The Black Informant

The cutest thing

Now I NEVER use the word “cute”, but what happened yesterday brought it out of me.

When I read to my kids, I am usually very animated (something I learned from my Mom). Although it can be challenging at times to contort my baritone voice into the voice of a little girl or woman, the kids never seem to mind. In fact, it makes the story funnier.

Yesterday while in the library, I was reading to my kids when all of a sudden these two handsome brown angels came nearby with their mother as she looked for books. While they sat on the mat closest to us, I could tell that I had grabbed their interest just by reading the story to my kids. Little by little the youngest of the two inched over to us with his few books in hand until he was right there peering over the book next to my daughter. Like I always do, I stopped several times in the story to ask questions like “What would you do?” and “Was that a good thing?” and he was more that happy to answer with nods then eventually speech. When I finished the book, I asked him if he had a book he wanted me to read. So he reached into his little stack and handed me a book on baseball. “Baseball is my favorite!” he said. So enjoying this impromptu role as “Soul” Reader Rabbit, I began to read the book.

At about the third page or so his brother (who was sitting nearby on the mat) came and sat next to me. Then he actually laid his head right on my shoulder as I continued reading the story.

Well, with all of them (except my son) being 6 and under, they quickly lost interest about halfway into the story and moved on to something else. Nevertheless, it was a brief moment in time that I will not soon forget.

Earlier, their mother had asked me if I minded that they were including themselves in our reading time. I told her “Certainly not”! Still I was still a little surprised that she didn’t seem to mind that her kids were so close to a stranger. “Did these kids have a father at home?”, “If so, did their father ever read to them?” are the questions that went through my mind. Regardless, this was yet another tender exchange between a Black father and children uncaptured and unspoiled by mainstream media and the howling of critics.

Another myth busted? Bias and credit scores

(baltimoresun.com) In a report to Congress that is certain to generate controversy, the Federal Reserve Board says that credit scores vary “substantially” among racial and ethnic groups, but have made credit more available for major consumer purchases such as buying a home.

The Fed’s study, encompassing credit bureau records and demographic data from a national statistical sample of 301,536 individuals, was mandated by Congress in 2003.

Credit scores are heavily used not only in home-mortgage underwriting and pricing, but in credit cards, auto loans, employment and rental application screening, and by the insurance industry.

Critics have questioned the accuracy and fairness of credit-score models, charging that in some cases they are inherently biased against minority groups such as African-Americans and Hispanics.

After a wide research effort over several years that focused on three credit-scoring models — including one created by Federal Reserve staff economists — the agency concluded that:

• Credit-score statistical factors and models are not biased against any particular demographic group and are highly predictive of future payment performance. Lower scores correlate strongly with future delinquencies; higher scores are associated with good payment performance.

• African-Americans and Hispanics, on average, “have lower credit scores than non-Hispanic whites and Asians.”

• Younger individuals of all demographic groups tend to have lower credit scores on average than older individuals, in part because credit-scoring models focus on past payment histories and length of credit accounts. Younger consumers generally have fewer accounts and shorter payment histories.

• The payment performances of some demographic groups are somewhat worse — or better — than their numerical scores might suggest.

For example, according to the Fed, “blacks, single individuals, individuals residing in lower-income or predominantly minority census tracts show consistently higher incidences of bad performance than would be predicted” by their credit scores.

On the other hand, “Asians, married individuals, foreign-born (particularly, recent immigrants), and those residing in higher-income census tracts consistently perform better than predicted” by their credit scores.

• Recent immigrants’ scores might be improved by expanding the range of credit-like accounts reported to the national credit bureaus to include rent payments and other recurring accounts. Once in the bureaus’ files, these accounts could then be used to help compute immigrant credit scores, enhancing their ability to predict future payment behavior.

• The types of credit used by various demographic groups “do not appear to be the source of differences in [payment] performance once [the] credit score is taken into account.”

That finding runs counter to criticism by some consumer advocates that mortgage lenders and brokers tend to steer African-American and Hispanic borrowers into higher-risk, higher-cost loans — subprime adjustable-rate home loans with hefty payment jumps, for example — that increase the likelihood of default and foreclosure. (more…)

While I do believe that the whole credit scoring system can be very confusing, I never believed that the whole bias rap never had any credence. Credit reports can and have always been challenged oftentimes resulting in a higher score. But here is the key: Folks have to be willing to go through the process and have have some sane level of patience if they want to see improvement in their credit score. The system isn’t the greatest, but it does work.

Meanwhile, part of me wants to address Obama’s latest pandering to voters who could loose their homes thanks to their sub-prime loan. But I see that the folks over at LA Times (yep, THAT LA Times) are doing a good job without me.

