The Black Informant

More N**ga stuff

For starters, the fact that the Michael Richards incident is still being churned throughout mainstream media is just too funny for me to just ignore it at this point. In some way, I feel like I did back in high school when my friends and I would sit on the top bleachers and crack on folks that were on the court. Except this time it is MSM who is on the court.

This morning I came across an article that was just simply too ridiculous for me to pass up. Consider this a posting for your afternoon coffee break. I will provide you with excerpts of the article below interwoven with my comments.

Rappers From Different Ethnic Backgrounds Comment On Call To Ban N-Word
By Nolan Strong (Allhiphop.com)

Popular white rapper Paul Wall banished the word from his vocabulary years ago and is supporting the NAACP’s call to ban the word from use in the media and entertainment industries.

“I support the NAACP in their cause,” Paul Wall told AllHipHop.com. “I think the word is offensive for anybody to use. It’s a disgraceful, offensive word that was used to belittle people because of the color of their skin. Its become such a general term, that everyday good people now use the ‘n-word’ in general conversation. Its meaning and definition have evolved, but its roots are still negative.”

[…]

“I don’t use it because my mother raised me to believe that it is an offensive word regardless of who says it,” Paul Wall explained. “But being that the word is so common, I am referred to by the ‘n-word’ everyday. ‘Paul Wall, n***a you my favorite rapper.’ ‘That n***a Paul Wall got a clean grill.’ Last year in Ozone Magazine, I won the “Realest N***a Award. It obviously was a joke though.”

Okay for starters, Paul Wall is A WHITE person in a heavily Black influenced industry. No doubt he saw all the heat Eminem caught a few years back for using the N-word in a tape he made in his basement back in the day. Paul Wall’s decision to stop using the word is not as deep as he is making it sound. Stop using the word (if you are white) or get clocked! In the meantime Black folks can call him a N***a, just not the other way around on a regular basis.

“The activists are hoping rappers will follow Paul Wall and Mooney’s lead…”

The hip hop industry follow a moral lead of a WHITE MAN???? Jesse is right when he says “Keep hope alive” because that is about all he can do on this one. (LOL)

The devil makes us do it!

Davey D speaks his mind on the matter:

“One thing to keep in mind about the popularity of the ‘n-word’ is that corporate owned media outlets and record labels gave platforms for folks to use that word at will,” Davey D. told AllHipHop.com. “The end result has been everybody feeling they can use it, without the general connotation and association being changed.

He continues..

Sadly, those same outlets are quick to shut down access when these same black folks who like to use the ‘n-word’ come to the table to speak about politics or against Bush, white oppression, Katrina or the War in Iraq, suddenly we get shut down. Suddenly they don’t have platforms or time to hear us speak. When a person or institution makes you believe that you are somehow being empowered while they are simultaneously oppressing you, its called pimping.”

????????????

There was a “table” set up at last years “State of the Black Union”. I don’t remember reading about the “oppressed” millionaires of hip hop being present — let alone contributing. Why comment any further here?

Reverend Jesse Jackson and other activists are planning a series of meetings with TV networks, film companies and musicians to discuss banning the ‘n-word.’

Earth to Jesse, you are going to the wrong crowd.
(PS, can you pass out a demo tape for a brotha while you are making your rounds?)

And finally, this is from rapper Noreaga:

“What hurts me the most, is when you have an actor of such stature and he says your a n****r, and I think that’s how he really feels. What also makes me mad is when you got Jesse [Jackson] running to his aid, as if he didn’t mean to say it. Man f**k that motherf***er.”

I’ll just leave you with a excerpt from one of this “hurt” brotha’s songs:

(I thought about editing it, but I figured its best to “keep it real” here)

From “Banned from Another Club”

“Now put your cards on the motherfucking table and see whats, what
Give life the dick hard she a slut
That will make her feel it in her gut
Then I move to my career
So fuck your perspective, your thoughts get neglected”

But its all art, right?

Fact: Youtube.com has over 12,000 videos containing the n-word in its description [link]

What bureaucracy has wrought

Article 1:

(AP) WASHINGTON — About 30,000 applications from immigrants seeking citizenship were processed by the government even though thousands of background files used to determine eligibility were missing, congressional investigators found.
Details of the investigation by the Government Accountability Office were released by Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Susan Collins of Maine Tuesday.
According to the GAO, 14 Citizenship and Immigration Services offices were missing 110,000 alien files, or A-files. Such files contain applications and other documents of some noncitizens and serve as the primary file for the immigrant and help determine eligibility. (more…)

Within a week (read on!)

