting around waiting for a Messiah to solve our problems. It’s the Black community’s responsibility to address Black issues, no one else’s. We are adults and the second largest consumer group in America, so we don’t need anybody to help us turn our community around. We have more than enough resources to do the job ourselves.

 In a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling, whose function is to “put out highly accurate polling on key political races across the country,” according to its website, 46 percent of Mississippians believe that interracial marriage should be illegal.

Former Olympic Gold Medalist Carl Lewis

Former nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis is gearing up for one more race.  The 49-year-old is running for Senate in the state of New Jersey as a Democrat in the 8th legislative district.

“We are going to tell the story of the Wilmington 10. And we think it is incumbent for us to fight for a pardon for those 10 people...justice to this day has not been served,” said NNPA chair, Danny J. Blakewell Sr.

Much of Black America held its collective breath upon witnessing a battle royal between Rev. Al Sharpton and Dr. Cornel West. The argument took place on an MSNBC special entitled “A Stronger America: The Black Agenda,” hosted by Ed Schultz. This heated debate was a natural culmination of the growing frustration that many African-Americans are feeling toward the Obama presidency. For some, the election of a Black president didn’t provide the second coming of Juneteenth that many of us expected.

Identifying the economy as the leading area of disparity between Black and White Americans, the National Urban League used its scientific “Equality Index” formula to determine that economic equality declined a percentage point, down to 56.9 percent from 57.9 percent in 2010. In more comprehensible terms: With Black unemployment at 15.3 percent, still nearly double the national average of 8.9 percent, the jobs situation isn’t getting any better.

Now the only word suitable to reflect the way I feel is embarrassed. I’m embarrassed that while Americans are under one of the greatest threats from a domestic enemy in our history, the most persistent word coming from the mouth of the nation’s first Black President’s is “compromise.”

For those who hardly understand what redistricting is, it is the revision or replacement of existing districts. It results in new districts with different geographical boundaries. The basic purpose is to equalize population among electoral districts after publication of the United States census; it indicates an increase or decrease in or shift of population.
In congressional redistricting efforts there are basic rules that apply and must be considered, which include but are not limited to:

This tells a big part of the story of the chronic segregation, but it’s only part of the story. The painful truth three years after the election of America’s first Black president is that there are far too many policy makers, political leaders, and many Whites that still think that segregation is too much a long-standing, even immutable, way of life in America to ever change.

Many high-tech companies cite the availability of a skilled STEM workforce as the number one reason for determining where they locate their facilities.  More and more U.S. companies are moving abroad because they can’t find the highly skilled workforce they need here at home.  According to 2008 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the professional IT workforce was projected to add a little under a million new jobs between 2008 and 2018.  This represents more than twice the rate of the overall workforce growth between 2008 and 2018.

The most sanguine analysis of these seemingly disjointed facts would be that there’s no causal relationship between the two; one neither created nor exacerbated the other. Today we as a nation need to confront the fact that regardless of how this came to be, our nation’s future primary school kids will be majority minority, yet funding for their future education is falling.

 Equal access. Those two words dominated discussions, during the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) 2011 Mid-Winter Conference.

Studies show that black people are shouldering a disproportionate burden of the nation’s credit card debt, and thus are among those consumers who contribute the most to credit card industry profits.

“We understand that the United States has a valid Extradition Treaty with Nigeria since 1931.  I therefore urgently request that the State Department and the Department of Justice officially send additional U.S. law enforcement officers to Nigeria, and that they engage the Nigerian government and urgently ask for their immediate and intensified efforts to find, detain and arrest this alleged perpetrator who has left 4 dead babies in Harris County-

Imagine Politics without Limbaugh’s destructive rhetoric and “us against them” mentality. 

We accept a lot of so-called truisms simply because we’ve been told that they’re true all of our lives. Take competition for example. From the day we start school most Americans are taught that our competitive spirit is what makes America great. But is that really true? Is competition really the most productive model for promoting human progress? I don’t think so. While recently discussing this issue one gentleman said the following:

According to Interracialdatingcentral.com., White
daughters dating Black men is the new trend, but
not every parent reacts the same way. Some White
parents are concerned and some downright hostile
to the concept.

Millry, Ala., is a town where racial tensions have allegedly been running high for a very long time. The boiling point was hit recently, when a White father came to the town’s high school and threatened one of the Black players on the basketball team.The infuriated parent told one of the boys that if any of them made contact with his daughter, he would “kill him and his Black friends,” said Latisha Mitchell, the step-mother of one of the players.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial is slated to open this August on the National Mall in Washington, D.C

At the end of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was planning a “Poor People’s Campaign” to enhance the culture of rights for workers, the middle class and poor people.