Yes.Bush is off his rocker too!

I wonder if the few families not too far from me whose over-million dollar, over 6,000 sq. ft homes are now being sold as bank repos would be considered as victims of the mortgage industry? And if so, should folks living well within their means be responsible for bailing them out with their taxes?

I’ll answer that one–NO!

Related:

Check out my podcast: BlackInformant.com Podcast:”Understanding the Mortgage Industry and Subprime Loans” Interview with Mortgage Industry Expert Christopher Cruise —Click under “Podcast” on the top of this page.

African-American media company purchases Radio One Augusta Stations

Oklahoma City, OK (BlackNews.com) - Perry Publishing & Broadcasting Company has partnered with veteran communications executive Sheila Eldridge to acquire five radio stations in Augusta, GA owned by Radio One Inc. (NASDAQ:ROIAK and ROIA)

Russell M. Perry, owner of Oklahoma’s largest African-American owned media company, announced that he has formed Perry Broadcasting of Augusta with Eldridge, a minority partner, to acquire four FM stations and one AM station for $3.1 million from Radio One Inc., the nation’s seventh largest radio station owner. The stations are WAKB-FM (Urban/AC); WAEG-FM (Urban); WTHB-FM and WTHB-AM (both Gospel); and WFXA-FM (Alternative Rock). (more…)

Is the Black blogosphere a fair representation of Black America?

This is an issue that I have been wanting to address for a very long time. Let’s start off with some numbers from Pew Research (pay close attention to income and education levels)–

Demographics of Internet Users (source)

Below is the percentage of each group who use the internet, according to our February-March 2007 survey. As an example, 70% of adult women use the internet.

I raise this question only because since many of us have made the plight of the Black poor the sum-all of the Black American experience, just how many of us who write day in/day out basis to our own blogs about issues such as poverty actually know what it is like to live in that situation? Was the Katrina experience nothing more than a flash in the pan solidarity movement by Black folks online who would normally not associate with this segment of our society? Does one have to have experienced poverty in order to articulate the issue? And if so, why do we expect our politicians to have such experience? Very hard questions indeed.

I could add some commentary to this, but I think I much rather wait to see what kind of comments this post yields before adding my two cents. I may even create a whole separate post altogether depending on how the rest of my goes.

We humans are so inventive

Found this in front of our local Pennysaver magazine as I was leaving the grocery store.

In case you cannot read it–
“THE ONLY PAIR OF JEANS that naturally style your legs, reduces your stomach and lifts your butt making you look Fabulous and Sexy”

Meanwhile, back in the 1800s—

“The bustle was a typically Victorian fashion. Although most bustle gowns covered nearly all of a woman, the shape created by the combination of a bustle and corset (accentuating the rump, waist, and bosom) resulted in a highly erotic and idealized conception of femininity, possibly inspired by the exaggerated images of the South African woman known as “Hottentot Venus” exhibited throughout Europe in the first part of the 19th century.” (source)

Hmmmm, Hottentot Venus…

“Saarjite Baartman/ The Hottentot Venus

Saarjite Baartman (images below), a young Khosian woman from Southern Africa whose body was the main attraction at public spectacles in both England and France for over five years, is perhaps the most infamous case of a Khosian body on display. Baartman, who became known as the Hottentot Venus, was brought to Europe from Cape Town in 1810 by an English ship’s surgeon who wished to publicly exhibit the woman’s steatopygia, her enlarged buttocks. Her physique, particularly her steatopygic appendage, became the object of popular fascination when Baartman was exhibited naked in a cage at Piccadilly, England. When abolitionists mobilized to put an end Baartman’s public display, she informed them that she participated in the spectacles of her own volition. She even shared in profits with her exhibitor.

The spectacle of Baartman’s body, however, continued even after her death at the age of twenty-six. Pseudo-scientists interested in investigating “primitive sexuality” dissected and cast her genitals in wax. Baartman, as far as we know, was the first person of Khosian-descent to be dismembered and displayed in this manner. Anatomist Georges Curvier presented Baartman’s dissected labia before the Academie Royale de Medecine, in order to allow them “to see the nature of the labia” (Gilman 235). Curvier and his contemporaries concluded that Baartman’s oversized primitive genitalia was physical proof of the African women’s “primitive sexual appetite.” Baartman’s genitalia continued to be exhibited at La Musée de l’Homme, the institution to which Curvier belonged, long after her death.” (source)

“Several prints dating from the early nineteenth century illustrate the sensation generated by the spectacle of “The Hottentot Venus.” A French print entitled “La Belle Hottentot,” for example, depicts the Khosian woman standing with her buttocks exposed on a box-like pedestal. Several figures bend straining for a better look, while a male figure at the far right of the image even holds his seeing-eye glass up to better behold the woman’s body. The European observers remark on the woman’s body: “Oh! God Damn what roast beef!” and “Ah! how comical is nature.” (source)

Scared of fast food

As I get older, I am noticing an increased hesitancy of having my food cooked by a kid who has to have a sign posted in the restroom reminding him/her to wash their hands before leaving.