Article 2:

(postchronicle.com) A four-count federal indictment was delivered by a grand jury against a U.S. citizen and a Pakistani national illegally in the country on an expired student visa for a conspiracy to aid the Taliban, according to a U.S. Attorney in Houston.

Kobie Diallo Williams, also known as Abdul Kabeer and Abdul Kabir, 33, a U.S. citizen and Houston resident, and Adnan Babar Mirza, 29, a Pakistani national who overstayed a student visa, are charged with conspiring to train with firearms with a goal to fight with the Taliban against coalition forces in the Middle East and providing approximately $350 in cash to support terrorist groups. (more…)

Monkey see, monkey do

Remember this day!

Democrats Reject Key 9/11 Panel Suggestion
Neither Party Has an Appetite for Overhauling Congressional Oversight of Intelligence

(washingtonpost.com) It was a solemn pledge, repeated by Democratic leaders and candidates over and over: If elected to the majority in Congress, Democrats would implement all of the recommendations of the bipartisan commission that examined the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But with control of Congress now secured, Democratic leaders have decided for now against implementing the one measure that would affect them most directly: a wholesale reorganization of Congress to improve oversight and funding of the nation’s intelligence agencies. Instead, Democratic leaders may create a panel to look at the issue and produce recommendations, according to congressional aides and lawmakers.

Because plans for implementing the commission’s recommendations are still fluid, Democratic officials would not speak for the record. But aides on the House and Senate appropriations, armed services and intelligence committees confirmed this week that a reorganization of Congress would not be part of the package of homeland-security changes up for passage in the “first 100 hours” of the Democratic Congress.

[…]

“Of all our recommendations, strengthening congressional oversight may be among the most difficult and important,” the panel wrote. “So long as oversight is governed by current congressional rules and resolutions, we believe the American people will not get the security they want and need.”

Now Democrats are balking, just as Republicans did before them. (more…)

====

But at least minimum wage will be raised, right?

Shanghai sees a huge jump in AIDS cases

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - The number of newly reported AIDS cases and HIV infections has jumped 70 percent from last year in Shanghai, China’s largest city, the government said Wednesday.

The 621 new HIV/AIDS cases reported through Nov. 20 of this year brought Shanghai’s total to 2,216, of whom 97 have died, said an official at the Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Like many Chinese bureaucrats, the official refused to give his name. He referred questions to a report issued Tuesday that showed Shanghai, a city of more than 20 million, recorded 370 new HIV/AIDS cases last year.

More than 80 percent of the new cases were among migrants from other parts of China, the report said. Most cases were contracted through intravenous drug use.

Unprotected sex was the main transmission route for long-term Shanghai residents. (more…)

Study suggests that background checks boost Black employment

(forbes.com) As more and more employers conduct criminal background checks on applicants, critics have charged that such screening is unfair to blacks, who are more likely to have criminal records.

But a new study published in The Journal of Law and Economics argues just the opposite. In fact, employers who perform criminal background checks “are in general more likely to hire African-Americans,” say the authors, Harry J. Holzer of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, Steven Raphael of the University of California, Berkeley, and Michael A. Stoll of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Why might this be so? Because in the absence of concrete information, employers tend to use race as a proxy for criminality. Hiring managers may feel that their bias is justified by the numbers: While about 9% of all American men will spend some time in state or federal prisons, the figure is 4% for white men, 16% for Hispanic men and 28% for black men.

We tend to think of racial discrimination as hard to root out, but the study suggests that in employment, at least, sharing information on criminal backgrounds can have a big impact. (more…)

The impact of author Bebe Moore Campbell

(philly.com) The last time I saw Bebe Moore Campbell was in August of 2005 at the National Book Club Conference in Atlanta. I was in the audience while she read from her latest novel, 72 Hour Hold. I savored the moment.

That was also the year Terry McMillan dominated the headlines after discovering that her husband and literary muse, Jonathan Plummer, was not only gay, but on the down low to boot. Reporters had attached themselves to McMillan like Velcro, asking her annoying questions like, “Terry, do you think you’ll ever get your groove back?”

McMillan was the story that year. But not on this particular afternoon. Not at Campbell’s session.

While Campbell read about a mother’s struggle with her daughter’s mental illness in her usual assured, mesmerizing voice, McMillan sat cross-legged and unassuming in the corner. Just another fan among more than 100 women, hanging onto the words of a talented writer who had done it longer, better and with more consistency than anybody else in the room.

