Jeremiah Wright's Speech at NAACP Dinner

If you missed the live broadcast below are some videos of it that I found on YouTube. Preach Jeremiah Wright!

Part 1


Part 2



Part 3


Part 4

"White Niggers"....Wait, What Did He Just Say?

Recently, I attended a Black Student Union Meeting where we discussed the importance of race and identity. Like all mentally stimulating conversations, I left with a clear mind and a desire to discuss this issue more. Ironically, yesterday I came across this interesting little YouTube clip that I think everyone should watch. Although it is outdated these comments left me speechless.



So immediately, my mind was filled with questions. First of all, does he really believe that race is no longer a legitimate issue in the United States? Perhaps we have become so consumed in this “color blind” culture that we really think we have arrived. With the overrepresentation of minorities on television (although primarily in stereotypical roles), many in White America think that African Americans have no more to complain about. Secondly, did he really just say “white nigger” on national television? Why wasn’t this major news like the Don Imus comments, because I find this equally offensive? To use a term that has for ages been used to demean an entire race of people with such ease baffles me. I did not think people could do that. Quite frankly, the existence of this mindset confuses me and I really just wrote this post in hopes that others could enlighten me on their opinions or even to get it out there in conversation. Does race still matter? Does it even exist? Or are we as clueless as the “white niggers”. Enlighten me, enlighten yourselves.

Minister Louis Farrakhan speaks at State of Black Union

check out what he has to say: Part 1


Part 2

HOT TOPIC: 70% of Black Women Single?!

...(interesting video, from Oprah...check it out!!!)

An Open Letter to Bob Johnson: America's Favorite Dope Boy

In the words of the great Detective Alonzo Harris a la Training Day: my nigga!

I don’t know how you accomplished such a noteworthy feat or how your accomplishments have gone with such little notoriety, but you, sir, are an American Icon. You managed to sell the potential future of an entire race to Viacom, the drug culture, and creative mediocrity for a few billion dollars and all in the chorus of the soft applause and congratulatory whispers of Black America’s elite. It’s comparable only to Denzel Washington shooting Idris Elba in broad daylight on 125th street. Truly gangsta! My nigga!

First, you changed the conversation by removing any content that had the remote chance of expanding the knowledge base of your core viewers—Black youth. BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley? Canceled 2001. Teen Summit? Canceled summer 2003. BET Nightly News? Canceled 2005. What programming do you put in its place?

Hits from the Street—two hours of comedic cooning with a guy wearing spandex, a cape, and topped off with underwear on the exterior of his outfit.

106 & Park the original and 106 and Park part deux—two hours of the same videos we’ve all seen 200 times. The prior hosted by the Predator and a women he would never have. The latter hosted by a southern belle being chased by a random simp who, like his predecessor, will never have his lady of choice. Young teens may not be properly prepared for college or have any desire to change their environment, but they can surely “superman that ho.”

College Hill—a show not about the rigors and importance of higher academia, but rather one more focused on the sexual trysts and sophomoric behaviors of young, Black college students without once noting that their experiences are no different that those of their white counterparts.

Uncut—beautiful women parading like immature girls while shaking their asses for often broke rappers who will likely never make a video that will ever play anywhere but Uncut. Black Jesus? Really? Please click here for Uncut’s best of…

And the list goes on: Access Granted; Baldwin Hills; Beef; Cita’s World; How I’m Livin’; Lil’ Kim’s Countdown to Lockdown; and Spring Bling not to mention syndication of The Parkers, The Wayans Bros., and In Living Color. Oh, my! Please, by no means, can we forget about the genius of the Bet Awards! You ripped off every crappy MTV show you could and made a shitty, Black version of it. How did you manage to completely remove any quality programming and replace it all with absolute garbage with such little resistance? You’re my idol! My nigga!

And what about your work on Debra Lee? That was beautiful! A multi-millionaire, Harvard graduate who has fallen completely in line with your tactics and continued to drive your company into the depths of social destruction. She, along with all of your other cohorts (far too many to name) have depicted Black life to be little more than music, sex, bling, drugs, and crime. How’d you pull that one off? It’s as if you did that Agent Smith thing from the Matrix—stuck your forefingers directly into their sternums and snatched their souls right from bodies. That’s some Mortal Kombat, Shang Tsung shit! My nigga!

More over, you have helped to make each and every Black citizen—be they opposed to the mediocrity of the television station that bears the name of an entire people or not—a tacit participant of your non-sense. Guilt by association—genius! Our inability—rather, our refusal—to challenge BET’s programmatic strategy is far from puzzling. Sure, most decent Blacks are bewildered by your choices and desperate for positive images, but that’s juxtaposed against the fact that a Black person has finally developed wealth. Not rim money, not diamond grill money, not blow it at the club money, not Gary Coleman “damn homey, what the f&@k happened to you” money, but legitimate wealth. You found that part of us that wants you to succeed even at our own peril. My nigga!