I remember many moons ago as a teen when I worked at the McDonald’s in our town. I only worked weekends, so needless to say that is when we saw the most interesting traffic. A co-worker friend of mine used to do stuff in the grill area that was so over the top, we would be laughing for hours. There was this one time when he pulled off the twelve patties off the grill and placed them on buns, he kicked the tray and sent all the patties flying to the ground. Instead of throwing them away he just scooped them up, finished dressing them and passed them to the front to be served.

There was another time he saw a roach crawling near the deep fryer pit. He smacked it with the spatula and watched as it fell in the hot oil. Apple pies—served! There were other things, but quite frankly I am not trying to remember them right now.

Last thing. I love good cole slaw, but after seeing some hidden camera show of someone snotting in a customer’s food, I only try to eat mayonnaise-based foods made by either me or my wife.

I know I just screwed up about half of your lunches today :)! Hey, all the more reason why you should make your own lunch.

We love drama

Looking back 2 years ago now as hurricane Katrina was pummeling the Gulf coast, I remember how the images of stranded individuals, folks who pleaded to the thousands of cameras for someone to find their baby and all the horror stories coming out of the Superdome that seemed to change almost daily. It was all of these images and others that stirred up a nation to look face to face at the plight of its poor– the Black poor.

If there is one thing that I understand about mainstream media, they do understand the power of race and will use it to their advantage as often as possible. As if viewers could not see the obvious, reporters like Shepard Smith repeated told viewers that most of the survivors were African-American while Wolf Blitzer stated the following to his viewers:”You simply get chills every time you see these poor individuals, as Jack Cafferty just pointed out, so tragically, so many of these people, almost all of them that we see, are so poor and they are so black, and this is going to raise lots of questions for people who are watching this story
unfold.” And of course as mainstream media sneezed, many Black Americans caught the fever of making this into a case of racial injustice. Blogs were created to track every bit of news coming out of New Orleans, non-profit organizations were popping up left and right in order to raise funds to send to folks who really needed it, and GASP!!!!! Local government was being scrutinized.

Now that the water has dried, homes being rebuilt and those who became the unofficial hype persons for the poor in a post-Katrina New Orleans have profited with free advertisement for their next book or documentary, New Orleans and its poor are slowly becoming yet another sad footnote in American history. Now that the drama of the storm has left New Orleans along with the attention of most of mainstream media, the fever most folks caught two years ago over the plight of the poor in New Orleans has also left.

Father Bill Terry of St. Anna’s Episcopal Church in New Orleans has kept what he calls a murder board posted outside of his church that lists the names of every individual who has been murdered in that city this year. Did you know that “…In the first 28 days of this month alone, the city witnessed 26 killings, according to the New Orleans Police Department. So far in 2007, police say 136 people have been killed. That puts the city on pace for roughly 200 slayings this year.” (source)? Unlike during the Katrina coverage, you will not see the uncovered bodies of these victims lying in the street—only names. That is 28 of mostly our young Black men who have been killed in one month and in one city. And yet, if mainstream media doesn’t make a big deal about it most of us follow right along and jump to more important things they deem important–like the rantings of Don Imus.

When government was slow to immediately respond to the monetary needs required to help that city, the Federal government became the favorite target of those who echoed the sentiments of Kanye West: “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people”. Since that time, the Federal government has responded. Check out this excerpt from Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune–

Although the Bush administration deserves the depressed approval ratings it received for its slow response to the Katrina emergency, we should not let inept state and local leaders off the hook for the sluggishness with which federal help reached those who need it.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin point fingers of blame at each other and at federal bureaucracy for the city’s sluggish recovery. But the more time passes since Katrina, the less the hurricane can be used as an all-purpose excuse for inept state and local leadership.

Overall, Congress appropriated $94.6 billion for hurricane restoration. Most was spent on emergency relief and other short-term projects, such as debris removal and emergency funding. Just over 40 percent of the $35 billion appropriated for long-term rebuilding has been spent.

Of the $328 million that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has obligated for emergency response and to rebuild city-owned infrastructure, New Orleans reports that only $185 million of it has trickled down from the state. (source)

Once again, the drama factor is gone because no longer can the media continue to show a President patting the back of his FEMA director, Michael Brown praising him for doing a great job in the recovery while thousands were still left stranded in and around the Superdome.

