culturegeist

Evolutionary Psychologist Satori Kanazawa Uses Bogus Science to Suggest Black Women Are Less Attractive

2011-05-22T15:24:00.004-04:00

Last week Dennis Romero of the LA Times reported about the backlash from a blog posted on the Psychology Today Website by Japanese "Evolutionary Psychologist" Satoshi Kanazawa (pictured left).

In an article entitled, "Why Are Black Women Rated as Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women, But Black Men Are Rated Better Looking Than Other Men?", Kanazawa puts forth the absurd conclusion that Sisters are less attractive based on a survey and his interpretation of black female intelligence and data about body mass index.

Kanazawa's Wikipedia page lists a strange list of controversial sociological theories that have raised eyebrows before; such as his assertion that people in some countries had poor health because they were less intelligent rather than because of poverty.

According to Wikipedia, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Minnesota, P.Z. Meyer, identifies Kanazawa as "the great idiot of social science."

One has to seriously wonder if any of the editors at Psychology Today actually read Kanazawa's piece before they posted it on their Website - and what he's doing as a member of the faculty at the London School of Economics.

Insane! Trump & Buchanan Move from Proof of Birth to Obama's GPA

2011-04-27T17:32:00.006-04:00

Republicans just keep getting crazier.

With President Obama's surprise morning news conference to release his long-form birth certificate to confirm what he and other legal experts have been saying since 2007 (that he was born in America) still reverberating in political circles, the right wing extremists who currently dictate the GOP's agenda and policy direction struck back.

Apparently undaunted by factual proof that the entire basis for the "Birther" movement is in fact, not true, members of the right immediately moved on to questioning the President's qualifications for getting into Columbia and Harvard.

In one of the most overt displays of racism I've ever seen, quasi-Presidential hopeful/media whore Donald Trump along with former-Presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan launched into a bizarre attempt to discredit the President's academic qualifications for getting into college and law school.

Meanwhile Media Matters reports that since March 2nd, Fox News has stoked the irrational flames of the Birther movement by promoting the Birther story an astounding 52 times - 84% of those reports went unchallenged or uncorrected.

At least it's evident to Americans that the 2012 GOP presidential campaign will be about one thing - the President is black.

Russia's Treatment of Foreigners Seeking Asylum Echoes an Ugly Trend of Hate, Intolerance & Violence

2011-04-20T17:28:00.005-04:00

An interesting investigative report by the BBC on the treatment of foreigners seeking asylum in Russia echoes a steady rise in extremism under the oligarchy of Russian Prime minister Vladimir Putin. Check out the 2007 Pod from Current TV on the right.

I visited Russia in the summer of 1987 as part of a high-school trip when it was still the Soviet Union. While Russia had a much stronger "law & order" central government authority back then and I met many, many cool Russian men and women of all ages; I still saw evidence of the kind of blanket racism directed against people of color the report talks about.

A Russian professor I had dinner and conversation with told me that Russian racism against people of color usually stems from resentment rather than the kind of indoctrinated, systematic racism based on ignorance (birthers) and fear one finds in the US.

When the Soviet Union was at the height of it's ideological and Cold War battles against the West in the 60's/70's, they made huge efforts to forge ties with poorer African, South American and Caribbean nations in an effort to extend their sphere of Communist/Socialist influence and gain access to the wealth of minerals, oil, gold/precious metals and crops. One of the results was that the Soviets allowed thousands of Africans to come to the Soviet Union and attend their best universities for free. Many working class Russians were locked into a rigid class system (despite Communist propaganda that touted an equal "worker's state"..total BS, never existed) that left them shut out of being able to send their kids to the best universities to become engineers, doctors, scientists, lawyers, musicians etc to gain entry to the "privileged class". Only rich and influential Soviets could send their kids to those schools - with rare exceptions (i.e children of high-ranking military officers, gifted athletes etc.)

So when many Russians SAW Africans in their country, they had a "built-in" internalized resentment towards them that was only magnified by the stark difference in skin color, race, language and physical characteristics. They saw these Africans as having access to privileges they themselves couldn't afford, and they hated them for it. It's still happening.

What's sad is Russia is such a rich, beautiful nation with a rich cultural history that stretches across music, literature, science and math. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, you saw the lifting of a heavy blanket of authority that had kept regional conflicts subdued under the proverbial "iron fist". The conflicts in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia for instance, exploded after the Soviet authorities departed and we all know the horrible ethnic cleansing, murder, torture and violence that resulted from simmering conflicts between religions and peoples that stretch back centuries that were allowed to rage.

Clearly Africans (or African-Americans) Cubans are NOT the only victims of racism within Russia. Nationalist movements and extremist groups that embrace violent Neo-Nazi ideology and fascism (curious given that ACTUAL Nazis murdered tens of MILLIONS of Russians in WWII...yes, racism is THAT ignorant) in recent years have targeted Jews, Muslims, political opponents of Vladimir Putin, journalists, human rights activists, foreigners and other ethnic minorities from various parts of the former-Soviet Union.

What frightens me is how some Russian state authorities quietly tolerate these groups, refuse to persecute them and essentially condone this behavior by doing very little about it. There was an excellent article on the bbc Website yesterday about how Russia treats foreigners seeking political asylum; housing Africans in leaky, cheap, substandard trailers in one of the poorest and most remote regions in Russia; people fleeing violence, civil war or worse for a chance to work and live in peace - worth a look to see how Russian immigration authorities "welcome them".

Outrage Over Orange County GOP Member Marilyn Davenport's Racist E-mail

2011-04-18T22:37:00.007-04:00

Orange County, California may be known as "Reagan Country" for it's large conservative voting base but give OC Weekly journalist R. Scott Moxley credit for calling out the GOP's growing tolerance of overtly racist ideology within it's leadership ranks.

A recent e-mail sent by Republican Party central committee member (and Tea Party activist) Marilyn Davenport has outraged even GOP members from her own party who have called for her to resign. The image (pictured left) is basically a photo-shopped image of the President's face on a baby chimp that suggests his parents were Apes - the image was accompanied by the words "Now You Know Why No Birth Certificate."

Davenport's callous use of the image and her stubborn denial to even acknowledge that it is in fact, racist shows just how ingrained the dehumanizing, warped image is in the global sub-conscious.

Depicting peoples of African descent as apes, gorillas or monkeys actually predates the United States and goes back to the earliest European encounters with Africans in the 16th and 17th century. In drawings and writings, European explorers and "scientists" first promoted the "Negro-Ape metaphor" to explain away differences in skin tone, facial characteristics and hairstyle and soon thereafter, justify the enslavement of Africans and their forced entry into the global financial juggernaut that was the slave trade.

A long line of people, from French philosophers, to Popes, to scholars have entwined bogus scientific theories with warped images of blacks to present them as sub-human savages and justify pseudo-scientific theories of racial superiority.

So people like Marilyn Davenport, who use these images, do so for a very simple reason; to promote centuries-old stereotypes of peoples of African descent as savage animals, devoid of Judeo-Christian values and justify an extremist ideology that treats non-whites (including the President of the United States) as less-than-human. Can you imagine the GOP e-mails that we DON'T see?

Beck is Out - Roger Ailes' GOP Spin Network Cuts Ties With Delusional Television Host Glen Beck

2011-04-07T16:59:00.007-04:00

Fact-challenged Fox News host Glen Beck tried to play off his being booted from his daily TV slot, but the reality is that his lies, distortion of truth and fear-mongering have negatively affected the Fox News brand, which is desperate to re-connect with the main-stream American audience that will ultimately decide who will win the White House in 2012.

As the 2012 Presidential race begins to take shape, clear signs are emerging that the GOP is going all-out to distance itself from the extremist radical fringe element that has dominated the party's agenda in the past few years.

A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows Americans are over perpetual- Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's empty, right-wing soundbite politics and ceaseless wavering over whether she'll actually step into the ring as she criss-crosses the nation racking up speaker fees.

Palin is now tied with former President George W. Bush with a 25% approval rating; that's just one point above Richard M. Nixon according to the Politicususa.com Website; a fact that only confirms whisperings in Washington that the GOP was quietly working to move the former vice-president candidate and her baggage out of consideration for the Republican Presidential nominee slot.

Hoping to capitalize on these setbacks for the Tea Party, Donald Trump has stepped forward to flog the dead horse of Obama's citizenship issue with a string of TV appearances apparently aimed at the fraction of Americans who think the President is not an American citizen.

While the short term gains from such a blatant media stunt might temporarily nudge The Donald's approval ratings above Mike Huckabee's, no serious candidate is going to win the White House stoking Birther's bizarre theories - and ultimately, it's just going to drain away support from the more main-stream Republican candidates who actually might have a chance to score with mainstream American voters - the majority of whom view the GOP as obstructionist and disapprove of their attempts to force a shut-down of the entire government over their ideological budget cuts.

The GOP has a ways to go before it get it's own House in order - but pushing Palin back to the fringe where she belongs and severing it's brand with Glen Beck's strange conspiracy theory nonsense is a decent start.

Welcome to 1984! Wisconsin Republicans Demand Access to Professor Cronon's E-mails

2011-03-26T14:40:00.009-04:00

A March 15th blog post about the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor William Cronon (pictured left) that laid out the truth about the American Legislative Exchange Council. His blog got a huge number of hits and he wrote a fascinating Op-Ed in the Times showing that Wisconsin actually passed unemployment insurance, worker's compensation and public employee bargaining legislation in the early part of the 20th century with the support of Republicans.

Apparently offended that a scholar would dare to disagree with efforts to further erode America's dwindling middle class, Stephan Thompson, deputy director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin is heading up efforts to subpoena Cronon's personal e-mail correspondence using a freedom of information request. Now I'm not debating the right of anyone to use freedom of information requests for legitimate reasons.

But Wisconsin Republicans trying to sift through the personal/work correspondence conversations of a history, geography & environmental scholar who is the president of the American Historical Association because he wrote something they didn't agree with?

It reeks of vindictive pettiness and an effort to elude substantive debate on a controversial measure to strip state employees of their bargaining rights.

What's next? A tap on his phone? Attacking a history professor? Really?
What a thuggish, McCarthy-like retaliatory tactic.

The Ghost of Diallo Haunts Miami - Chief Miguel Exposito Under Fire in the Wake of Travis McNeil's Shooting

2011-03-24T23:05:00.002-04:00

Add 28 year-old Travis McNeil of Miami, Florida to the list. And what was his crime? He was unarmed and sitting in parked rental car when he was shot in the chest. When will it end and where's the oversight?

It's been more than ten years since Amadou Diallo (pictured left), an innocent civilian from West Africa who spoke five languages and was armed only with his wallet, keys and beeper was shot more than 19 times by four over-zealous white New York Police officers from the NYPD's "elite" Street Crimes Unit while standing in the vestibule of his own apartment on a cold February night.

An autopsy later showed 15 of the 41 bullets fired entered Diallo's back and sides; one shot even hit the bottom of his foot.

As an African-American male living in Manhattan at the time I vividly recall the sickening sense of fear, revulsion and anxiety all New Yorkers, and indeed, people around the globe of races, religions and backgrounds felt in the wake of one of the worst incidents of excessive police force ever recorded in the United States.

I was instantly reminded of the incident when I read the March 22nd New York Times article by Don Van Natta, jr. profiling a string of 7 killings of unarmed black American citizens in the past 8 months by the Miami police department.

The disturbing cultural similarities between the hyper-aggressive "elite" police units are disturbing. The NYPD's Street Crimes Unit motto "We Own the Night" befitted a rogue police unit with an abstract mission and little organizational oversight that patrolled any of the five boroughs. Their members were known to wear custom t-shirts emblazoned with the famous Ernest Hemingway quote:
"There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."

Who actually shot Travis McNeil? According to Don Van Natta's New York Times piece Detective Reinaldo Goyo, a member of Miami's gang unit who appeared in a controversial reality television series called "Miami's Finest SOS" wearing a hoodie with the word 'Punisher' on the front. Another member of the gang unit, Officer Ricardo Martinez, killed two different men within 9 days in August, 2010. And so it continues. And continues. And continues.

US Bank's Contempt for Consumers

2011-03-21T01:09:00.004-04:00

“Why are the most risky loan products sold to the least sophisticated borrowers? The question answers itself — the least sophisticated borrowers are probably duped into taking these products.”

A 2007 quote from former Federal Reserve member Edward Gramlich, as quoted in Paul Krugman's latest op-ed piece in the New York Times, and it pretty much sums up a question that millions of American consumers would like to ask their banks.

I'd sure like to ask Bank of America. Here's a behemoth that defines "too big to fail". BOA got $20 billion in taxpayer funds from TARP then a guarantee of $118 billion to cover the assets of the questionable acquisition of Merrill Lynch

Yet they've fattened their own wallets by feasting on the checking accounts of it's own customers (including the blogger) using bogus charges and inflated penalties. They've used bad math, intentionally slow processing of foreclosure documents and chop shop law firms to boot people from their homes.

And how does Bank of America treat it's "least sophisticated borrowers" (see minorities) and those most subject to it's exorbitant overdraft fees?

I took the picture above with my Blackberry at the Bank of America located just off the intersection of Pico blvd and San Vincente blvd in LA last Thursday night about 8:30pm

The bank is surrounded by moderate to lower income rental apartment units, but there's a good size shopping center with a CVS, Ralph's, hardware store and a police station right there. But at night, if you try and withdraw cash - the machines "mysteriously" don't work.

Instead of dispensing cash - you get a screen like the one above stating that the machine is out of order, "please visit one of our other ATM's nearby". Nearby meaning a machine in an area with less African-American and Hispanic consumers?