You are the ultimate dope boy! You exemplify the corner boy. You destroy our neighborhoods with your full out assault on our people and we allow you to do it. Partially out of fear, partially because we benefit from your practice, partially because we know we have not provided you with the base you need to do better, partially because we take joy in your success. You’re the reason we revered Marlo’s psychotic leadership and mourned Stringer Bell’s death. You’re the reason we celebrated the Nicky Barnes NYT Magazine cover. You’re our guilty pleasure that hides in the shadows of our conscience.

You deal death sir, and I’m not speaking metaphorically. You sustain the urban drug culture that daily destroys lives, engulfs entire communities, and eradicates the strength of our culture. You are the megaphone for drug lords and thus enable them to continue their trade with little community resistance by allowing the publicists of the drug kingpins (rap artists) an unregulated platform by which they may spew their self-hated consequently influencing weak-minded adults and impressionable youth. I’d do you the honor of calling you a drug kingpin, but, in reality, you are but an intermediary. Your wealth does not compare to that of the Colombian coca planters you represent or those prison industrial complex benefactors whose interests you protect. Make no mistake Robert L. Johnson you are a murder. You benefit from the death of your people in the same way as those who stand on the corner. The blood of our children are on your hands, too. Moreover, to share the wealth, you’ve helped to pour that blood on our hands as well. You’ve helped to make us all murders and thieves. We’ve stolen our own futures.

But you gotta get that gwap right! Dolla, dolla bill nigga!

My nigga!

Hot Topic: Obama's Pastor Jeremiah Wright

I've been searching for unique takes on this debate. And I found two columns that I found to be quite interesting. The first is from a columnist for The American Spectator, a conservative journal. The following is an excerpt:

"Ever since Barack Obama delivered his much praised but inadequate race speech on Tuesday, the editorialists have been telling us how much we need a national dialogue on the subject.

Right. It's high time. So here's my contribution:

Rev. Jeremiah Wright's remarks about America were the worst things said about my adopted country since I came here from England in 1962. Louis Farrakhan and Malcolm X are not in the same league as this champion of race hatred from Chicago. Imagine if Senator John McCain had for years been a member of a church where a white pastor said that blacks should go back to Africa where they came from. And McCain were to respond: Well, I disagree with his remarks and I reject what he said but I won't disassociate myself from him, because he has been so important to my life. McCain would be out of the race in the blink of an eye. Yet Obama has not felt the need to distance himself from Pastor Wright.

The New York Times has praised Obama's speech as a "profile in courage." That is baloney -- reflecting the gross double standard that has prevailed for decades on the subject of race. The underlying problem is that the liberals who still control so much of the debate quietly agree with much of what Wright said."

He goes on to say several paragraphs down:

"Anti-white discrimination has been legal in this country for 30 years now, even though it is politically unpopular and goes down to defeat when voters are given a voice in the matter.

THE TRUTH IS THAT the African-American establishment benefits from the current system of affirmative action and racial preferences. They feel ennobled by their victim status. White liberals like this arrangement, too, because the cultivation of victimhood and the arousal of guilt feelings is their stock in trade -- practically their raison d'etre. The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof sought to excuse Pastor Wright's mendacious claims that the U.S. government engineered HIV as a death-dealing weapon against blacks. Maybe 30 percent of blacks believe that, Kristof wrote, in extenuation. Perhaps it's time to expose the lies that black leaders spread within their own communities, and not excuse them."

Click here to read the rest of Tom Bethel's, Senior Editor of The American Spectator, op-ed piece entitled, "Obama and His Minister".

In response to his piece, Vince McKnight responds. He offers great insight into what many people leave out in this debate: the history of racial discrimination against blacks in this country and its effect on our lives today. The following is an excerpt from his response:

"I read your article about the Obama-Wright flap, and there is an element to this story that you are missing. Indeed, much of the press is missing this point.

You minimize and trivialize the pernicious, virulent, and lasting effects of state sponsored racism in the United States. I will be the first to admit that the United States of America has made spectacular progress in becoming a more open and just society. However, many white journalists look at the world as it exists today in a vacuum, as if the past has been eradicated by the passage of landmark legislation and Supreme Court cases.

I am a 54 year old African American, Ivy League educated attorney. In my lifetime, I have personally experienced acts that you can't imagine. Moreover, I dare say, that if you took the time to speak to any African American over the age of 45 -- anybody -- and ask them to candidly tell you their experiences with racism in this country, you would understand that this is not a figment of their imaginations, that it had real and lasting impacts, and that no law can fix or undo the harm that has been done."