As I mentioned on this site before, if we want to see the same level of concern for the Black poor in New Orleans as we did during Katrina, Mayor Nagin should be replaced with a klansman with a penchant for Black women on the side.

Now that’ll make a good story!

Related -

Assuming the best versus expecting the worst
Random people behind the statistics (and you want me to target ALL my anger towards White against Black injustices?)

The gun control circular argument

From Courtland Milloy –

Someone read a statement from Jackson urging “gun shops and gun manufacturers to stop the epidemic of rising gun violence.”

Excuse me, but I just don’t see why any black person would expect gun manufacturers and dealers to help us stop killing ourselves. At Realco, guys pull into the parking lot in big SUVs with tinted glass and spinning rims. They look like gangbangers from a rap music video. If some gun-control advocates had their way, Realco would reject those young black men as customers because they fit a racial profile. And Realco would be sued for not selling guns as surely as it was denounced yesterday for selling them. (source)

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Students, know your options before you sign

(usnews.com) As college students and parents scramble to line up educational loans in the last frantic weeks before classes start, many schools are still sending out lists of “preferred lenders” that steer borrowers to unnecessarily expensive loans.

Four months ago, most major lenders agreed to stop making payments to either schools or financial aid officers to win placement on the influential lists. In addition, many schools have agreed to codes of conduct that are supposed to open up the lists to lenders that offer the best deals.

U.S. News found, however, that the lowest-cost lenders are still omitted from many colleges’ lists. That means many borrowers don’t realize they could save hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of dollars by borrowing from a lender not recommended by the school.

Many of the low-cost lenders, for example, will waive the 2.5 percent upfront origination and default fees typically charged students who borrow through the federal Stafford program. That saves students up to $237.50.

And many low-cost lenders are also offering to knock as much as 2.25 percentage points off the federally mandated 6.8 percent ceiling on Stafford loans. (more…)

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San Francisco: One of many historical footnotes for liberalism

(usatoday.com) SAN FRANCISCO — Wayne Cooksey joined the flight of African-Americans from this city last year to escape soaring rents and buy a home. Michael Higgenbotham left six years ago for a safer neighborhood and better schools for his three children. Adell Adams retired and wanted to downsize but knew her home’s equity wouldn’t go far in a market where decent condos start at $500,000.

Aubrey Lewis was among the first to go, to nearby Oakland in 1977. “We left because of the housing situation,” says Lewis, 77. “And that was early. It hasn’t gotten much better.”

African-Americans are abandoning this famously progressive city at a rate that has alarmed San Francisco officials, who vow to stop the exodus and develop a strategy to win blacks back to the city. In June, Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed a task force to study how to reverse decades of policies — and neglect — that black leaders say have fueled the flight.

[…]

No single cause explains the continuing exodus, according to city officials, leaders in the black community, demographers and current and former black residents. The high cost of housing — one of the highest in the nation — is a dominant theme, but there are other factors:

•The loss in the 1950s and 1960s of a key black enclave to urban renewal.

•High crime rates in some of the city’s surviving black neighborhoods.

•Substandard public housing, as acknowledged by city officials.

•Dissatisfaction with underperforming urban schools.

[…]

At $9.14 an hour, San Francisco has one of the nation’s highest minimum wages. It offers a tax credit to working families. As of July, uninsured residents under age 65 became eligible for universal health care. Preschool is available free to every child. The city has approved more affordable housing in the past few years than at any other time in its history, Newsom says.

Many blacks here shun buying affordable housing because those homes have “equity restrictions” to keep them affordable, which means they can’t be resold at market rates. (more…)

As a resident of California, I can tell you that what this article says about the cost of living in places like San Francisco is no joke. What would be considered a shack of a home in other states can easily sell for well over a million in San Francisco. I have met countless numbers of Blacks AND WHITES who have been leaving that city along with others like Los Angeles and San Diego who have all told me the same thing: “It’s just too expensive.” These cities are quickly becoming the home of the two extremes: The very rich and the very poor–a divide that Liberals claim they want to bridge.

When I first visited S.F. a few years back, I immediately fell in love with it because it sorta reminded me of a New York on the west coast–except cleaner. However, the longer I stayed the more homeless folks I saw all over the city. Certain areas reeked with the smell of piss. Couple that with cost of living, one of the highest gas prices in the nation, ridiculously high rent and we quickly concluded that it was not the best place for us to raise a family (if you are single, typically these are just minor issues).

What I bolded above is what I typically base my opinions on when listening to liberals spout off about the utopia they can create if elected. I, along with many other Black folks have seen this ‘world’ first hand and have fled from it like the plague.