It is particularly at moments of crisis when there is such an intense debate about the direction of the nation that the progressive movement should be aggressively utilizing the vision of  Martin Luther King the social reformer, as a framework to educate the American people about the urgent need to maintain and expand the “culture of rights” social movements have achieved through generations of struggle, e.g., women’s suffrage, the right to organize and maintain unions,  workers compensation, the minimum wage, social security, Medicare, consumer protection, environmental protection and civil rights for Blacks and other people of color.

U.S. President Barack Obama gives an order to his personal aide, Reggie Love (L), while shaking hands after delivering remarks at the Historically Blacks Colleges and Universities (HCBUs) reception in the White House on September 13, 2010.

We’ve got a nice-looking, bright and  articulate mainstream African-American as President.  It is this flirt and allure with mainstream American cultures and values that causes African-Americans’ lack of advancements.  It was anticipated that an Obama Administration would bring America a new era of hope, change, and unity; but in reality this regime has brought about a static hold and regression among African-Americans.

For the last two years, right-wing rhetoric, like the sign held by a Tea Party member (right) has lead this country on the path  to a boiling point. Yet, no one affiliated with the organization, radio-talk show hosts or even White Supremacy groups which sanction such hate talk, wants to take responsibility when their message is taken to heart.

When liquid is heated, if never cooled, it will, in time, reach a temperature where pressure will form bubbles. This temperature, normally 100 degrees, is called the boiling point. For at least the last two years, America the Beautiful, has been scarred by the use of insensitive and dangerous language by its right wing, which has not only divided, but served to spur this country towards an inevitable boiling point. And in spite of the finger-pointing and mudslinging in wake of the recent tragedy in Arizona, which left several Republicans resigning their posts, many citizens believe the worst is yet to come.

Voter apathy leaves Blacks in Texas vulnerable to “slash and burn” politics

“Give us the ballot, and we will fill our legislative halls with men of goodwill, and send to the sacred halls of Congress men who will not sign a ‘Southern Manifesto’  because of their devotion to the manifesto of justice.” -Martin Luther King, Jr., “Give Us the Ballot,” May 17, 1957, Washington, D.C.

What do you have to do to affect change? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just ask Democrat officials. For the last two years, grass roots Republicans—and especially Tea Partiers—campaigned like crazy. They held rallies, hosted talk shows, sent out e-blasts and newsletters, and posted billboards, determined to regain control of the nation. Conservative voters showed up in droves to cast their ballots. But after a long and busy 2008 campaign season, grass roots Democrat campaign leaders did something close to nothing. After all, they were ahead. The people had spoken and Democrats had won by a landslide, even in historically red states. It was a case of the tortoise and the hare. Similarly, would-be Democrat voters did much of the same thing—nothing. And virtually over night, change had come again, but will it be a change Blacks can believe in?

In California, inmates are often stacked in triple bunk beds in hallways and gymnasiums. 

Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan have published a surprising op-ed in the Washington Post asserting that our criminal justice system is broken and needs to be fixed.

Here’s the heart of their argument:

There is an urgent need to address the astronomical growth in the prison population, with its huge costs in dollars and lost human potential. Our prisons might be worth the current cost if the recidivism rate were not so high, but, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, half of the prisoners released this year are expected to be back in prison within three years. If our prison policies are failing half of the time, and we know that there are more humane, effective alternatives, it is time to fundamentally rethink how we treat and rehabilitate our prisoners.

In a speech given to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, on Aug. 16, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said “Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.”

Although spoken over four decades ago, there is ample evidence to suggest that discrimination is alive and well in America, despite the election of, and some say because of the election of, this country’s first Black president.  

President Lyndon Baines Johnson and
the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. worked
together through telephone calls and
emissaries on a shared goal: Equal rights
for Black Americans.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”  -The “Declaration of Independence,” 1776

At the time these words were written, one-fifth of the total population, about 500,000 Black men, women and children, was enslaved. This fact was not figured in the founding documents because Blacks were not considered as human, but as property—cattle. Slavery came to an end in America in 1866, but the devastating consequences of its brutality remain.

HOUSTON- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals recently called a halt to a controversial hearing. Judge Kevin Fine, 177th District Court, began hearing arguments on Dec. 6,  regarding the constitutionality of the Texas death penalty. Under protest from the Harris County District Attorney, the Criminal Appeals Court ordered the hearings temporarily halted on the grounds that the evidence Judge Fine was hearing did not apply directly to John Edward Green, Jr.,’s potential exoneration.