Funny, as Paul Krugman observes in his latest column, Republicans seem determined to prevent the Federal government from granting it's own citizens from having even basic measures and protections in place to prevent large banks from praying on them. WTF?

Are Republican State Legislators Taking Marching Orders from A.L.E.C?

2011-03-19T15:27:00.013-04:00

If Republicans using their new-found majority-status in state legislatures around the US to broaden efforts to suppress voter rights, strip unions of their collective bargaining rights and cast public sector workers as the villains of economic recovery concerns you, then you should become familiar with the American Legislative Exchange Council.

University of Wisconsin-Madison professor William Cronon offers searing insight into the shadowy activist group and their not-so-behind-the-scenes influence on the recent string of conservative legislative efforts around the country in a must-read blog posted on March 15th.

The A.L.E.C was co-founded in 1973 by conservative icon Paul Weyrich, (pictured above) who used money from the Coors family to launch the Heritage Foundation and coined the term "Moral Majority". Though he died in 2008, his legacy is still being felt around the nation.

Case in point: 2010 efforts by Arizona Republican lawmaker's to pass a series of draconian anti-immigration laws thrust Governor Jan Brewer and the state's conservative legislature into the media spotlight last year. Based on the state's legacy, as in former Governor Evan Mecham canceling Arizona's observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday as a Federal holiday in 1986 (famously telling critics, "King doesn't deserve a holiday.") like many Americans, I simply assumed the efforts to marginalize illegal immigrants were driven by Arizona's conservative voter base.

According to Cronon''s blog however, the 2010 anti-immigration laws were actually drafted by the A.L.E.C. Which is funny given Republican's tendency to announce their initiatives as "the will of the American people." It's not.

In the March 18th New York Times, Richard A. Oppel reports that a consortium of Arizona business leaders led opposition resulting in five anti-immigration measures in the Arizona State Senate being rejected in the wake of the nationwide backlash against Arizona (thanks to Governor Brewer and State Senate President Russel Pearce) severely impacting revenue from tourism, state contracts and tax revenue.

Seeking to limit the power and scope of the Federal government is one thing; shifting that power to state legislatures who offer up laws drafted by a right-wing organization that envisions America as an Evangelist theocracy is something else entirely.

UCLA Student's Racist Rant Goes Viral

2011-03-16T16:08:00.006-04:00

As UCLA political science major Alexandra Wallace learned very quickly, celebrity can be a dangerous thing.

Like fire it can burn you, has an insatiable appetite and can spread REALLY fast.

Wallace, (pictured left) has quickly rocketed to international fame capped by various Facebook pages calling for her expulsion, different Youtube responses mocking her and even a New York Times article.

In the course of a 3-minute rant posted on Youtube, she manages to complain about Asian students in the UCLA library talking too loudly on their cellphones, make fun of Asian accents, bitch about Asian family members (gasp!) visiting their kids on campus on the weekends and permanently brand herself as a conceited, narrow-minded racist.

If the apparently buxom blonde was seeking fame, she's certainly found it. After receiving death threats "Allie" took her offensive op-ed piece down but it's been re-posted all over the Internet.

My favorite line? Wallace describing herself as the "polite nice girl my mom raised me to be." Great job mom!

Tea Party Reality Check: Bill Clinton Dismisses Michelle Bachmann in Davos

2011-01-27T22:44:00.006-05:00

It had the potential to be a big "national stage" moment for the Tea Party.

But instead Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann (pictured left) one of the far right's heaviest hitters, came off looking reactionary, uninformed and tediously combative - and according to the Time's Deal Book, Bill Clinton coolly sat down for an interview on the 2nd day of the World Economic Forum and called her out for boldly suggesting "Every American knows we have the greatest health care system in the world."

Actually, we don't. According to the World Health Organization US health care ranks 37th out of 191 countries; just behind Costa Rica. Bizarre gaffes are nothing new for the quotable Bachmann, lists of her jaw-dropping observations are legion online.

Using Bachmann's fact-challenged assumption, Clinton delivered a back-hand to the Tea Party in front of reps from the world's leading nations:

“Everyone knows that is factually untrue,” said Mr. Clinton, “We have to stop conducting our politics in a parallel universe divorced from reality with no facts,”

With the Tea Party Senate Caucus struggling to get more than 4 members in it's ranks and 30 out of 435 in the House, the party is over and it's time to get down to business. Time will quickly tell if the party the Koch Brothers money built can muster the ability to talk straight to the American people and get along on the Hill.

Has Putin's Tolerance of Intolerance Come Home to Roost?

2011-01-24T17:33:00.012-05:00

Pictured left, the funeral of Russian journalist Anastasiya Baburova, 25 slain by neo-Nazis in 2009 - pictured below

Last Monday, in a demand for a nationwide crackdown on extremist hate group activity in Russia (amidst the worst racial unrest since the fall of the Soviet Union) Russian President Dimitri Medvedev declared publicly that, "All Nazis, independent of where they come from... they simply undermine the cultural foundations of our state."

Seven days later Medvedev canceled his trip to Davos, Switzerland amid global shock and outrage in the wake of the apparent suicide bombing in Moscow's Domodedevo Airport that killed more than 30 and injured scores of others - raising serious questions of where the government of Vladimir Putin actually stands on the growing violent hate group activity within Russian borders that target ethnic and religious minorities, immigrants as well as Russian scholars, human rights activists and journalists.

Journalists like Anastasiya Baburova, (pictured above) a 25-year old writer for Russian magazine Novaya Gazeta killed in broad daylight less than a a mile from the Kremlin; her work focused in part on exposing Russian neo-Nazis. She was one of 14 people killed in January, 2009 a month before BTO, (a Russian neo-Nazi group) posted a "Death List" on the Internet with the names of dozens of Russian journalists, human rights activists and scholars.

For many of the millions of ordinary Russians shocked at the spike in neo-Nazi activity, the Putin government's alleged acceptance and tacit support for violent ultra-nationalist groups raises the question of whether a tolerance for extremist violence has in fact helped to create the very environment that led to today's bombing.

You can't feed the 800-pound chicken, turn your head when it violates the law using intimidation and violence, then act baffled when it comes home to roost - a lesson tiresome, fear-mongering 'Exceptional American' Sarah Palin still pretends not to have learned.

Does the term "Russian Neo Nazi" strike anyone as absurd given the (real) Nazis were directly or indirectly responsible for over 23,954,000 people killed within the borders of the Soviet Union during World War II?

Krugman Warns GOP Victory Will Prolong Recovery & Punish American Workers

2010-10-31T19:05:00.009-04:00

Like many Americans I’m a little baffled by some Congressional leaders and candidates who seem to care less about the actual merits and long-term implications of policy decisions than they do about fueling voter anger and frustration to simply trash President Obama, denounce his agenda and shackle his efforts to help guide the nation back to fiscal health and create jobs.

Few grasp the implications of the Republican War on Reality better than Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning Princeton University professor of economics, author, columnist and one of the worlds leading economic thinkers. In an op-ed piece in Today’s New York Times Krugman pounces on conservatives who brand debt-relief and government stimulus as a “reward for the undeserving.”

Recognized as a leading liberal thinker, Krugman rarely shies from calling Obama out when he thinks the President is wrong.

At a lecture at Princeton University yesterday Krugman voiced grave concerns about how tomorrow’s election results could slow the pace of the economic recovery should months of angry Tea Party rhetoric, character bashing and misinformation about the real causes of the global economic meltdown push Republicans into slim majorities in the House and Senate.

Krugman calls out the "Hell No" Republican leaders who've offered blanket opposition to the Obama's efforts to stimulate the economy. Some of the same politicians who helped loosen regulations to permit large banks to lend at the unsustainable rates that drove us into the mess we find ourselves and fed the incessant global appetite to borrow and spend during Bush's two terms.

On the eve of a mid-term election Republicans seemed poised to further erode the crumbling middle class, vilify the unemployed and increase the federal deficit by insisting tax cuts for the wealthy are the magic pill.

Helped, Krugman warns, by fickle progressives who may step into the voting booth tomorrow and re-align with the GOP because they're upset that niche hot-button issues like GITMO, immigration, clean energy and same-sex marriage were pushed aside - helping to put the same people who bear a large responsibility for driving us into the Great Recession in the first place, back into office. Madness.

Happy Halloween from the KKK!

2010-10-30T15:24:00.006-04:00

No those weren't men dressed in KKK costumes on the lawn of a Warrenville, South Carolina home on a recent Saturday night, nor was any pre-Halloween chicanery on the agenda.

The radical Tea Party's bank-rolling of perpetually pissed-off extremist candidates like New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is apparently bearing all kinds of fruit. Dovetailing the movement's "us versus them" anger issues, the Augusta Chronicle reports the Warrenville Klan ceremony was the first KKK cross-burning made open to the public since 1985.

Newly anointed Duwayne Johnson celebrated his ascension as the new Grand Wizard of the All American Invisible Knights by welcoming three new members with a good ole' fashioned cross-burning.

Why bother reporting about a seemingly obscure branch of a fractured, decentralized bankrupt hate organization?

"We see around us a series of overlapping social and political movements populated by people [who are] angry, resentful, and full of anxiety. They are raging against the machinery of the federal bureaucracy and liberal government programs and policies including health care, reform of immigration and labor laws, abortion, and gay marriage." according to Chip Berlet a veteran analyst of the radical right in the US.

Americans need to pay attention when cowards who put on hoods to conceal their identities while espousing hatred aren't scared to crawl out of the shadows. We need to remember this is the byproduct of divisive Tea Party rhetoric.

As millions prepare to dress up for Halloween parades and parties, it's important to be reminded that costumes like the ones pictured above ARE scary in terms of the dark legacy of murder, terrorism and racism they represent.

Deconstructing Dinesh D'Souza

2010-09-20T14:34:00.014-04:00

Politically speaking, writer Dinesh D'Souza has been Rogue for years. But he seems to be veering off the ranch according to reactions to his September 9th Forbes cover story, which among other things, posits the strange theory that President Obama's domestic policies and foreign policy strategy are shaped by what D'Souza describes as Obama's father's "hatred of the colonial system."

Apparently undaunted by the fact that Obama's own book "Dreams of My Father" makes clear the President was left rather disappointed with the man his father became, or that he was absent through most of his formative upbringing, D'Souza delights prominent conservative media pundits and thinkers by dangling proof that Obama is secretly some kind of foreign radical.

MediaMatters.org has completely dissected the text from the D'Souza piece and clearly identified at least ten claims from the article which are either completely false or stand in total opposition to established facts. Like Fox News Channel president Roger Ailes rushing to defend the tactless televised ramblings of Glenn Beck, Forbes stands firmly by D'Souza's error-ridden article.

Is Forbes magazine Going Rouge? The magazine wasn't always so flippant with facts. My father, a college-educated African-American raised in North Carolina during the Great Depression who went on to become a successful corporate professional and political conservative always had Forbes in his den when I was growing up. He was a long-time subscriber and considered it essential reading.

What's peculiar about D'Souza's cover story is that the Forbes brand, while certainly a bastion of the conservative, pro-capitalist economic mindset, seems to have taken a sharp right turn from the standards set by it's founder Malcom Forbes.

In the article D'Souza repeatedly combines his un-evolved conservative slant with a bizarre mix of his own brand of dime-store psychoanalysis and a rather klutzy distortion of the truth in an effort to provide some sort of intellectually substantive justification for Tea Party anger. It's like he tried to whip up some fodder for conservative pundits to use in the weeks leading up to the November election and no one at Forbes even bothered to fact check it.

D'Souza's conclusions from Obama's book "Dreams of My Father" have puzzled a number of journalists who have reported on the books factual errors.

As MediaMatters.org reports, "Everyone else" who read Dreams "saw Obama burning with disappointment in Barack Sr. In a September 13th review of D'Souza's forthcoming book, Slate.com's David Weigel wrote, "While everyone else read Dreams From My Father and saw Obama burning with disappointment in Barack Sr., D'Souza sees a man burning with 'hatred derived from the debris of the anti-colonial wars.'"

Media Matters also reports that Ryan Chittum described D'Souza's new book as "a fact-twisting, error-laden piece of paranoia." in the September 13th issue of the Columbia Journalism Review

But anyone remotely familiar with Dinesh D'Souza's writings and background can hardly be surprised that he's written an error-laden piece trashing the President. D'Souza's simplistic antiquated observations of African-American culture have long pegged him as being right up there with Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin in terms of conservative media superstars long on wind and short on intellectual substance.

In D'Souza's book The End of Racism, he demonstrated an alarmingly uninformed grasp of American history by making the claim that the "American slave was treated like property, which is to say, pretty well."

He wrote a book blaming liberals for the 911 attacks.

But who is he really? D'Souza is an immigrant from Mumbai, Matashra, India who arrived in the United States in 1978. Raised in conservative Arizona, according to a 2007 Boston Globe article by Peter Canellos, D'Souza first grabbed headlines as a 20 year-old writer and Reagan disciple who publicly outed members of the Dartmouth Gay Student Alliance in an article for Dartmouth University's Dartmouth Review - D'Souza also honed his writing by attacking Dartmouth's affirmative action policies.

According to the Globe article, "During the 1980s, before and after D'Souza's editorship, the paper was repeatedly in the news for controversies that included taping a Gay Student Alliance meeting, publishing a column in a mocking imitation of black English, ridiculing a class by a black music professor, comparing the university's Jewish president to Adolf Hitler, and falsely asserting that a university chaplain had defended a group advocating sex with adolescents."