One more time–

At $9.14 an hour, San Francisco has one of the nation’s highest minimum wages. It offers a tax credit to working families. As of July, uninsured residents under age 65 became eligible for universal health care. Preschool is available free to every child. The city has approved more affordable housing in the past few years than at any other time in its history, Newsom says.

Read it slowly and ask yourself who is going to get your vote this coming election season (that goes for both sides of the political playground).

Related:

Does this mean that the city of Oakland is racist?
Liberalism’s crown jewel pushes out Blacks
The co$t of taking care of the homeless
Black folks to the public school system–”Peace”
Practicing whatcha preach
Liberalism and predominately black public schools

One school is finding it hard to keep up

(seattletimes.com) Seattle’s African American Academy was supposed to be a model for educating black children.

After almost two decades, it has come to represent the district’s continuing failure to raise black students’ academic achievement.

Seventh-grade math test scores at the K-8 school are the lowest in the district. Enrollment has declined, from a peak of 508 students six years ago to 339 today. When the district chose someone from outside Seattle to take over as principal this fall, the school’s backers protested the decision, a controversy that threatens to drain more students from the school’s half-full building on South Beacon Hill.

Now, as part of a new commitment to boost low-performing schools in the South End, the district is pledging $462,769 this year — enough for six teachers — to the academy, along with a math coach and a reading coach. If the school doesn’t show progress over the next few years, the district may close it.

“We are making that change, putting the supports in, holding them accountable, and if that doesn’t work, we have to look at other options,” said Chief Academic Officer Carla Santorno.

“Letting it limp along is a mistake we’ve made.”

A longtime dream

The African American Academy was the longtime dream of black education activists who were frustrated that even with integration efforts like busing and school choice, black students weren’t doing well in school. They wanted a school the African-American community could rally around, where black students felt accepted. When it opened in a shared Central Area building in 1991, 167 students were turned away because of a lack of space.

They planned a K-12 school where any student could enroll, but with an African-American focus, where curriculum is grounded in cultural principles such as unity, purpose and creativity, and where African-American history doesn’t start with slavery. Students wear uniforms and are called “scholars.” Some of the curriculum focuses on identity issues. For example, in one unit, middle-school kids watched the evening news and discussed its portrayal of African Americans.

District leaders say they want parents to have the choice of a school with an African-American focus, but they stop short of outspoken support for the school.

“I don’t feel like the district always made the academy the priority that it could have been and should have been,” said Tony Orange, one of the school’s founders who now runs a social-service organization in the Central Area. “I think that had they seen it as the jewel that it is, that they would have invested more into it and felt more like we felt about it.”

[…]

Departing principal Malone, 57, has now retired for the second time. She was among a group of African-American educational leaders who first posed the possibility of an academy in the late 1980s. She still has “a mighty hope” for its success, she said. But she’s moving out of state to escape the school’s politics. She’s baffled by the school’s marginal academic success.

“It’s pitiful,” she said of the school’s test scores. “I’m the first one to say that. We’re not doing what we truly believe we can.”

This year, the academy was the only school in Seattle facing the fourth step of federal sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. Step four means the school must prepare for alternative governance.

In response, the district pointed to things it is already doing: installing a new principal and adding academic coaches. If the school can’t catch up with state standards next year, the district will already have begun the next step: restructuring of the school. Under federal law, replacing the principal and adding staff in critical roles count as restructuring.

District analysis of test scores shows that academy students make impressive academic gains year over year, especially in the elementary grades. But their seventh-grade math scores are the lowest in the district. In the 2005-06 school year, less than 4 percent of the academy’s seventh-graders passed the reading, writing and math portions of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL). (more…)

While I do believe that an African/African-American based education does have its good points, using the cultural approach alone is not a guarantee that kids will do better in school. I especially do not agree with the notion that “…kids learn best if they perceive that their teachers like them.” Here are two of my reasons:

1 - Most of the low test scores amongst Black students in this country come from mostly Black districts with a high percentage of Black teachers.
2 - Apparently this principle does not apply to Asian students as they consistently outscore other groups in areas like math and science under mostly White teachers.

I think that this is just one example of a good idea with less than marginal support both internally and externally.
On the other hand, schools like J.S. Chick elementary school in Kansas City, MO seemed to have been able to become a success story.

Related:

African American Academy

Maybe it’s just me, but…

I CAN’T STAND MYSPACE!!