Campbell, a Philadelphia literary treasure, had been writing women’s stories long before a bunch of Gen Xers distilled the genre into chick lit. (more…)

State of the Black Union 2007

WILLIAMSBURG, Va., Nov. 28 /PRNewswire/ — Jamestown 2007, the organizers of America’s 400th Anniversary, in partnership with Tavis Smiley Presents, Inc. announced today that the “State of the Black Union 2007″ will be held at the Hampton University Convocation Center on February 10, 2007, as part of America’s 400th Anniversary.

The symposium is free to the public, and will be broadcast live via C- SPAN. Anyone interested in attending can register online at http://www.tavistalks.com/ or by calling (213) 694-1883. More information about America’s 400th Anniversary can be found at http://www.americas400thanniversary.com/

Originating in 1999 and hosted by television and radio personality Tavis Smiley, “The State of the Black Union” brings together America’s black thought leaders, educators, public policy makers, religious leaders and community organizers to examine the African-American Imprint on America. The symposium takes on added poignancy in 2007 during the international commemoration marking the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, Va., and the arrival of the first Africans in America.

“Jamestown changed the world in many ways, but perhaps it shaped our nation most profoundly the day Africans arrived,” Smiley said. “I can’t think of a more relevant place to talk about the issues facing our community today than the place where African culture became American culture.”

A 36-member panel, including Angela Glover Blackwell, Cornel West, the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss Sr., Cathy Hughes, Bruce Gordon, Michel Martin, Tim Reid and the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, will join Tavis Smiley and co-host Tom Joyner to examine the impact of African Americans on western culture as well as current issues of importance to the African-America community. (more…)

Something worth thinking about: Christians demanding apologies

This is one of those issues that I have yet to figure out. Oftentimes when a person makes an “racist” comment, or if a place of business is accused of not treating its Black employees/customers fairly, the preachers are the ones that usually line up in front of the cameras to demand an apology–OR ELSE.

Did Christ ever demand that those who crucified him should apologize OR ELSE? While I totally agree with a person’s right to express how something made them feel, true repentance isn’t on-demand. While you can always make someone say “I’m sorry”, it is next to impossible to make someone be sorry.

Looking for good news ain’t easy

I spent a good part of last night into early this morning looking for good news in the Black community to post here as I always do for Wednesdays. While my news feeds under ‘racism’ and other related topics have been blowing up, all of my positive feeds have been somewhat bare for the past few weeks.

The truth is that good news is going on all the time in the Black community. Oftentimes it just does not get reported. This is why I often look to other Black-oriented blogs out there to see what others are talking about. Not surprising in most cases THE PEOPLE (not mainstream media hacks) still find it easy to follow suit with what MSM presents to us. While this in of itself is not always a bad thing, it serves as further proof that bad news holds more weight in our everyday conversations (for the racially-sensitive out there, I am referring to ALL FOLKS in that last part, not just Blacks, capeesh???).

As long as I am contributing here at BlackInformant.com, I will always set aside a day to exclusively present good news in the ‘hood. So if you find posting activity on Wednesdays tend to be a bit lighter than normal, you now know why.

In the meantime, you can check out the Success section on this site to see past postings related to our success as a people. Ebony Magazine and Black Enterprise are also very good sources.

All-natural soap and toothpaste company inks partnership with online retailer

Minar Products LLC recently announced the establishment of a partnership with Peapod.com, making the all-natural soaps and toothpaste available through yet another national online retailer. The announcement comes just weeks after Minar secured a deal with Walgreens.com and steadily increases Minar’s national presence and availability.

“The Peapod partnership will be vital to our overall growth in the next year and we look forward to expanding our brand to Peapod.com consumers across the country,” said Henry Stewart, president of Minar. (more…)

Comment on “A closer look: Why do some women CHOOSE to strip?”

“I used to strip, I think at the time you try to forget where and what you are doing for a job.The more alcohol you drink the easier it is then the next morning you look at all your money and you try to justify it but when it comes down to it you feel dirty and worthless.Still there is nothing wrong with it , it does help alot of people in a time of need, there is alot more married men there then wives would like to believe.” –Michelle

Link to post here.

“I will not use the n-word”, “I will not use the n-word”, “I will not use the n-word”…

Activists urge boycott of the ‘N-word’

(latimes.com) “Comic Paul Mooney used to joke in his routine that he uttered the “N-word” 100 times every morning.