I don't know him personally but perhaps D'Souza's ingrained biases are fueled by his conversion to evangelical Christianity? Like Ann Coulter, D'Souza's contempt for non-white, non-Christians is always cloaked in a veneer of intellectualism and so extreme in tone that it suggests that like some immigrants from India, he was quick to adopt the worn cloak of American bigotry and prejudice based on the mental indoctrination of the Indian caste system he was exposed to as a child. Some Indians, certainly not all, come to this country and quickly adopt an open contempt for those they regard as beneath them.

I've explored Indian racism towards African-Americans previously in this blog, but D'Souza genuinely puzzles me. Why was he so quick to adopt such clearly racist views on blacks?

Was he simply eager to demonstrate just how "cultured" he is by adopting negative views of homosexuals and minorities - almost as if to separate himself psychologically from the dark tone of his own skin and his Indian origins.

It's possible he has a need to distinguish himself from those he considers lower on the mental cast system he's formed inside his mind, which is his right to do.

But I'm not sure that excuses bad journalism and sloppy writing - which is exactly what his Forbes cover story is.

Europe's Roma Dilemma

2010-09-13T15:46:00.005-04:00

For hundreds of years populations of Roma, more familiar to many as Gypsies, have wandered various European cities like a forgotten nomadic people without a country or a homeland.

Their sad plight, which began in medieval India, has recently become a lightening rod for media scrutiny of the broader immigration policies of the member countries of the European Union, most noticeably France, who deported more than 1,000 Roma immigrants in a one-month period during August and September.

The BBC reports that the recent expulsion of large numbers of Roma populations from France has divided the members of President Nicolas Sarkozy's own cabinet and pushed the already embattled leader of France to defend his policy both to his own government and to other members of the European Union vigorously opposed to the French policy of deportation.

The French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, "said he has almost resigned over the issue" according to a small blurb in 'The World this Week' section of the September 4th issue of the Economist - which also reported that a gunman in the Slovak capital of Bratislava intentionally shot and killed six members of a Roma family inside their apartment in late August.

Various human rights groups have accused the French government of intentional discrimination against impoverished Roma immigrants based on a leaked memo sent from the Interior Ministry to regional police chiefs that specifically outlines a systematic policy of closing Roma encampments and settlements in France and expelling the people from the country.

Their peculiar status sadly parallels the plight of newly emancipated African-American slaves in the south after the Civil War, or Jews fleeing Europe after World War II; and Palestinians today.

For many Americans the image of the people known commonly as "Gypsies" has been formed largely from a simplistic romanticized stereotype crafted by Hollywood.

At the core of this distorted misrepresentation are a people trapped by their own identity according to an interesting piece by Suzanne Daley in the September 16th New York Times.

The all too common image of the violin being played by a mysterious dark-skinned man with a dashing head scarf tied around his head. Or the sultry bandanna-wearing Gypsy woman/sage figure reading the future through crystal balls in the back of colorful wagons at carnivals looms in the subconscious minds of many Americans who don't really understand the history and origins of the Romani.

As is often the case the media-created image is far different than reality for the impoverished, under-educated marginalized pockets of Roma people stretching from Western Europe to the borders of the middle-east.

For the more prosperous countries of the European Union struggling to manage their way out of the global recession, (each of which harbors thousands of migrant Roma populations within their borders) it begs the question of how an often-vilified and certainly ostracized population of people will survive in a Europe that seems to regard them as a problem no one wants to deal with, and no one owns.

Black and Jewish in America - Balancing Race and Religion

2010-08-31T14:48:00.008-04:00

If the tone of my entries on this blog sometimes seem to take particular issue with the divisive politics of the right, it's only because their narrow-minded vision of America stands in complete contrast to my own upbringing.

For me, as an African-American growing up in Bethesda, Maryland in the suburbs of Washington, DC during the 70's and 80's, understanding my own sense of cultural identity was often a perplexing challenge. Being the only, or one of a few black students in schools that were overwhelmingly white was often a lonely experience.

So I was naturally drawn to David Matthews 2007 book Ace of Spades; an eye-opening non-fiction account of his being raised in Baltimore in the '80s as the son of a Jewish mother and liberal African-American journalist father. I felt a kinship with Matthews (pictured left) for wrestling with the strange sense of cultural "in between-ness" and his memoir, which I bought last Spring after hearing an interview with him on NPR, has helped me to re-examine my own childhood.

He's an interesting writer who uses language like a hammer and I kept a dictionary next to my bed to look up the many words I'd never heard of.

Though I grew up with Jewish friends and our next door neighbors were Jewish, I'd never really heard of black Jews until hearing news reports about Israel air-lifting Ethiopian Jews from famine-stricken Africa to Israel during Operation Moses in 1984 and Operation Solomon in 1991.

There are indeed populations of African-American Jews living here in America, in last Friday's New York Times, Trymaine Lee penned an interesting piece on a small population of black Jews who live in Brooklyn, New York; and their search for an identity that balances religion and race.

Their story, like Matthews, struck me as a timeless illustration of the ongoing struggle of people from so many different religions, races and nationalities to find their place in the changing landscape of America.

The Tea Party Conceals its True Nature While Frank Rich Exposes the Koch Brothers

2010-08-29T20:01:00.006-04:00

While right-wing radio host and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck exhorted the thousands of the Tea Party faithful gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to reflect on God and pay tribute to the service men and women who've sacrificed for this nation, many people including myself were wondering where the real Tea Party was.

Frank Rich of the New York Times had an answer ready in the form of a must-read blistering critique of the Tea Party's three main billionaire backers; Rupert Murdoch and the highly controversial and mysterious Charles and David Koch.

Men whose extremist ideology stands in complete opposition to Dr. King's vision of racial equality, social justice and government responsibility for workers, the impoverished and those relegated to the margins of this society.

The anniversary and location of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech struck many in this nation as a peculiar place for a rally for a political movement financed in large part by the Koch brother's wealth.

To others, the Tea Party's presence on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and Becks self-righteous attempt to lay claim to a vision of America as a nation of faith was simply an insult and an affront to the ideals of the civil rights movement.

Veteran political reporter Taylor Marsh attended the rally and reported the crowd was not a diverse mix of different segments of America as Tea Party defenders try to present it; despite the appearance of Dr. King's anti-abortion advocate niece. No offense to Dr. King's relative but she's never been relevant to the national political dialog and she isn't now; just because she showed up on stage doesn't mean the Tea Party platform is somehow magically linked to the legacy of Dr. King.

In the end the sanitized public version of the Tea Party on display on Saturday for mainstream media will be a distant memory as the November elections heat up and the reality of Beck's lunatic right-wing ramblings reverts back to the same narrow-minded rhetoric we've become all too accustomed to.

Will history remember Beck's rally more than 40 years from now? Probably not. Cheap political stunts like that rarely stand the test of time. Dr. King's defining vision will forever symbolize America's hope to fulfill it's potential.

GOP Hatred: Ken Mehlman Stirs the Ghosts of the Southern Strategy

2010-08-27T02:31:00.013-04:00

Ken Mehlman (pictured left) is out; and in more ways than one.

With the former Bush campaign manager and top GOP strategist's public admission in an Atlantic Monthly interview that he is gay, comes fresh insight and undeniable proof that the Republican party intentionally uses hate, prejudice and fear as the basis of their political strategy.

What is perhaps most shocking is not Mehlman's sexual orientation, but that for years he used the media to help engineer the manipulation of the evangelical Christian right to fan the flames of hostility against homosexuals to score votes.

Among other things revealed in the Atlantic interview, Mehlman admits that he helped to put anti-gay marriage initiatives on the ballots of at least eleven GOP-friendly states in an effort to boost votes for George Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and again as the RNC chair during 2006 congressional elections.

As if more proof was needed that the Republican party has declared 2010 the year of hate and intolerance, the TPM Website reports that Louisiana Congressman (R) John Fleming appeared before a Republican women's group and suggested that the upcoming November elections are a choice between America being a "Christian nation" or a "Godless society."

This one-dimensional, intellectually bankrupt "You're either with us, or against us" point of view cannot possibly co-exist in a nation as culturally diverse as America.

On Countdown with Keith Olberman last night, Olberman reminded viewers that the anti-gay GOP strategy is merely the latest version of the notorious "Southern Strategy" used by Republicans to capitalize on the racial fears of white, Christian voters during Richard M. Nixon's 1968 campaign.

What's unsettling here is that even Mehlman KNEW it was morally and politically wrong to race-bait voters - and as the RNC chair admitted so in front of the NAACP National Convention in Milwaukee in 2005. Yet a year later he was using the same tactics against both homosexuals and illegal immigrants.

Only time will tell how this will impact restless American voters, but it does raise the question of whether the GOP actually intends to offer ANY new ideas to steer the country back out of the worst economy since the depression, or are they simply banking on stoking the fears of intolerance and prejudice as a means to win the hearts and minds of American voters.

What's happened to the voices of reason and principle in the GOP? When did it all become about marginalizing people and sewing the seeds of division?

I don't know who's party this is right now, but it sure ain't the party of Lincoln.

The Sovereign Citizen Movement Gains Traction

2010-08-26T00:25:00.008-04:00

The fringe extremist front known as the sovereign citizen movement in the US rarely seems to pique the kind of mainstream media scrutiny that the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the World Trade center in New York receives, but the threat they pose is real and their membership is growing.

Pictured left, Joe Zane, 16, lies dead after he and his father, Jerry were shot by police officers shortly after the two sovereign citizens killed Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans, two West Memphis, Arkansas police officers on May 20th.

Sovereign citizen activists Jerry Kane and his 16 year-old son Joe were pulled over in a routine traffic stop by Paudert and Evans and minutes later were shot and killed by Joe when he jumped out of the passenger seat of their white minivan and opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle killing both officers.

NBC Nightly News ran a piece on the story and the story did make headlines across the country, but serious examination of the movement seems to have fizzled in the mainstream press.

The incident shed light on a group that lacks a central leadership, but boasts a growing membership organized into cells across the country. Who are sovereign citizens?

The FBI and the IRS have begun to monitor the sovereign citizen membership and their activities more closely.

The Anti-Defamation League Website describes the sovereign citizen movement as:
"...a loosely organized collection of groups and individuals who have adopted a right-wing anarchist ideology originating in the theories of a group called the Posse Comitatus in the 1970s. Its adherents believe that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and they seek to "restore" an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed."

In its fall 2010 intelligence Report the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) raises the alarm about the sovereign citizen movement, detailing the murders of the Arkansas police officers as well as the bizarre array of activities of sovereign citizens.

Sovereign citizens believe themselves to be members of separate sovereign entities and hence are not subject to state or federal laws. Some beliefs seem harmless, but in this post-911 era are actually extremely dangerous.

They don't think they should be required to carry drivers licenses, social security cards or identification of any kind. They hold "courts" where they issue arrest warrants for police officers and judges; and even sanction violence against members of government and private citizens.

Most famously, sovereign citizens believe they are not bound to pay taxes and have developed a strange array of seminars, court filings, letters and protests to avoid doing so. I'd never heard about sovereign citizens until actor Wesley Snipes emerged as a advocate of the groups beliefs and I blogged about it here on culturegeist.

I believe the Constitution gives all Americans the right to believe what they want and to protest; but any group that advocates the execution of law police officers is a danger to us all.

More on Sovereign Citizens

Welcome to the Kochtopus - The Koch Brothers Meet Mainstream Media

2010-08-23T14:12:00.023-04:00

Why has it taken so long for credible main stream media to begin taking a closer look at Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who have quietly and almost single-handedly bankrolled the far-right Tea Party movement?

Are these guys (David and Charles Koch pictured left) really dangerous to Democracy?

New Yorker magazine reporter Jane Mayer pens a piece in the latest issue - but why so long for the Koch brother's names to be linked to the ultra right conservative causes they espouse? The Koch's certainly aren't invisible, they're the 9th richest people in the nation. No surprise that they oppose bigger taxes.

If you've bought Brawny paper towels, Dixie Cups, a Georgia-Pacific lumber product or used Stainmaster to clean your carpets you've done business with Koch Industries - regarded by some as the biggest debunkers of climate change data in the world. Why? Perhaps because Koch Industries is one of the biggest owners of oil pipelines in the country.

Back on December 9, 2009 the Think Progress Website Progress Report detailed how the Koch (pronounced like 'Coke') brothers have funneled millions (over $45 million to dozens of conservative groups since 1997) to oppose almost every agenda item from the Obama White House from the Stimulus Package to the health care bill.

Don't get me wrong, Charles and David Koch can spend the proceeds from their wealth any way they want. But it strikes me as odd that the same media that shows video clips from Tea Party events with 'outraged Americans' carrying signs depicting the President as a Nazi or a spreader of Socialism - never even mention Charles and David Koch, the guys who foot the bill to send 40 busloads of people to Tea Party events.

The Koch brothers are rich even by American standards. Their staggering wealth finances a wide range of politically conservative organizations and think tanks; including Americans for Progress (which might as well be called Tea Party Central)and The Heritage Foundation.

From "Obama isn't really an American Citizen", to "Obama is a Muslim" and the Glen Beckian "Obama is a racist", the squeakier wheels in the right-wing media movement have presented a strange tapestry of fabricated nonsense for their angry minions to flaunt - but what if it's all just a bunch of BS generated by a couple of hardcore right-wing conservative guys who own one of the largest private companies in America?

Is that First Amendment expression or media manipulation?

Let's see if Katie Couric or Brian Williams have the journalistic balls to introduce the heartland of America to the Koch brothers and the actual scope of their one-sided agenda. Now THAT would be a real Eye on America.