I only have a few minutes, so here is my mini rant:

1 - About 98% of the time when I am directed to a myspace page, it usually takes about a minute to load–over a high speed internet connection.
2 - Too many things are trying to load at the same time (Music, videos and pictures)
3 - Backgrounds that make it next to impossible to read
4 - If I see one more person named j-smooth or sassy1…OVER 40…
5 - If you are over the age of 22, you probably should just get a regular blog.
6 - Why use a huge 640×480 id pic of yourself just to say ” ’sup “?
7 - The enormous amount of free advertising music artist receive.
8 - The enormous amount of brothas that post a pic of themselves with no shirt to show off a six-pack they were able to create by sucking in!
9 - Why is everyone 99 years old?
10 - In order to see other pictures or just read the actual blog, you must become a member (which is why I have at least 5 accounts that I still cannot remember my username/password).

Then again, folks have been going nuts over it in droves so it must be cool.

Here is another young man you can prevent from becoming another statistic (8/27/07)

This bright face belongs to Michael, an energetic African American little boy who wants to know the stability, love and comfort of having a family all his own. Michael is a very good student, and he makes above average grades. Because of a traumatic past, he has had to address some emotional and behavioral issues through therapy. His behaviors have improved tremendously since he began to receive in-home clinical services. He continues to have difficulty sharing information about his past and will benefit from continued therapy. A patient, nurturing two parent family with other children is the home environment recommended for Michael. He has been through a lot and will be counting on his parents to provide a lot of one-on-one attention and positive reinforcement. Michael will thrive with the unconditional commitment of a forever family that makes him feel loved and accepted and valued as their son. (source)

Two more of our babies are missing (8/27/07)

HANADIE AL-SADUN
Case Type: Lost, Injured, Missing
DOB: Jan 20, 1992
Sex: Female
Missing Date: Jul 6, 2007
Race: White
Age Now: 15
Height: 5′6″ (168 cm)
Missing City: ROCKFORD
Weight: 120 lbs (54 kg)
Missing State : IL
Hair Color: Brown
Missing Country: United States
Eye Color: Brown
Case Number: NCMC1074789
Circumstances: Jasmine and Hanadie were last seen on July 6, 2007. They may be in the company of an adult female. They may travel to Michigan. Jasmine’s nickname is Jaz. The children are of Middle Eastern descent.

JASMINE AL-SADUN
Case Type: Lost, Injured, Missing
DOB: Dec 16, 1996
Sex: Female
Missing Date: Jul 6, 2007
Race: White
Age Now: 10
Height: 4′10″ (147 cm)
Missing City: ROCKFORD
Weight: 80 lbs (36 kg)
Missing State : IL
Hair Color: Brown
Missing Country: United States
Eye Color: Brown
Case Number: NCMC1074789
Circumstances: Jasmine and Hanadie were last seen on July 6, 2007. They may be in the company of an adult female. They may travel to Michigan. Jasmine’s nickname is Jaz. The children are of Middle Eastern descent.

When your gods are earthlings

Here is the latest on Juanita Bynum’s situation (some brief background on her husband):

(ajc.com) The estranged husband of national evangelist Juanita Bynum was facing turmoil in his personal life in the months before he allegedly lashed out and assaulted his successful wife in a hotel parking lot.

Thomas W. Weeks, 40, was evicted from his Duluth home after he and Bynum had separated. And he had a verbal dispute with an employee that turned physical, according to police reports.

Earlier this month during a sermon at the church that he and Bynum founded, Global Destiny Church in Duluth, Weeks alluded to marital problems between the two, church members said.

“He was really mean,” said Tiny Gilyard, 41, of Lawrenceville, who has attended Global Destiny for a year and witnessed Weeks’ sermon. “He explained that [Bynum] is not going to be preaching anymore. He said she was just going to come and sit down. … It was like he was jealous of her.” (more…)

Here is some news on another televangelist couple who is also on the road to divorce–

(christianpost.com) The married duo pastoring one of the nation’s biggest churches is planning for divorce.

Randy and Paula White of Without Walls International in Tampa, Fla., announced their decision to split at their Thursday evening service, shocking most congregants and bringing some to tears.

“It’s the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make in my entire life,” Randy White told the congregation with Paula by his side at the podium appearing choked up, according to Tampa Bay Online.

Married nearly 18 years, the Whites, who have both been married and divorced before, said in interviews that the split is amicable. They also mentioned that the divorce comes after years of visits to counselors.

Trouble in the couple’s marriage was picked up by The Tampa Tribune in May as the two were rarely seen preaching together anymore.

Both blamed the two different directions their lives are going.

Paula, 41, the church’s senior pastor, leads her own ministry, making frequent trips as a sought-after speaker, author and televangelist. She leads monthly services at her newly opened Life by Design Empowerment Center in New York, appears regularly on “The Tyra Banks Show” as a life coach and serves as oversight pastor at Family Praise Center in San Antonio, Texas.

Meanwhile, Randy, 49, has been traveling to Malibu, Calif., where he plans to start another church, he told his Tampa congregation. He already signed a one-year lease on a beachfront dwelling there but plans for the new church are on hold, according to TBO.