“Well, white folks, you shouldn’t have ever made up the word,” Mooney, who is black, says in promotional material. “… I say nigga 100 times every morning; it makes my teeth white.”

But on Monday, Mooney pledged never to use the word again after seeing a video of white comedian Michael Richards, who used the word — and other slurs — to denounce hecklers at a recent performance captured on video.

“I’ve used it and abused it, and I never thought I’d say this,” Mooney said, but Richards “is my Dr. Phil — he’s cured me.”

Mooney, whose career credits include writing for the late Richard Pryor and the TV show “In Living Color,” joined Monday with African American leaders including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) in calling for rap stars, hip-hop artists and everyone else to stop using the offensive word. They endorsed an NAACP campaign to “just say ‘no’ to the N-word.”

“We’re not trying to penalize anyone,” Waters said at a news conference at the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper, “but don’t use the N-word, no matter who you are, whether you’re black, white, young or old.” (more…)

I wonder how this will go with those (some of who I debated over the years) who feel that this word is indeed a “cultural expression”?

Davey D, 1999

“Using the word “nigga” as an identifier in the fraternity of hip-hop is no different. In fact, it is perfectly natural according to some definitions of hip-hop. If you define hip-hop as a survival mechanism, as a means of making something from nothing, then the act becomes compulsory. It’s an act of empowerment. When we call each other “nigga,” we take a word that has been historically used by whites to degrade and oppress us, a word that has so many negative connotations, and turn it into something beautiful, something we can call our own. I know it sounds cliche, but it truly becomes a “term of endearment.” We’re not using phrases and terminology that come from outsiders to define ourselves. We tell outsiders that this is ours; you’re welcome to play the game, but don’t forget, it’s still our ball. And we have every right to do what we want with it anytime we choose. That’s the intrinsic beauty of the word, this act of self-definition. This is well within the framework of hip-hop and certainly within the larger framework of the cultural expression of the African American. It is from this same sense of creativity that slaves made gourmet delicacies from parts of the pig that “Massa” considered inedible innards. It is from this spring of creativity that niggas in the Bronx formed the early stages of what we now know as Hip-Hop Culture. I’m really not in the habit of quoting N.W.A., but I think they put it best–I guess I’m just a nigga4life.” (source)

The “Richards” effect

Now that it took a white man to see the ugliness of the n-word, how about using some white guys in a music video that depicts them referring to Black women as “bitches”, “ho’s”, or Kanye’s favorite, “Mutts“?

Bettah with 2

(mercurynews.com) The good news: The teen birth rate is at an all-time low.

The bad news: The out-of-wedlock birth rate is at an all-time high.

Children born out of wedlock are at much higher risk to grow up in poverty, drop out of school, get in trouble with the law and become teen parents themselves. That’s why it’s in the nation’s interest to encourage stable parenting relationships.

According to a newly released government report, more U.S. women are waiting to have children till their 20s — but not waiting till they’re married.

The teen birth rate, though still higher than in other affluent countries, has declined by 35 percent since 1991; for black teens, births fell by 59 percent.

There’s no European-style birth dearth in sight: Birth rates rose slightly for women in their early 20s and for women in their 30s and 40s.

On the bad news side, 37 percent of babies born in 2005 were born to unmarried women, concludes the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics. The rate is inching up steadily.

One explanation is that Americans are postponing marriage: The median age at first marriage was 27 for men and 25 for women last year, up from 23 and 20 in 1950.

In some cases, parents live together for several years, then decide to make it legal. But it’s all too common for unwed fathers to drift away, leaving a single mother struggling to make a living while raising a child. (more…)

Recess: An endangered species

(usatoday.com) Remember when recess was the best part of the school day? Not any more. In some parts of the country, that carefree half-hour — when kids could run, jump, scream and play tag or other games — is on the endangered list.

[…]

Two-fifths of American elementary schools have either eliminated recess or are considering doing so, according to a National Parent Teacher Association survey. And in many places where recess survives, play has become an intensely overregulated event.

Tag and other “unsupervised chasing games” have been banned or discouraged at schools from Massachusetts to California. “No Running” signs have been posted at school playgrounds in Broward County, Fla. Tall slides, swings and teeter-totters have been removed.

The motives for all of this — promoting safety, avoiding litigation, protecting feelings, providing more learning time — are well-intentioned. But something more important is being lost in the process. (more…)

Related post: “The School System: A National Lab Project”

N.O.P.D. still not able to control crime on its own

(katc.com) NEW ORLEANS — Police Chief Warren Riley said Monday that he will ask the governor to extend the National Guard’s mission here well into the new year. It is supposed to expire Dec. 31.