More About the Kochtopus!

The Growing Tolerance of Intolerance in America

2010-08-13T22:18:00.006-04:00

Whatever happened to the idea of America as a melting pot?

If the tone and substance of the current conservative media message is any gauge, apparently we’ve got a lot of people taking issue with certain ingredients in the stew.

Used to be it was the Michelle Malkins, Ann Coutlters and Rush Limbaughs trying to couch bigotry in intellectual terms. No more.

Stirring up fear in the minds of those agonizing about what the fabric of this nation is going to look like in the future has become like a sport.

On truthdig.com Joe Conason reports that in family-friendly Seaside Heights New Jersey, hucksters at Lucky Leo's offered patrons a chance to take out their political frustrations by hurling objects at an offensive caricature of the President seen by some as racist.

Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch seem content with Glen Beck's use of his televised stage to pass off unsubstantiated rumor, opinionated nonsense and misrepresentation of fact as journalism.

According to MediaMatters.org Beck is now declaring his rants a religious mission, even suggesting the officials enacting policies in Washington are "enemies of God."

Is this a 1st Amendment free speech issue, or are people are listening?

Elias Ebuelazam was arrested as he tried to board a flight to Israel after the FBI pegged him as the suspected serial killer responsible for up to 20 stabbings in three states that were racially motivated - 18 of the victims were black, including a minister stabbed outside a church while smoking a cigarette last Saturday.

Intolerance hasn’t just gone mainstream, in some circles it’s become fashion. The button to push, the emotion to nudge; the pot to stir.

Views once considered marginalized are merging into the mainstream.

Or perhaps as Fordham University professor Mark Naison suggests, it was never really that marginalized to begin with.

Just quietly intolerant.

Glen Beck slips further from reality.

The Tea Party: Who's Party is it Anyway?

2010-08-08T13:55:00.007-04:00

Is the Tea Party an actual political party in the traditional sense of American politics?

Lately the Tea Party seems to be less about fair taxation than a platform for intolerance, religious persecution and even hatred. The growing flap over the proposed construction of a Mosque and Islamic cultural center near the World Trade Center site has sparked a bizarre backlash against even moderate Muslims across the US.

Today's New York Times reports that in late June a Tea Party group in Temecula, California took signs, dogs and anti-Muslim rhetoric to protest while Muslims were attending Friday prayers.

But it's not just Muslims the Tea Party seems opposed to.

In a July 20th Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson called for the Tea Party to purge what is now widely seen as racist elements within their ranks in the wake of the group severing ties with the Tea Party Express and one of their most outspoken leaders, former right-wing radio host Mark Williams after he posted a fictional letter from NAACP Ben Jealous to Abraham Lincoln that was so overtly racist that even members of the Tea Party demanded his ejection from the broader movement.

Is the Tea Party marginalizing itself in the lead up to the November elections? Slowly it seems to be morphing into an intellectual dumping ground for some of the deep-seated fear and mistrust that simmers just below the surface of the fabric of this nation.

Not convinced? Read the full text of Mark Williams letter for yourself.

Andrew Breitbart's Absence of Morality

2010-07-22T02:55:00.005-04:00

An Open Letter to James Breitbart:

The Acorn stunt was sketchy enough in it's borderline entrapment stunt - and obviously racist to anyone who saw it.

You've clearly stepped into a whole new realm with this one and exposed yourself as a biased media clown intoxicated by your ability to manipulate the truth, saturate the media with your BS and then sit back and watch as Faux News and Limbaugh & Co. repeat it as fact until it in itself becomes a news item.

Problem is this time your clever video editing so obviously perverted the actual reality of what Ms. Sherrod was talking about, that you've ended up revealing that you are in fact, a complete racist desperate to pander to the most base elements of a Republican party that's been hijacked by intolerance, greed and a sickening contempt for the welfare of the common man.

Congratulations Andy! You are the secret police! You've tarnished a woman's career - the same woman who saved the farm of the people you claim she was being racist against.

So thank you for showing us who you are. And honestly if THAT''s all the GOP media machine has got, you guys are about to get crushed in November.

Your dim-witted high school video-stunt will actually be worth much more to Democrats in 3 months than all the empty hot air your sad excuse of a Website churns out on a constant basis.

And you've got the gall to not apologize to this woman? You gutless coward. Two words for you and your James O'Keefe-ian video crew. Man up.

Jeffrey Conroy Guilty in Long Island Anti-Immigrant Slaying

2010-04-19T13:16:00.007-04:00

What makes a seemingly normal 17-year old high school student-athlete take a knife and stab an innocent Ecuadorian immigrant in a dark parking lot near the Long Island Railroad? Does anything make sense about that?

(Pictured, Jose Lucero, brother of victim Marcelo Lucero in the Suffolk County courtroom during the Jeffrey Conroy's indictment back in November 2008)

Two of many questions floating along the stream of NY media attention given to the case of the gruesome stabbing murder of 37 year-old Marcelo Lucero on a November night back in 2008.

Today's New York Times reports that a jury of seven men and five woman, ten of whom were white, decided the killing wasn't murder, but instead convicted Long Island teenager Jeffrey Conroy of manslaughter and hate crimes for the stabbing death of Marcelo Lucero in 2008.

Lucero was brutally killed near a Long Island Railroad parking lot when Conroy and five other boys out on the town for a night of "Beaner-Hopping" (LI teen lingo for finding and beating Hispanic people they believe to be immigrants) surrounded, attacked and eventually stabbed the Ecuadorian dry cleaning store employee for being Hispanic.

The conviction goes a long way in addressing the years of unsolved violence against Hispanic immigrants in some Long Island communities - and puts the spotlight on a Suffolk County Police department under investigation by the Justice Department for discrimination in policing.

Long Island resident's concerns about large numbers of undocumented Hispanic immigrants moving into their communities warranted? Sure, but they can't excuse violent physical attacks on innocent people. What's happening to civility in this country?

Bob Griese's Racist Taco Comment Raises Eyebrows

2009-10-26T14:13:00.003-04:00

Viewers of Saturday's Ohio State-Minnesota football game got a lot more than game analysis from ESPN sports analyst/color commentator Bob Griese.

While reading a NASCAR promo graphic with photos of the top NASCAR drivers, Griese's partner commentator Chris Spielman asked why driver Juan Pablo Montoya wasn't shown. With a laugh Griese answered, "He's out getting a taco."

It was a remarkably one-dimensional comment to come from such a well-respected and normally eloquent broadcaster. The news comes at the same time ESPN just fired baseball analyst and former Mets GM Steve Phillips for having an affair with a twenty-two year-old ESPN intern named Brooke Hundley.

While the "Taco Comment" is far from the bizarre slip that got former CBS NFL Today commentator Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder fired back in 1988, the off-handed way Griese made the remark and the way he laughed made him come off as something of an insensitive bigot. He sounded more like a hick amused by simplistic stereotypes and lacking in basic understanding of Hispanic culture.

Montoya isn't Mexican he's Colombian and even if he WAS Mexican, it still doesn't mean he runs around eating tacos all the time.

Most football fans know Griese as the NFL Hall-of-Fame QB of the Miami Dolphins. A highly-respected college football color man, he was the former booth partner of former ABC broadcasting legend Keith Jackson, I never would have thought him the type to make such a comment, even in jest in privacy. To say nothing of an open mike on a nationally televised game.

What effect does a comment like that have on the minds of the thousands of young kids who were listening?

While Griese did apologize for the comment later on in the broadcast, his reputation is stained. Not so much for the comment itself, but the startling lack of awareness of the makeup of a multi-cultural society that finds such humor distasteful and offensive.

As Lord Jeffrey warned, "A good name, like good will is got by many actions and lost by one."

Cracker Barrel Attacker Troy Dale West, Jr. Indicted on Felony Charges

2009-09-24T12:02:00.010-04:00

Excuse me is this 2009 or 1929?

Yesterday, hundreds of supporters were on hand at the Clayton County Court in Georgia for the indictment of a 47 year-old white Georgia resident named Troy Dale West, Jr. on charges he viciously beat Tasha Hill, an African-American Army reservist, in front of her 7 year-old daughter.

The incident occurred outside of a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Morrow, Georgia at about 7:30pm on Wednesday September 9th. The case has been referred to the FBI's Civil Rights Division to determine whether or not the incident is a hate crime.

Witnesses and Atlanta television station WSBTV reported that West allegedly erupted when Hill asked him to "please be careful, that door almost hit my daughter" after he slammed the door open on his way out of the restaurant, nearly striking her daughter. In response to Hill's request, West simply exploded, using his fists to hit Hill in the face then throwing her to the ground and striking her in the head several times and kicking her in the body while repeatedly calling her a "fucking black nigger bitch".

Horrified witnesses watched as Hill's 7 year-old daughter desperately tried to get back through the glass doors to help her mother while the assault was taking place.

Click the link above, or click play on the upper right side of the page to hear Hill's account of what happened. Local Atlanta news reported that the Cracker Barrel employees were very cooperative in helping the victim and police/EMTs who arrived on the scene, so kudos to Cracker Barrel.

Given the realities of America's complex racial history, it's not a shock that the election of an African-American president has stirred deep-seated resentment by some Americans.

What IS shocking and repugnant to most people is to see people of any color, religion or race violently channel that resentment onto a mother and her 7 year-old child. The Clayton County DA was so incensed, she is prosecuting the case personally.

The anger, violence and hate displayed by West should concern ALL Americans, it's an unfortunate part of the fabric of our nation that's as much a threat as the economic crisis or terrorism - Troy Dale West, Jr. is the real terrorist.

W. Horace Carter - Courageous Newspaper Man Who Challenged the KKK Dies at 88

2009-09-22T14:16:00.009-04:00

There was a time when the power of print newspapers and the men and women who published and wrote them wielded immense power and influence to shape America's cultural identity and define the nation's zeitgeist.

On Sunday the New York Times reported the passing of W. Horace Carter, an 88 year-old newspaper publisher who demonstrated moral courage and fierce determination in his efforts to confront the spread of the Ku Klux Klan and their violence in his North Carolina community in the 1950's.

Carter was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist/editor who generously gave back to his alma mater the University of North Carlina at Chapel Hill.

His passing might not make waves in today's mainstream media spotlight, but his contributions to America's cultural evolution and fight against racism will be forever felt. According to Carter's paper the Tabor-Loris Tribune, his Klan campaign resulted in the prosecution of 254 KKK members, 62 of whom were sentenced to prison.

There were many journalists who displayed extraordinary courage to report on the Civil Rights struggle in America at great risk to themselves and their families.

If you're interested in learning more about their heroic efforts, I'm still in the process of reading Hank Robert's and Gene Kilbanoff's Pulitzer Prize winning book The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation.

W. Horace Carter's lasting legacy will be his tireless efforts to open the nation's eyes to the realities of prejudice and racism, continuing the fight to bring the freedoms and rights contained in the Declaration of Independence to all Americans.

Conservative Attacks on ACORN - Part of a Broader GOP Agenda Against Low Income Families?

2009-09-18T11:14:00.012-04:00

In the wake of film-makers James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles' video of ACORN members from different offices supposedly advising them, dressed/posing as a "couple", (O'Keefe dressed as a pimp and Giles as his prostitute looking to learn how to conceal cash earnings and hide underage sex slaves from foreign countries) has become the latest symbol of government waste and fraud on Capitol Hill.

But is it? Reality check.

O'Keefe and Giles will never be confused with Woodward & Bernstein and "the couple" were actually sent in to "set traps for ACORN to lie", according to Andrew Breitbart founder of the BigGovernment.com Website where the video first appeared.

In television interviews James O'Keefe claimed none of the ACORN offices he visited at any point kicked him out when he asked his staged questions. That's a lie.

O'Keefe's partner an "aspiring journalist" Hannah Giles is the daughter of right wing media Website columnist Doug Giles - she didn't bother showing up to a CNN television interview looking into the "couple's" self-described prostitution scandal.

According to MediaMatters.org, reps from both the Baltimore and Philadelphia ACORN offices not only asked O'Keefe and Giles to leave, they also filed police reports about the incidents.

In a recently posted video available on Youtube (or watch it by clicking play on the upper right of this blog) the Philadelphia office director for ACORN Katherine Conway Russell asserts that James O'Keefe lied about who he was in order to gain entrance to the ACORN office.

So why are so many Congressmen so fired up about ACORN?

In response to this questionable video evidence, yesterday a majority of House Democrats and Republicans moved to cut federal funding for ACORN by passing H.R. 3221 - a recently added rider to the bill would cut off ACORN's funding.

Why would a rider on ACORN funding be hidden inside a bill for student aid?

Save for the fact that Barack Obama was a community organizer for the embattled group early in his career (prompting the GOP to seize on it as ammunition to discredit him and ridicule his record) I doubt many Americans would even have heard of ACORN, if not for the GOP's media attacks and misinformation campaign.

The Website of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, describes it as a organizational platform centered around the needs of low-to-middle income families; but to hear some of the preachy Congressional rhetoric being tossed around recently, one might be led to think it's a cadre of satanists or some kind of socialist cult.

ACORN deals with a range of issues including affordable housing, living wages and affordable tax preparation services among other things.

ACORN started in the early 70's as a group seeking rights for welfare recipients. Their efforts to register voters during the 2008 presidential elections drew the ire of Republicans apparently disturbed at the thought of low and middle income American citizens exercising their right to vote.

Do sketchy contrived videos of undercover "journalists" strolling into ACORN store-front talking to a few members of a nationwide organization with thousands of volunteers automatically mean the entire organization is a fraud? Maybe not.