Randy White will remain at Without Walls as senior pastor and Paula will remain based in Tampa and pledged to return frequently to preach.(more…)

And finally, here is some very questionable news regarding former pastor, Ted Haggard—

(christianitytoday.com) Ted Haggard, former megachurch pastor and former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, is in the news again—this time asking gifts to provide two years of financial support while he and his wife Gayle study psychology and counseling at the University of Phoenix.

He sent an e-mail to reporter Tak Landrock of ABC affiliate KRDO—and from the way it appeals to “friends like you,” it sounds like it was sent to a lot of people. KRDO has posted the letter as a Microsoft Word document, which you can download from here.

The news was also covered by the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Associated Press.

The letter raises three issues:

First, the e-mail blindsided the group of overseers charged with seeing Haggard through his time of repentance, recovery, and restoration. The Gazette quoted Mike Ware:

“We will review that his statement was premature, and we will talk to him about that. It is not an official release from us,” Ware said. Ware wouldn’t comment on the propriety of Haggard’s plea for money but said he felt it was premature of Haggard to release the statement without first consulting the overseers.”

And there is more (follow the links in the full article I excerpted above)

Trust me, there is more coming out over other individuals in the near future.

Some time ago on this site I briefly talked about my own experience in ministry in both the local and national level. I guess I do not talk about it much here on this site because many of the folks are well known and I am not into diming folks out. I am a firm believer in scripture and the passage found in Numbers 32:23 is no exception: “But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out.” So it can become very difficult at times when I am talking with someone about church issues either on or offline because little do they know, I have seen a whole lot. So trying to craft a conversation around these things can be very difficult.

My experience

If the following sounds like I am rambling a bit, please forgive me. All of this latest news brought back a whole lot of memories. This is an abbreviated version. More »

This be me

I rarely take these kind of tests, but it is a relaxing Saturday evening with the family and I was in the mood.

Affirmative action and law schools

(wsj.com) Three years ago, UCLA law professor Richard Sander published an explosive, fact-based study of the consequences of affirmative action in American law schools in the Stanford Law Review. Most of his findings were grim, and they caused dismay among many of the champions of affirmative action — and indeed, among those who were not.

Easily the most startling conclusion of his research: Mr. Sander calculated that there are fewer black attorneys today than there would have been if law schools had practiced color-blind admissions — about 7.9% fewer by his reckoning. He identified the culprit as the practice of admitting minority students to schools for which they are inadequately prepared. In essence, they have been “matched” to the wrong school.

No one claims the findings in Mr. Sander’s study, “A Systemic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools,” are the last word on the subject. Although so far his work has held up to scrutiny at least as well as that of his critics, all fair-minded scholars agree that more research is necessary before the “mismatch thesis” can be definitively accepted or rejected.

Unfortunately, fair-minded scholars are hard to come by when the issue is affirmative action. Some of the same people who argue Mr. Sander’s data are inconclusive are now actively trying to prevent him from conducting follow-up research that might yield definitive answers. If racial preferences really are causing more harm than good, they apparently don’t want you — or anyone else — to know.

[…]

Supporters of race-based admissions argue that, despite the likelihood of poor grades, minority students are still better off accepting the benefit of a preference and graduating from a more prestigious school. But Mr. Sander’s research suggests that just the opposite may be true — that law students, no matter what their race, may learn less, not more, when they enroll in schools for which they are not academically prepared. Students who could have performed well at less competitive schools may end up lost and demoralized. As a result, they may fail the bar.

Specifically, Mr. Sander found that when black and white students with similar academic credentials compete against each other at the same school, they earn about the same grades. Similarly, when black and white students with similar grades from the same tier law school take the bar examination, they pass at about the same rate.

Yet, paradoxically, black students as a whole have dramatically lower bar passage rates than white students with similar credentials. Something is wrong. (more…)

Coz in the hood

(philly.com) An interesting thing has happened in the three years since Bill Cosby got blasted for, among other things, describing his people as “those people.”

Somewhere along the way, he became one of “those people,” connecting with black folks - especially poor black folks - in a way he never had before.

No amount of millions - and, trust me, America’s Dad has got more cash than Jell-O has pudding pops - could ever erase Cosby’s humble beginnings. Growing up poor in the Richard Allen Homes, dropping out of both Germantown High and Temple, repping North Philly all the way.

But since his controversial comments, which erupted during a speech that was supposed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, Cosby has traversed the country with a missionary’s zeal, espousing his message of African American self-responsibility.

Before, he often came off as unduly harsh.