Riley said he planned to make a written request within the next day or two, seeking to keep the guard here through June _ and essentially on patrol for a year.

[…]

The city has been dealing with a spike in violent crime. There were six killings over the long, holiday weekend. (more…)

Related article: “New Orleans Crime Hurts Tourism”

**Notice how this year-long crime wave has been ignored by those who just over a year ago were trippin’ over themselves to speak for the poor in New Orleans? Now that the drama of the storm is over, so goes the “15 seconds of activism” crowd. How many benefit concerts have you seen for N.O. that shed light on this issue? I wonder if Spike Lee working on a follow-up documentary?

Link the murder weapons to Haliburton–now there is a story that has teeth, right?

For you Bruce Lee fans

(AP) HONG KONG - A theme park with a statue and memorial hall will be built at Bruce Lee’s southern Chinese ancestral home of Shunde, the president of his fan club said Monday.

The park will also contain a martial arts academy and conference center, Wong Yiu-keung, chairman of the Hong Kong-based Bruce Lee Club, told The Associated Press.

Wong said he couldn’t confirm details of a report Monday in the Apple Daily newspaper that said the park was budgeted at $25.5 million and was expected to be completed in three years. (more…)

A blog that addresses childhood obesity

Check it out!

www.myoverweightchild.com

In-house traditions

About 6 years ago or so, me, my wife and our first child (who was an infant at the time) traveled to the Carolinas to attend my grandfather’s funeral. With people coming from all over and with very limited space in my grandparent’s house, we had already made plans to get a hotel room in the area. When we arrived into town, my mom and aunt mentioned that the next door neighbor of my grandparents had already expressed that they would be willing to house some of the family. While I barely remembered this elderly couple from all the summers I would visit my grandparents, she remembered me going all the way back as a young child.

Later that evening when we arrived at the neighbor’s door, they could not wait to let us in. After talking with them for a few minutes, it was time for us to go to bed. This elderly couple took us down a short hallway that led us to a very neat small room that was dimly lit. As we were unloading our luggage, one of them mentioned to us that if we needed anything, that they would be “out here”. Then it dawned on me–this was THEIR bedroom, and they were letting us use it. After we made several attempts to convince them that we would be fine on the much smaller guest room or even the couch, we gave up. This was their way of honoring their guests.

Personally, I felt kinda awkward because I was always taught to honor the elderly. I had never seen it the other way around. As my wife and I laid in the bed that night, we made a commitment to ourselves that anytime a guest would spend the night at our house, we would also give them the best room in the house–ours.

It’s been a little over 6 years and we have held on to that commitment.

Related: “Something worth considering: A “coming of age” celebration for our kids”

Something worth thinking about

Katrina victims
Katrina survivors
or Americans?

They (mainstream media) report, you decide.

Hip-hop community responds to continuing violence in N.O.

(2theadvocate.com) Leaders of the Hip Hop Caucus Institute of Washington, D.C., said Wednesday it is time to “stop the violence’’ that has claimed 140 lives in Orleans Parish so far this year and a record-setting 54 in adjoining Jefferson Parish, the majority of them young people.

“We will not have a 22nd century if we do not solve this. This must stop,’’ Hip Hop Caucus President Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. said at a news conference in front of John McDonogh Senior High School, where a sign at the entrance reads ‘Gun Free/Drug Free Zone.’

Yearwood, joined by other officials with the nonprofit Hip Hop Caucus and members of other community activist groups, said violent gun crime is a major obstacle for displaced residents wishing to return to the New Orleans area 15 months after Hurricane Katrina chased them away.

“That bridge called violence is stopping us from coming back,’’ he said.

And here comes the punchline…

Aljuwani argued that the “systemic problems’’ behind crime — a poor educational system and a lack of affordable housing and good jobs — are not being addressed. (more…)

All roads lead back to Daddy…Daddy government!

I have reached the point that conferences that address this issue are nothing more than ego-boosters for those who want to feel like they are doing something positive. Line up all the Rev’s, find a Amen section and one can be easily fooled. If the Hip hop community want to address violence in our communities, they should stop glorifying it in their own music. As far as the “systemic problems” behind the crime”, Aljuwani may want to start in the home life of these kids who are committing these crimes instead of bringing government into the equation.