But the reality is that an organization is responsible for the people who work there; while ACORN has in fact done a lot to help economically disadvantaged people all over the country, the management should have done a better job training their employees and volunteers who staff their offices.

By not doing so, they've simply given conservatives an opportunity to mock and deride sincere community-based efforts to assist low and middle income Americans already on the periphery of our society.

Joe Wilson Isn't Going Away

2009-09-17T09:04:00.003-04:00

As she has in the past, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd struck the tone for the week with a Saturday September 12th column exploring the meaning behind Joe Wilson's recent outburst against President Obama on the floor of the US Capitol.

Wilson's initial brush-off of demands to personally apologize to the House of Representatives and the President have evaporated with the growing controversy over allegations that his boorish behavior is representative of many Americans who simply don't accept Obama as President because of his skin color.

Former President Jimmy Carter went further, suggesting at a speech at the Carter Center that Wilson's comments "were based on racism".

The charge prompted Wilson's oldest son Alan (a candidate for State Attorney General) to dispute charges that his father was a racist.

Slowly the media seems to be giving more serious examination of how race impacts the way people see the president and his policies and what role racist beliefs might have on policy issues on the government's plate.

The House (both Democrats and Republicans alike) voted to demand an apology from the embattled South Carolina Congressman, but it's not just politicians.

I listened to a number of listener calls to NPR answering the question of why the issue won't go away. The vast majority expressed the feeling that not only was accusing the President of lying wrong, but also indicative that the US public has had enough of the juvenile character attacks on the President from Republicans who seem less interested in solutions for the American people than slandering Barack Obama and torpedoing his political agenda.

I don't hate Joe Wilson but it's hard to listen to his insistence that he's not a racist when, as Dowd pointed out, he was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans who defended flying the Confederate flag over the South Carolina state capitol.

If there's an upside to this episode it's that the media spotlight and the attention of many Americans is now focused on the realities of our nation and how race impacts our perception; Joe Wilson's comment shows that it does.

Geraldo Weighs in on Immigration Fear Tactics and More

2009-09-14T13:36:00.010-04:00

The Leonard Lopate show had an interesting Monday afternoon conversation/interview with always media-friendly Geraldo Rivera, who's latest focus is illegal immigration.

The Fox News contributor (and discoverer of Al Capone's secret safe...) was on to promote his latest book The Great Progression: How Hispanics Will Lead America to a New Era of Prosperity.

He had some interesting observations on race in America today and the prejudice that underlies much of the extreme anti-immigrant hysteria in America. While there were a number of anti-Geraldo comments posted on the Leonard Lopate Show/WNYC.org Website, Geraldo actually raised a few interesting points.

I give him credit for being one of the few media personalities to offer commentary on how Obama's race is impacting the political opposition he's facing on health care legislation, mainstream media only seems offer up cursory analysis on the issue.

He also pointed out the fact that the many who are sympathetic to the quasi racist Minute Man militia movement, responsible for a growing number of murders in the US, rally around the need to defend America from a terrorist attack from the Mexican border.

He noted that there have never been terrorist attacks from the Mexican border. But (according to him) there have been more than 20 terrorist associated infiltrations from the Canadian border, so how come Minute Man groups don't seem to be killing Canadians?

Have there been terrorist attacks or incursions from Canada against the US? I'm not saying there haven't been, but I can't recall hearing about them.

Interesting that a man who used the last name Rivers in college changes his name to Rivera and eventually writes a book on Hispanics in America.

"Liar!" South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson Shocks Congress in Front of Millions

2009-09-10T01:48:00.008-04:00

Republican anger over the impending health care bill spilled onto the floor of the packed Senate chamber during last night's Presidential address to both houses of Congress.

Joe Wilson, a 62 year-old Republican representative from South Carolina left attendees and millions of television viewers speechless when he yelled out "Liar" or "You lie!" after President Obama debunked an oft-repeated but false accusation that the new health care bill would grant illegal immigrants access to government health benefits.

The FactCheck.org Website has already dismissed the illegal immigrant health care access charge as a myth.

Wilson's tactless emotional outburst prompted a rapid-fire reaction from online media and the soon-to-be embattled Congressman's official Website was "Down for maintenance" soon after he was identified as the heckler du jour.

I was watching the speech live on NBC and both Vice-President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi looked shocked, Pelosi appeared to examine a seating chart after the comment in an effort to identify who said it.

The crude posters depicting Obama as a Nazi seen in health care rallies across America pale in comparison to Wilson's outburst, which seriously calls into question Republican's desire for honest and meaningful debate on the health care issue and will likely threaten Wilson's Congressional seat.

History buffs will recall that emotionally unstable politicians aren't new to South Carolina. Back in 1856 it was Preston Brooks a Democratic Congressman from South Carolina famously used a thick Gutta-Percha walking stick with a gold tip to viciously beat Senator Charles Sumner unconscious and bloody after taking offense at a speech Sumner made attacking Southern politicians (including President Franklin Pierce and Brook's relative, Senator Andrew Butler) for sympathizing with slavery advocates supporting bloody pro-slavery rioters in Kansas.

GOP supporters and right-wing fringe media blowhards like Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin will deny the comments had anything to do with Obama being an African-American, but I can't recall ever seeing a politician call a sitting US president a liar in front of the House and Senate and millions of television viewers.

Democratic Obama supporters didn't waste time crying about it and Republicans still seem to ignore the power and reach of Internet media: A viral message urging supporters to visit the ActBlue Website to donate to the campaign of Democrat Rob Miller who is running against Joe Wilson in South Carolina's 2nd District reached my e-mail inbox about 12:58am EST.

As of 3:30am about six and a half hours after the conclusion of Obama's speech the site has raised over $40,000 for Miller under the banner of "defeating the man who yelled 'liar". Joe's gotta go.

Credit Checks -Information or Employer Discrimination?

2009-08-12T13:36:00.006-04:00

Back in June I joined the ranks of the millions of Americans laid off from jobs in the wake of the Great Recession. As I labor through the search for a new job I wonder: Shouldn't my professional experience and ability be the deciding factor in getting hired for a new job rather than my credit score?

ABC News recently explored the question of how bad credit might stop you from getting a job.

According to an interview segment on NPR's "Tell Me More" yesterday, some employers may be using credit checks to unfairly discriminate against job applicants.

Financial consultant Alvin Hall is a regular guest on economic issues and he raised some concerns that trouble me as an unemployed African-American. Hall asserts that credit checks have become an even more important tool that employers use to make hiring decisions as available jobs have become more scarce.

So for example, I was fired unexpectedly from a job back in 2002 and my credit card debt grew in the months I was unemployed and used my cards to charge things and for high interest cash withdrawals. It's depressing to think that a potential employer might look twice at me because of that, even though I worked steadily from 2004 until June of this year for the same company AND worked to pay off a significant chunk of my credit card debt.

Credit card debt affects all Americans but the reality is that bad credit is more likely to adversely impact people of color in this nation because black and Hispanic people in the US on average tend to have less capital and disposable income.

Is it fair to rate someone's ability to do a job based on their credit score?

Visit the NPR Website and listen to Michel Martin's interview broadcast Tuesday afternoon August 11th.

Holocaust Museum Attacker von Brunn Closely Linked to Neo-Nazi Leaders

2009-06-10T16:48:00.008-04:00

The dark legacy of the Third Reich cast a violent shadow in the nation's capital this afternoon.

At about 12:50pm EST James Wenneker von Brunn (click to see a picture) an 89 year-old man from the Eastern Shore of Maryland walked into the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC (pictured at left) produced a rifle and proceeded to open fire on two museum guards before he himself was shot and wounded.

There is no question that von Brunn has numerous ties to known white supremacists in the US according to the Southern Poverty Law Center Hatewatch blog.

SPLC reports von Brunn was active in the Holocaust denial movement and was the author of an anti-Semitic/racist book entitled "Kill the Best Gentiles" published in 1999.

He has interesting web of connections to the American neo-Nazi movement. Von Brunn was also close with well-known white supremacist Willis Carto, one of the architects and biggest supporters of the modern American Holocaust denial media movement.

The SPLC reports that von Brunn was once employed by Carto's Noontide press which published various Holocaust denial books. Carto recruited William Luther Pierce, the author of the fictional account of a futuristic race war called "The Turner Diaries" - the book which helped inspire Timothy McVeigh to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City.

Listen to an excerpt of a 2007 radio interview with Willis Carto - ironically, he is being interviewed by white supremacist radio talk show host Michael Collins Piper in Washington DC.

With Holocaust Museum guard Stephen Tyrone Johns succumbing to his wounds we can only hope the mainstream press devotes more analysis of the neo-Nazi movement in the US. If there's any place where we assume we'd be safe from violent extremists it's at a Federal museum devoted to millions of innocent victims of the Holocaust.

Right Wing Political Gains in Europe: A Signal of Hate or Economics?

2009-06-09T12:24:00.009-04:00

Downturns in the economy are traditionally boom-times for extremist hate organizations nowhere is that demonstrated more clearly than in Western Europe.

The recent election of British National Party leader Nick Griffin (pictured at left) to the European Parliament is just the latest sign of the political pendulum in Europe swinging to the right, ushering facists, neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists into political office as representatives of a European Union population of over 491 million people.

We need not look far for proof. In the US, membership in the Ku Klux Klan soared to an all-time high in the late 1920's before the onset of the Great Depression - just as the National Socialist Party was setting the stage for the Nazis rise to power in Germany.

Hate groups boost their numbers and garner sympathy to their cause by playing on the fears and insecurities that arise when unemployment is high, wages are low and costs soar.

Unfortunately for immigrants, minorities and members of some religious groups, extremists always have some marginalized group of people to blame for what's wrong with the world; but the cause isn't always just hatred.

The UK, the Labour party in particular, are still reeling from a slew of cabinet-level resignations in the wake of a widespread campaign finance scandal that has rocked Prime Minister Gordon Brown's political support.

The eroded support for Brown's Labour Party and dissatisfaction with the handling of the economic crisis were some of the factors that paved the way for Griffin to become the EU Parliament representative from England's North West region and fellow BNP politician Andrew Brons to represent Yorkshire and Humber.

What's the whites-only BNP about?

According to Wikipedia the BNP constitution describes their mission as being "committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948"

The UK Guardian reports that Nick Griffin was chased from a BNP press conference today after protesters calling him a Nazi pelted him with eggs before he fled the scene.

Europeans are growing alarmed at an increasing faction of right wing political parties, each of which opposes immigration to the point of violence and openly embrace neo-Nazi ideology. But it's not just in the UK.

Who's who in Europe?

The Front National, or FN in France was founded in 1972 by Jean-Marie LePen. In addition to Holocaust denial, the party supports a range of anti-immigration platforms and neo-facist politics.

In Germany the NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) like the FN, has minimal representation in the German version of the state representative body. NDP leader Udo Voigt campaigns for white supremacy, "ethnic pride" and the ouster of "non-Germans" among other things. This rugged goose-stepper also predictably idolizes numerous figures from the Third Reich including Rudolph Hess and Adolph Hitler.

According to Wikipedia in 2008 in a document entitled "Africa Conquers the White House" the NDP claimed the election of President Barack Obama was the result of an "American alliance of Jews and Negroes."

It also suggested the wide-spread support for Obama within Germany was the result of an "African tropical disease."

In Italy, Forza Nuova is echoing the rings of Mussolini's facist state with calls for violence against non-Italian immigrants, laws against inter-racial sex and draconian nationalistic calls for ethnic and racial supremacy.

This trend warrants more mainstream media attention in the US than I've seen or read lately, even with America involved in two wars, a growing diplomatic problem in North Korea and global efforts to turn the tide of the economic crisis.

Nick Griffin speaks at a rally with ex-Klan leader David Duke.

Obama's Efforts to Recast America in the Eyes of the Muslim World Move Forward

2009-06-08T14:36:00.007-04:00

Addressing tensions between the US and the Muslim world have been a clear priority for the Obama administration since day one, but the Cairo Speech signals a major step forward and underscores the seriousness of this administration to heal rifts with the the Muslim world.

In the latest step towards addressing the mistrust, fear and anger that characterize US relations with many in the Muslim world, the signaled a desire to overhaul American perceptions of Islam and challenged Muslim's to do the same.

The speech, delivered at Cairo University on June 4th, has prompted a mixed global reaction from different sides of the media representing those in both the Western and Muslim worlds the speech was clearly directed to.

The pro-Israel HonestReporting.com Website, which monitors and offers analysis on media coverage of Israel, was generally supportive of Obama's calls in the speech to confront the Holocaust denial rheoric that is increasingly found in the Mid-East.

But they side-stepped Obama's criticism of the Israeli settlement expansion policies in disputed areas of West Bank and other parts of Israel.

According to the BBC.com Republican House Minority leader John Boehner suggested in an interview that the speech portrayed the United States as weak based on Iran's support of Hamas and Obama's willingness to sit down and negotiate directly with Iranian political leaders.

Some conservative bloggers in the US, perhaps frustrated over Obama's broad high-profile media appeal, complained that the Cairo Speech lacked real substance and echoed the similar-sounding and usually factually abstract complaint that the speech made America seem "weak" in the eyes of the world.

Did it? Aren't compassion and understanding essential components for respect and therefore strength?

The conventional wisdom and spin on the speech shared on the al Jazeera Website suggests that millions of Muslims who watched the speech closely felt otherwise.

al Jazeera's Muqtedar Kahn described the speech as "truly transformative in intent and affect" and opined that "Never has an American President spoken with such eloquence, compassion, understanding and empathy to the Muslim World. There is no doubt that Obama gets the Muslim World."