His words: Poor people were the “lower economics,” kids who didn’t speak proper English were “knuckleheads,” and parents who gave their children African American names such as Ali and Shaniqua were lambasted.

Who could be inspired to do better when all they heard was a diatribe from the mouth of Cliff Huxtable?

Need for outrage

But here’s the thing. This year, as the homicides pile up at an alarming rate, with no end in sight and no solution on the horizon, the very unfiltered outrage Cosby was once criticized for openly expressing seems more than justified now.

We should be outraged that no one is outraged over this bloodshed. What does it take?

Apparently, if the Michael Vick case is any indication, you have to be a dog to get anyone to care. If you want jail time, kill a dog.

But black folks? Nobody seems to care that they are being killed every day. There’s no outrage from our public officials, not from our residents, not even from the disproportionate number of African American men the violence affects.

“I literally cry out every day [about] the idea of black men dying being normal and not even noteworthy,” says Marc Lamont Hill, professor of urban education at Temple. “What [Cosby] has done is model the type of outrage we’re supposed to have.” (more…)

Hill hit the nail on the head with his comment here. This was something I tried to express in my post “Random people behind the statistics (and you want me to target ALL my anger towards White against Black injustices?).” Young Black men being killed everyday in this country has become the norm in both White and Black circles. It as if folks have accepted the notion that being shot in a civilized country is a normal part of the life cycle of Black men.

As I said when Cosby first launched into his national tour on Black responsibility, how it is said and who it is said in front of does not bother me just as long as it is being said. Yes, there are folks out there that have addressed these issues in the same tone Cosby has been using. But he has both the audience and the money for it to hover in the consciousness of Americans a little longer than your average foot soldier out there who has been doing it without media fanfare.

What really took me over the edge with this was how folks online were screaming about the Jena six case while virtually ignoring the over 100 mostly Black individuals who were killed in New Orleans so far this year (within the same state as Jena) UNDER THE NOSE OF A BLACK MAYOR WITH MOSTLY BLACK SUPPORTING LEADERSHIP. No special blogs created, no chain e-mails…nothing. White cop shoots Black kid—wailing and screaming about how this is a continuation of slavery.

Finally, Cosby’s talks does not even come close to the harsh, unfiltered fire we throw around when criticizing Whites. Yet in the back of our minds we know “they” can take it. Criticism of Black folks (that is usually on the money) within earshot of Whites and now we have to play dead because he is being too hard on us.

Well there are hundreds of dead Black men and women in our streets who are not playing dead. Somebody has to get angry about this.

I know I have been sounding like a broken record on this issue, but it needs to be repeated. Something is really wrong when folks get more fired up about interracial dating than the life of another Black kids being snuffed out by another Black kid. This should not be the norm!

Which milk is better?

From Newstarget.com

Soy milk: Not recommended. Too many GMO soybeans, bad environmental impact and some possible undesirable estrogen effects. The isoflavones are good for preventing cancer, however.

Processed cow’s milk: It’s just gross. Homogenized, pasteurized, milked from unhealthy cows and containing alarmingly high levels of pus, this liquid is nothing less than frightening. Flee it.

Raw cow’s milk (organic): This is an acceptable dairy beverage. If it’s from healthy cows treated with kindness and good nutrition, this raw beverage is far better than processed cow’s milk.

Row goat’s milk (organic): Even better than raw cow’s milk, since the goat’s milk is easier to digest and more compatible with human nutritional needs.

Fermented milk from cows or goats (organic Kefir): A great choice! It’s alive, nutritious and great for digestive health. Make it yourself for best results. If you buy it, avoid the sugared-up kefir products in the store.

Raw almond milk: A top choice for vegans, one of my favorite beverages. Make it yourself with raw almonds, water a nut milk bag and a blender. Click here to see my almond milk recipe video. (click the above link for the details)

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I have a minor touch of lactose intolerance, so just on that alone I am not quite ready to try raw milk. Plus it is too dang expensive!!

Afrobella on women’s magazines

“As far back as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with women’s magazines. In my memory, they’re forever intertwined with trips to the hairdresser, where I’d inevitably wind up parked under a dryer. Needless to say, I started reading Cosmopolitan, Vogue, and Elle at a pretty young age. Before age ten I wanted to be a “Cosmo Girl,” the kind of fun, fearless, and flirty gal that Helen Gurley Brown encouraged us all to be.

But by my teenage years, I wasn’t feeling Cosmo’s endless exhortations on how to please a man (there are just so many numbered lists and Bedside Astrology guides one can take!). My godmother read Essence, but it seemed boring to me then, with too many articles about finances and not enough fashion spreads and celebrity interviews for my then-immature taste. My sister was a regular reader of both Glamour and Mademoiselle, so I absorbed those. But my school friend…”more.