Click here to read the rest of his response (you will have to scroll down the page to find it, but it's worth it). Then I pose to you, did you agree or disagree with Pastor Wright's remarks? Also, what is your opinion on how the media has framed this debate? Since black voices are not the ones heard in mainstream media because we do not have control over CNN or MSNBC, we do not have shows like Glenn Beck or other political pundits, how do you feel about the silence of black voices in the media? And anything else you have to say about this, just speak your mind.

Obama's speech about much more than race

To say I was moved would the the understatement of my lifetime. This speech was by far the most honest and relevant testimonial on the state of race relations I've had the opportunity to witness. This is by far the most important speech delivered on this country's soil in more than forty years. Rest assured, win or lose, your children will watch, read, and relive this moment. This speech will be memorized and recited in classrooms along side the Declaration of Independence, King's "I Have a Dream", Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman", Act 3--Scene 2 of Julius Caesar, Old Major's address to his fellow farm animals in Orwell's masterpiece, and any other major speech that has embeded itself in the American psyche. But enough of my brown-nosing...what are your thoughts?

Someone, please, give a person with White Guilt a hug!!!

White people, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I simply do not have all the answers about Black culture, nor can I answer every question you have ever had about what’s it is like to be Black. However, if you still feed the need to pepper me with questions, let me tell you what I am not:

I am not a gangster…

I am not a thug. I am not even that mean. I am really just a big teddy bear.

I do not own a gun. I have never owned a gun. I have no idea how to use one. It looks heavy and complicated, so no thank you. However, I can play the hell out of the violin.

I do not have children, nor do I expect any in the near future. Honestly, I cannot afford them and I have no desire to pay child support. I do not have “jump-offs” whom I call only when I need physical satisfaction. I just do not lie that well and cannot really bring myself to tell that harsh a truth. I have never been a pimp or a player. It just seems like way too much work. No, I am not lazy, but I would rather put my effort into endeavors to will generate more than an orgasm.

I did not drop out of school. I do not know many people who did. I cannot relate to what it is like being uneducated in a digital world. I am not functionally illiterate. I did not have 80 students in a classroom. My high school did not have regular shootings and I did not walk through metal detectors to get to class. In fact, my schools were filled with people just like you and who ask the very same questions.

No, I am not a first generation college student.

Yes, I know my father.

No, my mother is not a crackhead and, while they had a hand in my upbringing, my grandparents did not raise me in lieu of my parents.

I have never sold drugs. I do not know how to “cook” crack. I cannot tell the difference between heroine and cocaine and I do not honestly understand the compositional difference between the two.

I have never been to prison. I do not live with my mother. I am not paid by the hour. I do not have a hustle nor have I sold anything on public transportation, though I respect anyone who can make a living doing so.

I am not the bullshit you see on TV so I cannot answer your bullshit questions.

I speak for many Blacks and Browns from Shanghai to Guadalajara who are sick and tired of being the sounding board and bearer of the burden of white guilt. So while I’m at it, let me tell you what I already know.

I am sure you are a fine person who does not have a racist bone in your body.

I am sure the one time you said the “N” word you were not aware of the meaning and how it offends Black people and that you have never said it again.

I know you are really curious about why rappers talk so negatively about women and how they use the “N” word with such ease. In all honesty, so am I.

Yes, I know seeing Roots for the first time really moved you emotionally and that you never knew slavery was that bad. I am sure you were shocked to find out that your family owned slaves. I know you denounce (and reject) the practice and, if it were you, would never have participated in the practice.

I am sure the checks you write monthly to the African orphans do a world of good.

I know the visit you made to the First Baptist Pentecostal Revolutionary Congregation this side of the Mississippi Church of God in Christ was both enjoyable and confusing. Sure, the music was great, but the dancing, running, and passing out would have almost anyone befuddled.

I know you thought welfare was easy money until you realized just how expensive it is to be poor.

And so on…

We get it White people. Overall, you are good people who simply do not realize just how bad things are. We only ask that you pass the burden of your guilt from us and act normally when you see us. Do not give us high-fives in the boardroom. More often than not, we will respond to our first names, last names or some combination thereof. You can resist using informal, urban greetings to us in an effort to be friendly.

If you really, truly desire to learn about different cultures, take a trip to experience them. Think of it in the same manner as your trip to see the Taj Mahal or your summer vacation in Egypt—it is a learning experience. Head down to your local community center, work with some kids and, while helping through whatever endeavor they have embarked upon in your presence, ask them a few questions to gain some insight.

Volunteer at a homeless shelter.

Ask your coke dealer why he sells drugs for a living.

Take a class.

Read a book.

But do not assume that because you get a response to your curiosity from a person of color who was pinned (and may have felt obligated) to answer your question that you have some additional insight. You simply have an opinion and opinions are like…well you know the rest.