That's a big philosophical shift for many Americans used to the Bush administration's rigid, one-dimensional post-911 casting of millions of Muslims as willing supporters of the 'Axis of Evil' rather than as individual citizens from different nations with a wide range of views on America.

For decades many Muslims have viewed America from the standpoint of a nation that destabilized a democratically-elected government in Iran to help install the Shah of Iran into power.

Many Americans from all walks of life have tended to view Islam from the perspective of angry Iranians holding American hostages captive in Tehran in 1979 and the terrorist attacks on US citizens that culminated with 911.

Obama's Cairo speech seems to lay out a willingness to engage in dialog that identifies common ground and a desire to move past thinking rooted in stereotypes and prejudice rather than truth and understanding.

Finding ways to push cultural respect and understanding forward is a sign of strength, living in fear of that is a sign of weakness.

Lee Tucker Deemed Competent to Stand Trial in Beating of Rabbi Moskowitz

2009-06-02T23:32:00.009-04:00

As if the media doesn't already have a slanted-enough view of African-American/Jewish relations...

A judge has deemed a 38 year-old African-American man from Lakewood, New Jersey named Lee Tucker (pictured left) competent to stand trial on attempted murder charges after allegedly using a baseball bat to severely beat Rabbi Mordechai Moskowitz in October, 2007.

The then 53 year old Rabbi, a third grade teacher, was walking to synagogue to pray.

The attack has unsettled many in the Jewish e-media communities, including the Yeshiva World.com Website where I go to try and get a pulse on the orthodox community here in New York.

I blog about a lot of strange and sometimes senseless violent hate attacks here. But I must admit, this one just leaves me confused and saddened. Wondering, why?

One of the reasons I began this blog was to try and find some kind of creative outlet to explore the obstacles to racial and cultural tolerance that have so often confounded me during the course of my life.

Growing up as an African-American in a predominantly white suburban enclave was, in some ways, culturally isolating. But it also taught me respect of and appreciation for people of many races and backgrounds.

On the street I lived on were families from Bangladesh, Australia and there were white families who were devout Catholics or Protestants and some who were quietly non-denominational. Our next door neighbors were Jewish and our families were close.

My mother baked bread for them on Jewish holidays, when they went on vacation they gave me their house key to water their plants. Lee Tucker's actions make absolutely no sense to me.

It feels similar to how I felt trying to wrap my brain around the violence of the Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn, New York in 1991, partly because of the Dinkins Administration allowing the conflict to rage for three days, but also because it was such a stark contrast to the way I'd grown up.

Perhaps I was just a sheltered suburban child. Or maybe, there were thousands of people in the Crown Heights community on all sides of the issue who were similarly sheltered inside hatred and fear and ignorance. It's a matter of perspective.

But then there are the Lee Tuckers. What can you make of beating anyone with a bat, let alone a religious leader and teacher? Was Tucker trying to get his wallet, or just pissed off? Was he insane? Look at his photo above, he looks scared, but not crazy to me.

If Tucker is guilty I'm not sure it can be passed off simply as schizophrenia or insanity as the defense lawyers have tried to suggest.

Perhaps there are times when we have to just close our eyes and try really hard to remained focused on a vision of a world where unity, tolerance and respect are the norm rather than mindless brutality and violence fueled by hate.

Guys like Lee Tucker are branded by the hate and resentment, perhaps it's better if his lawyers just stop trying to cop insanity pleas for him so he can go to jail and think about the fact that he attacked a 53 year-old Rabbi and 3rd grade teacher with a bat when he was on the way to pray.

Lee Tucker is most definitely NOT Baracking, but he's not a reflection of evolved perspective. He's content to be sheltered by hate.

Arizona State: Obama Doesn't Rate

2009-05-18T15:14:00.010-04:00

“We have to learn how to communicate and teach between all ethnic and cultural perspectives. Not with a dominant cultural perspective and marginal alternative cultural perspectives, but across all of these. We have not figured out how to do this. We need to embrace cultural diversification in America and change the culture of the university as a critical first step.”

ASU President Michael M. Crow
(remarks delivered at the 2004 Educating for a Diverse
America: A Summit and Symposium, Austin, TX)

Perhaps Arizona State University Michael Crow forgot his own remarks excerpted from ASU's "Diversity Plan" when he decided the vice-minister of China was more accomplished than the 44th President of the United States.

Seriously though, was it a mistake? Perhaps an oversight? Or is a former US Senator who was recently elected to the most powerful position in the free world honestly not yet accomplished enough to receive an honorary diploma from Arizona State University?

Even conservative political analyst David Gergen (who served in the Nixon and Reagan White House) called it an "Embarrassment" to the University and to the people of Arizona. Play the interview to the right and listen for yourself.

In an act that has left many people of all races scratching their heads, Arizona State University, not exactly the intellectual/academic hub of US colleges, has come under scrutiny by mainstream media and the Blogosphere by deciding NOT to bestow an honorary degree upon President Barack Obama when he delivered the commencement address there on May 13th.

With the thoughtful laid back perspective that made him such an appealing candidate, the 44th President shrugged off the controversy and delivered a rousing send off to the 9,000 ASU grads in front of a crowd of 63,000 at Sun Devil Stadium.

University spokeswoman Sharon Keeler was quoted as saying "His body of work is yet to come. That's why we're not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency," after the school's student newspaper first reported the decision.

Was race a factor? ASU gave the vice-minister of education in China an honorary degree on his visit there - think about it. Some ASU grads have called for university president Michael Crow to resign his position.

Regardless the decision has backfired for ASU. The media, as well as many ordinary citizens were left puzzled and many, outraged. One her return to the SNL Newsdesk on Saturday night, Amy Pohler ripped ASU in a blistering editorial commentary that mocked ASU's long-held reputation as a 2nd rate Pac-Ten university and a destination for partiers rather than scholars.

Among the biggest critics of the ASU - decision, ASU grads, hundreds of e-mails and letters from outraged Sun Devil grads have poured into Websites and newspapers around the country; some grads mailed their ASU diplomas to the president, many embarrassed that their school decided to withhold the diploma.

The snub raises deeper questions in the minds of many who recall that Arizona was one of the few states to openly OPPOSE making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a paid holiday to appease it's ultra-conservative voter base; same state that sent Barry Goldwater, known as "Mr. Conservative" to the US Senate.

Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) opposed the legislation to make MLK Day a holiday in support of Governor Even Meachem's staunch opposition to the bill - which was signed into law by the first President Bush.

Ronald Reagan, former North Carolina Senator and pro-segregationist/openly racist Jesse Helms also led opposition to the bill - some forget that the US was rife with protests over Arizona's reluctance to endorse the holiday in the late 1980's and earl 90's.

Arizona's tourist industry suffered and the NFL moved the 1990 Super Bowl XXVII from Tempe to Pasadena in protest of the states opposition and the underlying meaning.

Sadly, ASU officials decided to make a completely pointless policy gesture rather than stand up and help rehabilitate the state of Arizona's legacy as a region of intolerance and right-wing conservatism by suggesting that the 44th President of the United States, former US Senator and former president of the Harvard Law Review was not qualified to receive the same recognition given to other US presidents.

In all fairness to Arizona residents, I think ASU's decision does NOT reflect the state's zeitgeist - the decision did far more harm to Arizona's image and frankly, in the wake of the media wash; they came out looking pretty ignorant.

Go Sun Devils!

Essence & Vibe Expand Multi-Media Offerings

2009-05-14T15:02:00.006-04:00

With a growing segment of professional media-savvy African-Americans in the US, a couple different magazines that target black Americans are preparing to launch multi-media ventures that will direct their content to compete with more mainstream media company offerings.

Monday's Media Daily News Website reports that Essence Magazine, HLN and CNN will partner to produce a weekly television series on CNN that address current topics affecting African-Americans.

In 2008 CNN produced "Black in America", a multi-part series exploring different aspects of the reality of life in the US for African-American's in today's society; CNN will produce "Black in America 2" this year as well.

I thought it was a positive sign to see these issues explored in a mainstream news setting in a primetime slot, making it accessible to all Americans.

Celebrity gossip magazines/Websites are hot and Hip-Hop culture magazine Vibe is jumping in too. Defying the current slide in print revenue and the migration of content online, Vibe is jumping into the celebrity/gossip market with the launch of The Most.

According to Folio.com, the bi-annual print title will roll out in June and an accompanying Website, themostmag.com will go up two weeks later.

The Road to Heaven: John Demjanjuk's Alledged Role in the Sad Story of Sobibor

2009-05-12T00:10:00.013-04:00

Mainstream news media organizations from the BBC-News to the New York Times reported on a frail 89 year-old resident of Seven Hills, Ohio named John Demjanjuk (pictured left)being deported to Germany to face charges that he was one of the Nazi SS guards who took part in the killing of over 250,000 Jews in the concentration camp known as Sobibor (pictured, top) over an 18 month period in 1942-1943.

In our 24-7 media-saturated world the here and now often seems to take precedent over the lessons of the past; stories that are 40-minutes old can be considered old news let alone a story that begins more than 40 years ago.

What will become of the past in the future?

With the rapid migration of news to electronic platforms and a seemingly ceaseless demand for faster delivery of information, will future generations remember Sobibor and the other extermination and labor camps constructed by the Third Reich to exterminate human beings?

Sobibor was constructed in the forests of Poland and completed in 1942. by May the facility was gassing large numbers of Jews using carbon monoxide from the exhaust of tanks according to Wikipedia.org.

After arriving at a railway platform, prisoners were marched along a 100-meter stretch of road through woods to their deaths. The road is known as the Himmelstrasse, or Road to Heaven.

Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times notes that sadly, so many years have passed since WWII that fewer and fewer first-hand witnesses with accurate memories of the camp survive; so Demjanuk's trial may be one of the last major court prosecutions of former-Nazis accused of taking part in mass extermination.

Will our current media consumption habits preserve those memories, or bury them?

Neo-Nazis are intoxicated with portraying the Holocaust as a myth and yet cloak themselves in the Nazi flag and idolize Adolph Hitler.

The only thing more horrific than the Holocaust is the thought that it could occur again because people forgot that it ever happened.

Sobibor was the site of one of the very few successful uprisings in German concentration camps - after it happened Henrich Himmler ordered the camp closed and trees planted where thousands of innocent people were gassed because of their religion.

Let's hope that our thirst for "data" never obscures the trees that line the Road to Heaven. Or that time never dims the light of justice.

Is John Demjanjuk really too old for prison? You decide.

Swine Flu Offers a Bizarre Selection of Right-Wing Rants from Psuedo-Journalists Like Michelle Malkin

2009-05-06T14:39:00.012-04:00

Hmmmm, let's see. What global news story could fact-challenged conservative columnist Michelle Malkin NOT twist into an opportunity to unleash more of her bizarre brand of paranoid flag-waving hysteria?

The same person who DEFENDED the forced internment of Japanese-American citizens during WWII certainly couldn't be expected to let the current swine flu epidemic go by without chiming in on what else? Illegal immigration!

David Holthouse has compiled a pretty funny list in this SPLC Hatewatch editor's selection of various conservative groups offering up everything from blaming Obama for the outbreak to....it's a message from God...

You HAVE to take a moment to check out of some of the strange rhetoric concocted by our fear-mongering friends from the right in response to the spread of H1N1 virus around the world.

Despite some reports that the virus is now on the decline and that it actually originated in CALIFORNIA not Mexico, people, from California's gun totin' Minutemen to eternally enraged radio host Michael Savage, are riled up! According to MediaMatters.org, the logic-agnostic Savage is even offering up the theory that Al Qaeda is sponsoring Mexicans to carry the flu into the United States as part of a terrorist plot. You have to hear this nutbag to believe him:

Joshua Cartwright - Florida Extremist Driven to Murder by Hate

2009-05-06T11:22:00.010-04:00

A revealing psychological barometer of the depth of racial hatred amongst some Americans can be gauged by the violent reactions some people have had to Barack Obama's election as the 44th President.

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch e-newsletter recently reported that a Florida National Guard member (pictured left) killed two Okaloosa, Fl Sheriff's deputies in a shootout at a gun club because, according to his girlfriend, he was "severely disturbed that Barack Obama had been elected president."

Deputies Warren “Skip” York and Burt Lopez were gunned down by Joshua Cartwright after they attempted to arrest him on domestic violence charges; both men were 45 year-old fathers.

Hatewatch reports that at least 25 law enforcement personnel have been killed by members of white supremacist hate groups in the 14 years since the Oklahoma City bombings that killed 168 people - most recently in Pittsburgh in April when officers Paul Sciullo III, 37, Stephen Mayhle, 29, and Eric Kelly, 41 responded to calls for assistance at the residence of Richard Poplawski, an extremist responsible for posting numerous racist and anti-Semitic messages on the Stormfront Website.

Honestly, what does it take for the government to crack down on the violence against innocent people by right-wing extremists? This is outrageous that this is happening in our nation in 2009.

If you watched the horrifying documentary "Torturing Democracy" on channel thirteen last night which examined the torture of detainees in Abu Gharib and Guantanamo by US troops, you can understand why many Americans despise George Bush (and his cohorts Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld) but no one thinks he should be killed because of what he did or failed to do as President.

Yet, many right-wing racists despise President Obama enough that they feel inspired to kill innocent people. There's something far more disturbing going in the minds of those consumed by hatred, something sad that pollutes out collective culturegeist and represents a void of spirituality and respect for life.