For most people, December stirs up visions of family and friends gathered around turkey, dressing, greens and candied yams on Christmas Day. Children dream of Christmas trees loaded with decorations and surrounded by gifts. But those visions now represent the ghost of Christmas past for many who now wonder how they will make Christmas happen with one less income.

The Great Recession may be over, but families are still feeling the pain this holiday season, and Blacks are feeling it most of all. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, almost 3 million Blacks are out of work; men and youth are the hardest hit (16.7 percent and 46.5 percent respectively). Those rates continue to be twice as high as that of Whites. This places a burden on Black women, who are still disproportionately affected by joblessness, but not to the same degree. It also puts a crunch on households who rely on the older children to find work so they can help their families, purchase their own clothing, pay for transportation and prepare for college.

It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun--
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky--
The wall.
Shadow.
I am Black.

-Langston Hughes,
As I Grew Older

What do Langston Hughes, Henry Lewis Gates, President Barack Obama and Michael Beal have in common? They have each been rudely awakened to the fact that there are no passes for Blacks. Despite their attendance at Ivy League schools, consisting of predominantly “rich White kids,” Blacks are still regarded with disdain and distrust, and judged by the color of their skin, rather than the content of their character among many Whites in America. And the dream of a color-blind society is still just a dream.

By Nikitia Johnson

The HEART (Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax) Act changes the way some cash payments to members of the uniformed services and veterans under the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program are treated. As Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue noted at the time, “This law allows the men and women of our armed forces, veterans, and their families to keep more of their military-related payments while also maintaining eligibility for valuable cash and healthcare benefits.”

By JAMES RUCKER
Contributing Writer

Fox News Channel is divisive and antagonistic toward Black America. Given the statistics, there’s little doubt about that in our communities. Earlier this year, Nielsen Media reported that only 1.38 percent of all Fox News viewers are African-American.

The President duly applauds the two Senate Republicans who broke the blockade
on small business help. But he denounces attempts by Republicans to hold middle
class tax cuts hostage for an additional tax cut for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.
                                                                                             (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

For the Democrats’ Black partisans the message is simple: Stand With President Obama, Vote November 2.” Leading Democrats are betting that if the midterms are a “referendum on Obama” they like their odds with the party’s African- American base.

The United States joins Somalia as the only two countries in the world not to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international treaty recognizing the human rights of children that UNICEF points out is the most widely and rapidly ratified human rights treaty in history. One of the Convention’s provisions prohibits the use of soldiers younger than age 15 in conflicts. The United States did ratify a later optional protocol prohibiting the use of soldiers younger than 18.

Deeper review of talk show host Glenn Beck’s comments regarding civil rights reveal the duplicity of his rally in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 28. Organized under the title, “Restoring Honor to America,” the event was about more than an attempt to hijack a day many Blacks hold sacred. Beck is attempting to hijack a movement. White neighborhoods throughout the country have found themselves harassed and terrorized.

This day has historically been a compelling reminder and a challenge for many Whites eager for Blacks to “just get over it.” It has been a call to action for many Blacks, lulled into complacency by their own achievements, negligent of those left behind. This day has been a call to stay on the battlefield until, “Justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream,” and a reminder not to be rocked to sleep by the slow and unpredictable trickle of gains seen in our lifetime.

For this reason, Black leaders throughout the nation were grossly offended at Glen Beck’s choice of Aug. 28 as the day he would hold a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Monument. Although Beck says the historical connection was unintended, most Blacks aren’t buying it.

William Raspberry. Clarence B. Jones. Dr. Robert P. Moses. James T.  Patterson. Kay S. Hymowitz.  Tera W. Hunter. Harry J. Holzer.  Mindy Barry. John Sibley Buter. Amitai Etzioni. Heather Mac Donald. Kenneth Marcus. William Stephney. Carol M. Swain. A venerable list of “Who’s Who” of Civil Rights in America, along with more than 200 scholars, policy makers, public intellectuals, civil rights practitioners, and members of the general public will meet for the start of a national conversation on shaping a civil rights agenda for the 21st century. The goal of the conference, “A New Era: Defining Civil Rights in the 21st Century,” is to ignite “fresh dialogue concerning how to characterize and address the plight of disadvantaged Americans so that they might fully realize equality of opportunity that past civil rights successes have brought.”