It's not a part of the society that I envision for this nation and the world.

Black at the Beach - Shore Time Again

2009-05-03T22:09:00.009-04:00

Traveling out to the Hamptons over the weekend I was reminded that summer shore communities in the eastern United States can be weird places if you're a member of an ethnic minority.

Let's face it, historically they are coastal regions where generations of white people of all classes took their families to vacation, sometimes to escape the heat of the cities; and for some, to spend time where they felt "comfortable".

I have to admit that over the years I harbored some pretty narrow-minded views of the racial atmosphere of the Hamptons, and was suspicious of the people who live and vacation there. As a black guy raised in the suburbs I'm probably guilty of having envisioned everyone out in the Hamptons as a member of the country-club sect, riding horses and talking like Thurston Howell from Gilligan's Island (pictured above)

But times have changed, middle-upper class African-Americans frequent a lot of beaches, Martha's Vineyard for example is a favorite destination for black people with means.

For many years I spent most of my weekends down on Long Beach Island on the New Jersey shore with friends from my high school. Places like Beach Haven, NJ or Seaside Heights, NJ aren't exactly overflowing with people of color and there were occasional instances in which I encountered white residents or vacationers with outwardly hostile attitudes towards me based on my skin color.

Speaking frankly it was always kind of odd to me that SOME of the same white people sitting out on the beach in the sun trying to tan their skin darker, harbored prejudice against people with dark skin.

But the positive experiences I've had at the beach far outweigh the negative ones if I felt isolated at the beach, maybe it was my own problem. The people who made me feel welcome dwarfed those who did not - but that doesn't mean there are not problems with racial tension at beaches in the US - case in point Virginia Beach.

The shore in West Hampton was still quiet over the weekend, too cold and overcast for the summer crowds, but the people (including a local police officer) I met out there seemed cool enough.

I was a guest of artist Steven Colucci and his girlfriend and besides being treated like a king in his amazing beach-front home it was beautiful out there and I realized, I had my own prejudices about people in the Hamptons. I'm not talking about the Hip-Hop elite who go out there for exclusive star-studded catered affairs hosted by Puff Daddy.

There are many liberal-minded people, of all races who've lived out there for years.

There are black people who live out there, the LIRR train stopped for 5 minutes at a station and I stepped out and had a smoke with a young black guy in a do-rag who seemed interested in my going out to shoot a documentary. It really eased my anxiety level to see that there were not just black people out there - but people of different economic backgrounds and races.

There are a number of Hispanic people and quite a few American Indians of the Shinnecock Nation; one of the oldest self-governing Native American tribes in the US, 60% of whom live below the poverty line.

During the 2008 presidential elections, many residents of the Hamptons came together to protest two racially insensitive newspaper columns in The Independent written by editor Rick Murphy in January, 2008. Actor Alec Baldwin was there and spoke out.

Regardless of our race I suppose that each of us carry "baggage" with us when we head down to the beach; the next time I go up to the Hamptons, I'll leave my own internalized prejudices, real and imagined, behind.

Baracking: Young African-American's Now Emulating the President

2009-05-02T12:31:00.004-04:00

I'm on an 11:30am Long Island Railroad Train "Baracking" out to the Hamptons to interview visionary artist Steven Colucci for a short documentary of his life we're collaborating on.

Wait a minute! You may ask, Baracking??

That's right. A new slang term that could evolve as a cultural marker of our times is now becoming popular among young a group of African-American students in an Albany, NY high school - Baracking.

On a recent episode of NPR's Weekend Edition Linda Wertheimer spoke with Ocasio Wilson about he and the students now use President Barack Obama's name as a slang combination of verb and adjective to give expression to engaging in behavior, actions, choices or activities that are morally positive and reflect a sense of good.

How cool is that? While bitter conservative media pundits seem to spend all their time berating the President for every decision he makes, the President's intelligence, sense of optimism and confidence are now affecting the self-image of people all over the world.

Say you're studying for a test, or staying late in the library to prepare for a science project - you're Baracking. Or if you skip school, you're not Baracking. You get the idea. So do millions of people of all ages.

The term Barack the Vote was popularized during the 2008 elections, but I think it's an amazing cultural phenomenon to find young students being inspired to be better human beings and raise the bar of expectation for themselves by altering the way they use the President's name.

I'm proud to be Baracking today, I feel good about that. I feel optimistic about this nation's future.

Coeur d'Alene Neo-Nazis: Two Men, a PO Box & a Twisted Ideology

2009-04-26T14:38:00.005-04:00

After being ceremoniously booted from their Coeur d' Alene, Idaho compound in a public bull-dozing in 2001 an Associated Press report published in the New York Times reports the neo-Nazis are back!

Well, sort of.

An Aryan Nations compound in Idaho is pictured at left, with mainstream financial adviser Chris Temple circled in red - Temple, a virulent neo-Nazi who once worked for former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, is well known and often quoted by mainstream media sources for his investment strategies, but less so for his adulation of Adolph Hitler and his Holocaust denial views.

Both the Times article and a Seattle PI.com article describe local Idaho residents as being puzzled at recent the distribution of fliers calling for the building of a "World Head Quarters".

In typical neo-Nazi distortion of truth and racist fear-mongering, the fliers found on Coeur d'Alene lawns recently depict a young white girl asking her father, "Why did the dark men take mommy away?"

Who's responsible?

Two guys operating out of a PO box.

According to the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, which has monitored and fought the Aryan Nations for years, two men, Jerald O’Brien and Michael Lombard list themselves as the "leaders" of the local Aryan Nations chapter - which consists of O'Brien and Lombard though they claim the recent election of Barack Obama will help fuel their recruiting efforts.

Former neo-Nazi leader Richard Butler was bankrupted back in 2000 after he was found responsible for a violent attack on locals - the Southern Poverty Law Center helped pursue the lawsuit, the organization specializes in suing hate groups and having courts seize their assets.

It's a positive sign to see various media outlets around the country bringing the activities of ignorant, violent cowards like O'Brien and Lombard to light.

It's also reassuring to see that the vast majority of Idaho citizens are totally against and offended by the presence of neo-Nazis infesting their state and trying to bring outsiders there who make pathetic attempts to portray the region as some kind of haven for the Aryan Nations and the tattered remnants of the Christian Identity Church movement and it's demented views of God and religion and embracing of hate and violence based on race.

People of all races recognize these losers for exactly what they are - two guys with a rented PO box, a massive inferiority complex and a warped view of a world in which they are a minority.

Viacom to Launch Cable Network Centric Targeting African-American Viewers

2009-04-24T09:31:00.008-04:00

When I was growing up in the 70's and 80's there was always something strange about rarely seeing faces on TV that looked like mine, or hearing people who spoke like I did.

As a young African-American male growing up in the suburbs of Bethesda, Maryland there weren't a lot of characters on television that I could really identify with and in a way that's difficult to convey it enforced the sense of social isolation I often felt growing up in an area where the majority of people were white.

Don't get me wrong, I was and am a huge movie buff with a voracious appetite for classic film and all kinds of entertainment, but it really wasn't until the 80's when I began to see recurring black characters in a variety of TV shows. The 'Cosby Show' was the first time I ever saw characters of color that resembled my family and socio-economic upbringing.

For instance I certainly watched 'Good Times' and 'What's Happening' but the projects of Chicago were foreign to me and certainly none of the characters I saw on 'The Six Million Dollar' Man or 'Little House on the Prairie' or 'The Dukes of Hazzard' or 'Dallas' were African-American, but I watched the shows religiously.

There were exceptions. There was Issac from the 'Love Boat', Tootie from 'The Facts of Life' and Arnold and Willis from 'Different Strokes' or the original Lionel from 'The Jeffersons' - but well-rounded multi-dimensional black characters on TV were few and far between.

I was entertained by all kinds of characters (of all races, animated and otherwise) but it was hard to relate to many of them on a level that was personal to me as a kid. While I was a huge 'Star Wars' fan (I saw the film in the theater 11 times) George Lucas' stock soared in my eyes when Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams, walked onto the platform to greet Han Solo in 'The Empire Strikes Back'.

That was a special moment for me, seeing a character I felt like I could be; one that was strong, intelligent and looked and spoke like me.

JJ Evans on 'Good Times' was entertaining, but even at a young age I never wanted to be or idolize a character that was so reminiscent of the shucking and jiving minstrel stereotype.

That's no knock against 'Good Times' creator Norman Lear, who changed the way Americans perceived race with 'All in the Family'.

Lear and the 'Good Times' writers also countered JJ's shucking and jiving comedy with the more well-rounded and multi-dimensional characters like his siblings Michael, Thelma, the mother Florida Evans and of course the father portrayed brilliantly by John Amos - who later left the show because of creative differences with the producers over the way his charter was portrayed on screen and how it visualized the black American male.

Network and cable television casting have come a long way and it's nice to read about the industry creating more programming options with an eye towards entertainment geared towards an ethnic audience.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=104739

Friday's Media Daily News reports that Viacom's (parent company of BET) is actively courting an older, professional (25-54) African-American demographic with a new cable network called Centric set to launch in the fall.

According to the article Centric would compete with TV One, a joint venture between Comcast and Radio One targeting the same demographic. A consumer demographic that spent more than $800 billion in 2006, numbers that advertisers can't afford to ignore.

Let's hope Centric contributes content that strives to portray African-Americans in a positive and healthy light that reflects the vast array of perspectives within the spectrum of an educated, intellectual, professional demographic.

One that votes, worships, thinks and plays in innumerable ways.

Mad TV Skit: No Black People on TV

TD Bank: Treating Black Customers Like Criminals?

2009-04-22T13:42:00.007-04:00

Today I am relieved to say that I no longer have to feel apprehensive about walking into the bank where I keep my own money.

After putting up with rude, insulting behavior from a bigot bank manager and poor overall service it feels good to say I am an ex-TD Bank customer.

Why an ex?

The short answer is I just grew weary of the suspicion, targeting and fear which greeted me from behind the counter and for those who may be reading this and wondering how far this nation has come since the Civil Rights era; read on

Profiling always seems to be defended by people who are rarely profiled themselves. I'm not a bank robber but I was treated as if I might be while waiting for service in the lobby of a TD Bank.

An unfortunate aspect of the recession has been a sharp rise in bank robberies in New York, so some bank employees seem to have developed an outwardly hostile attitude towards male African-American customers.

An encounter with just such an employee at a TD Bank in mid-town Manhattan recently led me to close my account with the bank that treated me as a potential bank robber rather than as the loyal customer that I am.

I’m not a security expert, so I can't really instruct TD Bank on how to keep their branches from being robbed.

But I AM an African-American male, so I CAN tell them what it feels like to be profiled in the branch I've used for the past 4 years.

Almost four weeks ago on Friday February 27th inside the TD Bank branch located on 43rd street and 3rd Avenue (the branch I've used for over 4 years) I was reminded of how far this nation has to go in terms of unequal treatment in public and private facilities based on skin color.

It was a Commerce Bank when I first set up my direct deposit from work there, but in recent months it was acquired by TD Bank. Aside from a few overdraft fees for the occasional bounced check, I'm a pretty average customer.

As a 6’7” African-American male, I can only suppose that (to some who don't know me) I cut an imposing figure. I was a professional football player so I am used to being gawked-at, observed, watched and followed by curious people or suspicious store employees (or bank managers) when I go into stores to shop.

It doesn't happen in the majority of instances when I shop but it does happen.

On Friday February 27th, I took a break from work in the afternoon to walk down to the bank and withdraw $1,200 in cash to pay my rent and Con Ed to the woman I sublet my apartment from.

The teller politely asked for my ID, which I provided. She then asked me if I could wait and took my passport, walked into the back and then returned without it and asked me politely to step aside so she could serve another customer.

I waited for four minutes before a young woman of Indian or East Asian descent, casually strolled from the back, walked behind the counter and sort of just stood there glaring at me without expression with my passport in her hand.

She didn't say anything to me. Didn't smile, or make an attempt to apologize for the delay and explain, or give me a reason why my passport was taken out of ,y site or what they were doing with it in the back of the bank for almost five minutes while I stood there with other customers glancing at me..

Though I was irate and offended, I didn't say anything particularly since one of their uniformed "greeters" casually walked over to where I was waiting and just sort of "took up station" two feet from me.

But I know I was treated differently because I was black.

I decided to do a little checking online and found that a rash of bank robberies in the New York area has led to reviews and overhauls of security measures.

A casual online search reveals a litany of complaints about TD Bank's sketchy practices. Everything from unjustified overdraft fees, to rude employees.

For example Reuters UK reported that Texas billionaire and scam artist Allen Stanford used to TD Bank to conduct his own ponzi scheme according to court records.

There are other complaints too, but I'm not here to discuss other people's experiences with an uncaring, Canadian-owned financial institution.

I'm writing in the hopes that other people who may have been treated with hostility, lack of courtesy and unprofessional behavior by a bank employee say something about it.

No bank or store employee has the right to treat black people as if they are criminals, especially a bank that has resisted efforts to install security options recommended by the NYPD that could keep tellers and money behind a safe wall so that paranoid, racist bank managers don't have to prowl the bank skulking after black customers.

The Sunday March 15th New York Times reported on efforts by the NYPD to work with banks to voluntarily enact recommendations and "best practices" to try and keep both bank employees and customers safe from the criminals responsible for a string of recent bank robberies in Manhattan.

Among the recommendations are for banks to use security partitions that protect tellers and also employ "greeters", employees who stand at the entrance and greet visitors and customers as a visual deterrent to potential thieves.