Topics to be discussed include, Discrimation then and now; The role of family structure in perpetuating racial and ethnic disparities; New tools for a new civil rights era; Education as a path forward; and The future of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Civil rights leaders meet with President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson. Civil rights leaders, including
Martin Luther King, Jr., A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and John Lewis meet with President Kennedy and
Vice President Johnson to discuss Civil Rights, August 28, 1963. Source: Records of the NAACP, Library of Congress.

NEW YORK– ColorOfChange.org, the community activist group that has successfully urged dozens of advertisers to pull away from Glenn Beck’s Fox News Channel show, has announced a new initiative directed at discouraging public establishments across the country from airing FNC. The campaign, dubbed “Turn off Fox,” will attempt to educate the public of the divisive rhetoric and dishonest smear campaigns conveyed by the channel, while reducing the number of televisions broadcasting it in public domains – including restaurants, bars, airport terminals and gyms.

On Aug. 25, 1925 group of Pullman porters formed the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, America’s first African-American labor union. This 85th anniversary celebrates the life and work of this remarkable group of men.

The founding of the Brotherhood was an important milestone in the labor movement, which had previously been all White. But more importantly, it laid the foundation for the modern civil rights movement, by proving that Blacks could organize and achieve tangible results.

NEW YORK (August 13, 2010) - The National Urban League today called on Talk Radio Network to drop the Dr. Laura show from syndication, and urged host Dr. Laura Schlessinger to educate herself about racism.

A Donate Life America survey revealed an increase in the number of minorities registered as organ, eye and tissue donors. Nearly 90 million people in the United States are designated donors.

-year-old Shamus Patton for shooting nine people in separate incidents at the Indiana Black Expo is just another unfortunate scene in Black American communities. Perhaps we are becoming numb to Black-on-Black male crime because it remains a relative constant and reminder of how far we have to go. It’s time for a different type of shout out. SOS is a well known call of distress that is sent out for the purpose of alerting people that there is a need for help.
The inner city is callin

The 2009 shooting death of Oscar Grant certainly looked like murder.  With Grant flat on his belly, his arms pulled in behind his back, officer Johannes Mehserle pulled his gun and fired. Grant died in the hospital several hours later. At trial, Mehserle said he mistakenly drew his pistol when he meant to use his stun gun. That could be true.  Radley Balko of Reason Magazine, argues persuasively that the jury got it right this week when they found Mehserle guilty of involuntary manslaughter. But Balko isn’t calling this an innocent mistake.  Police officers are trained to leave their weapons holstered unless a life is on the line. That rule applies to tasers, not just firearms.  Whenever a weapon is unholstered something tragic is likely to happen. Sometimes there’s no alternative. This wasn’t one of those times.

A few years ago in Milwaukee, Wis., police who beat party-goer Frank Jude
(above) were charged with a felony ... although charges were later dropped.
In Texas, they would have been charged with Official Oppression, a Class A misdemeanor.                                                                                  
Photo by bulldogsays.com

“I never thought about it. I never thought twice about it. You know, we went on to the next task after that ...,” said former Houston police officer Raad Hassan in an exclusive interview with Houston’s KHOU reporter, Jeff McShan.

Hassan was fired following HPD’s investigation of the March 23 beating of Chad Holley, 16, by eight police officers. The beating that also lead to his indictment in June, along with three other officers, was captured by a surveillance camera outside of Uncle Bob’s storage.

Holley was one of four burglary suspects. Initially, Holley made an attempt to flee from police. However, after seeing he was surrounded, according to police documents, “the video clearly shows that Mr. Holley subsequently lay on the ground and placed his hands behind his head and neck area, in an obvious position of surrender.”

 President Barack Obama talks with, from left, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Dr. Jane Lubchenco,
administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Dr. John Holdren, director
of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen,
in the Cabinet Room of the White House, June 7, 2010, following a meeting with Cabinet members to
discuss the administration’s ongoing response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
                                                                                     (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

With the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico the case for government regulation of the banking industry has never been stronger.  The BP debaclce seems to confirm that big business, left to its own devices will not regulate itself, causing consequences that will affect everyone. While the results of greedy banking practices can often be hidden by manipulating legitimate statistics, it is hard to turn away when oil is washing up on the shoreline.

The question on most people’s mind is: Who should be blamed for this recent catastrophe? Some people blame the government, specifically the Mineral Management Service (MMS). British Petroleum’s own greed caused the oil spill (proper procedures were not taken before continuing to drill in order to save money). But laying even most of the blame on them seems a bit nonsensical to some, the equivalent of blaming an obese five-year old for being obese. The rationale being, if a parent does not regulate a child’s intake properly, the child will keep eating until it reaches massive proportions.