TD Bank, according to the article in the Times, has resisted NYPD requests to install security partitions and instead relies on greeters in the lobby and other undisclosed "best practices" which seem to include profiling, and or hostile suspicious managers standing around glaring at black customers who are waiting for service.

Funny, they worry about installing security partitions because it will make customers uncomfortable – but to protect their security, TD Bank allows their employees to treat and regard black customers as if they are in the bank to rob it.

Has this happened to you? Maybe someone you know?

Take action, close your account, write them a letter. I posted an excerpt from this blog to the consumer complaint site "The Complaint Board", and I intend to send their corporate office a letter and mail a copy to the branch at 43rd street and 3rd avenue.

Call them and share your experiences online with other consumers so they know not to give their business to a company that treats honest loyal customers with contempt and disdain because their skin is darker.

Some advice for the employees of TD Bank on 43rd street & 3rd avenue:

Neo-Nazi Meeting in Clifton, NJ Broken up By Protesters

2009-04-15T10:46:00.005-04:00

While hate group membership is rising in tune with the slumping economy, a recent online story suggests private citizens are taking action to confront these gatherings of anti-Semite racist homophobes in the communities where they are trying to take root.

Did you know New Jersey and New York are laced with a variety of neo-Nazi organizations?

Fortunately violent purveyors of hate are dwarfed by the millions of people of all races and religions who see them for exactly what they are; disturbed members of a marginalized group of people who choose to see the world in shades of hate, separation and violence.

On thing I've noticed about these "rallies" by KKK or neo-Nazis is that they're always totally outnumbered by multi-ethnic crowds of people there to demonstrate that their communities are not represented by cowards who run around beating up innocent people, dropping leaflets, defacing homes, churches, synagogues and even graveyards with spray-paint.

According to a recent article posted on the North Jersey.com Website, outraged members of a group calling themselves "One People's Project" stormed into the Allwood branch of the Clifton Public Library in New Jersey and broke up a meeting of a newly-formed white supremacist group known as the "League of American Patriots".

According the article on the NorthJersey.com site:

"The group, which is based in Butler, is devoted to "reversing the rapid demographic decline of European peoples in our homeland," according to its Web site. Membership is open only to "adult heterosexual men and women who are entirely of European Christian Ancestry"

A brawl broke out when five people entered the "League's" meeting, organized under a fictitious group called the "Polish-American Issues Forum" according to the librarian, and started shouting down the wanna-be Nazis.

Daryl Lamont Jenkins, the executive director of the Philly-based One People's Project was quoted as saying the "League of American Patriots" (funny, I thought patriots defended the principles of justice, liberty and equality?) is about 12 months old and is partially made up of at least some members of the 35-year old National Alliance, another Neo-Nazi group.

Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennendys had it right: Nazi punks fuck off!

A Remedy Gone Too Far? White Firefighter Sues City for Discrimination

2009-04-13T15:57:00.002-04:00

Fire departments in larger urban America cities boast a strong and proud tradition of cultural ties to the Irish-American community in deference to the many Irish-Americans who have served and given their lives as community firefighters over the decades.

The jobs firefighters do and the risks they take forges a unique bond among it's ranks that transcends the "job" itself. As such, the social life of the firefighter is critical to success in his or her profession.

There are fraternal social organizations, such as the "Emerald Societies" where unofficial professional interaction takes place. Where a firefighter might make valuable social contacts that might offer an advantage when positions open up or in terms of assignment to choice firehouses or units; or learning knowledge about firefighting first hand from veterans and other experienced professionals.

But as the ranks of firefighters in the US becomes more diverse however, increasingly the question about what role background and race play in the promotion of officers has attracted more and more media attention.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, on Wednesday April 22nd the Supreme Court will rule on a discrimination suit brought by New Haven firefighter Frank Ricci.

The 11-year veteran claims he was denied a promotion he earned after he came in 6th in a promotional exam administered to potential officers. The problem: the test was thrown out after 19 other New Haven African-American firefighters failed the test.

Ricci claims he was discriminated against by the city of New Haven because of his skin color and the case is attracting nation-wide media attention.

The case has pitted members of the black firefighters organization against Ricci and 17 other co-defendants (including one Hispanic) who argue that their performance and the merits of their test scores outweigh mandates to promote a proportionate share of officers from the ranks that reflects the makeup of both the fire department and the community itself.

Others from the the city contend the test itself cannot be the sole factor in deciding the qualifications for promotions within the New Haven fire department.

Have remedies intended to reverse racial discrimination gone too far?

Time will tell, but this will be the first time in decades that the Supreme Court has ruled in a case deciding the merits of race-based mandated promotions in the workplace adhere to the intent of the Constitution.

The question still remains, is an African-American or Hispanic-American firefighter at an inherent disadvantage for promotion because he or she might be excluded from social organizations like the Emerald Society?

Family Properties

2009-04-03T12:14:00.007-04:00

The history and truth of housing discrimination offers some of the most revealing insight into the grass-roots effects of prejudice and institutionalized racism and anti-Semitism in America.

A recent segment on the Leonard Lopate show offered a fascinating glimpse into the complicated workings of housing discrimination in Chicago.

In an interview with, Beryl E. Satter, author of the new book "Family Properties: Race, Real Estate and the Plight of Black Families in America" some disturbing truths about housing discrimination in 20th century America are explored.

I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of this book in which she untangles the intertwined web that is the legacy of housing discrimination in the United States.

An associate professor and Chair of the history department of Rutgers University in Newark, NJ, Satter speaks with authority and amazing insight and clarity on an issue that has been shrouded in falsehoods, misinformation and secrecy for decades.

It's a fascinating and eye-opening radio interview, don't take my word for it, listen for yourself:

The myths and assumptions have been repeated for so long in this country that many people accept them as a sociological truth and an indictment of African-American character: When blacks move in to nicer neighborhoods...they stop taking care of their property... the value of the surrounding homes begin to plummet and whites begin to move out...

Satter demonstrates that these myths were part of a much larger and more complex effort by banks, real estate agencies, business leaders to keep white neighborhoods segregated and keep blacks clustered in very specific areas.

According to Satter's book, as a matter of policy the FHA refused to back loans for African-American homeowners for decades because of an unwritten and widely-held assumption that any property purchased by blacks would decline in value.

The myths that have surrounded the "White Flight" syndrome are a critical part of the history of this nation and a fascinating look at the struggles African-Americans and other minorities have faced in the course of trying to purchase homes and property.

For example, Satter talks about the "Redlining" of communities in Chicago where blacks were forced to buy homes "On Contract" meaning home-owners were responsible for taxes, maintenance fees and monthly payments on the property, but black homeowners received NO actual equity until the balance was paid off.

Contract Selling meant the payments were so high, sometimes three times as high as the rates white were paying, that often blacks were forced to work two jobs, for if they missed one payment, they could lose the property and any equity they had paid into the home would be lost and the property would be turned back over to the selling agent.

The by-product of "Contract Selling" led to the myth of blacks not maintaining their property, because often simple home improvements like painting, fixing shutters or landscaping had to be put off so home owners could afford the higher rates they were paying.

Sadly, it sheds the light on a cooperative effort by the government, bankers, politicians and private citizens to keep people of color excluded from owning property in the larger urban areas of the United States.

Anyone who looks at the urban blight of ghetto projects like Cabrini Green and scratches their head, need look no further than Beryl Satter's book to understood who created these warehouses of humanity an why.

Racial Bias by the Boys in Blue?

2009-03-18T13:19:00.008-04:00

When I read about cops like NYPD officer Juan Nunez (pictured left) being busted for joining 3 other men in beating a 52 year-old homeless black man with their fists and a bat in front of a deli on Long Island while yelling racial epithets at him, it bothers me on a number of levels.

It doesn't make think that every one of the thousands of NYPD officers is a racist, but it does make me aware that many of them harbor internalized bias against people because of the color of their skin, and that's a big problem in New York City.

Forget that those charged with enforcing the law are held to a higher standard, or that officer Nunez should have been the one helping someone who was being attacked, not taking part as a group of men are beating one man.

Is he able to enforce the law objectively without bias when he obviously harbors bias against African-Americans?

According to an article in the New York Daily News, Freeport, Long Island resident Officer Nunez was at the deli at 8am when a black homeless man named Daryl Jackson tried to use the pay phone outside and was asked to leave by the property owners.

Not all the facts are clear but three members of the deli owner's family, Jose Miguel Vargas, 35, of Freeport, and Bronx residents Persio Vargas, 53 and Kelvin Vargas,24 along with Nunez, surrounded Jackson and confronted him and began beating him after some kind of scuffle ensued - no doubt all FOUR men will testify that Jackson threw the first punch.

What's sad is that this kind of hostile attitude is a by-product of the Rudy Giuliani era New York when violence against the homeless and African-Americans by members of the NYPD skyrocketed after "America's Mayor" declared war on the homeless in the city including the infamous "Squeegee Men".

No one is going to argue that it wasn't annoying when homeless guys with dirty rag would begin washing the windows of drivers stuck in traffic then aggressively demand money for it; but no one deserves to be beaten up or physically assaulted for pan handling - especially by the police.

Just today, the New York Times reported that the City of New York agreed to pay $1.15 million to settle a law suit that accused two NYPD detectives, Patrick J. Brosnan and James Crowe, both former body guards for Mayor Rudy Giuliani, of execution-style killings of two robbery suspects in the Bronx.

In 1995 Anthony Rosario, 18, was hit by 14 bullets, 6 of them hit him in the back. His cousin Hilton Vega, 21 was struck with eight shots, 1 in the head, 1 in his butt, 1 in his arm and 5 in the back. This was 4 years before the murder of Amadou Diallo, an innocent man of color shot 41 times.

If officer Nunez, himself Puerto Rican, treated a homeless black man this way when he was off duty, how is he going treat a black suspect he encounters when he has his gun and badge?

Is it realistic to assume that someone like officer Nunez can just "turn off" the bias he has against people of color when he's on duty? Why are the NYPD allowed to routinely use excessive physical force against African-American males, even when they are innocent and unarmed?

Remember Sean Bell?

Austrian Scientist: Cleopatra Was Likely Part African

2009-03-16T23:20:00.008-04:00

To this day Cleopatra remains one of the most enduring figures in ancient history, albeit a misunderstood one.

But a recent BBC News article about a recent archaeological discovery about her genes shatter some of the long-accepted myths about her race.

For years she has been assumed to be European in her looks, partly because so many fictional works created by European and American artists simply portrayed her that way.

Many archaeologists have long asserted that she was Greek or Macedonian as many of the Egyptian monarchs were actually Macedonian in origin.

Some African-Americans and Afro-centric scholars have long claimed she was in fact, a dark-skinned Egyptian African queen, but the truth is a merger of all these claims.

The inaccuracies that surround this fascinating Egyptian monarch are compounded by the numerous fictional works based on her life.

Most famously Elizabeth Taylor's portrayal of her in the 1963 film Cleopatra solidified the pop-culture myth of Cleopatra as a light-skinned, blue-eyed Caucasian. With Elizabeth Taylor's stunning blue eyes and simmering on-screen sexuality, it's not too hard to understand how THAT happened.

The film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and co-starring Richard Burton is known notoriously as one of the most expensive box-office flops in history, because of the enormous costs of it's elaborate sets and costumes and a series of delays and on-set accidents. Originally budgeted at $2 million it eventually cost $44 million and nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox studios.

There are no less than eight films (the first produced in 1917 and the most recent, in 2005) about her life and she has also been written about by playwrights (including Shakespeare), novelists, poets and was also characterized in the recent BBC-HBO cable television series Rome; usually cast as a white Caucasian female.

But the truth, according to the BBC News article is that she was in fact, most likely the daughter of an African mother based on a study of her sister Arsinoe's skeleton first unearthed in the late 1920's.

Cleopatra was born in January 69 BC and her parents were brother and sister. Her mother, Cleopatra V was an Egyptian queen and her father Ptolemy XII, was a direct descendant of Ptolemy I Soter, a general of Alexander the Great.

Austrian Hilke Thuer of the Austrian Academy of Sciences completed a study of the skull of Cleopatra's sister Arsinoe found in a tomb in Ephesus, Turkey; he asserts that a close study of the skull clearly demonstrates that Arsinoe's mother was African and hence, Cleopatra was likely of mixed race as well.

To eliminate her younger sister as a potential rival for the Egyptian throne (they were both daughters of Ptolemy XII with different mothers), Cleopatra ordered her lover/husband Marc Antony to kill Arsinoe in 41 BC after the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC (with whom Cleopatra had 3 sons...)

So after years of assumptions, science now makes clear that Cleopatra, the last Pharaoh, was in fact of mixed race and most likely had African, Egyptian and Macedonian (Greek) features.

A truth that has taken 2,000 years to come to light.

Conservative Media & Their Vision of an America Divided by Hate and Extremism

2009-03-15T12:25:00.006-04:00

With the world's leading nations trying to weather the worst recession in memory, the Intelligence Report of the Southern Poverty Law Center released it's annual report on hate crime activity in the United States showing the number of extremist groups in the US rose 4% in 2008 to 926.

Elements of the mainstream media are partially responsible. Media pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have been promoting the myth of the "Obama Recession" on TV and radio for months in an attempt to lay the blame for the financial meltdown at the door of a president who has been in office less than 100 days.

The New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, is still making headlines after the recent cartoon depicting two police officers gunning down a monkey serving as a crass caricature of President Barack Obama.

Hysterical fears over the rise in Latino immigration have led to a 40% rise in hate crimes against immigrants.

The conservative media promote bogus data and propaganda that misinterprets HUD information in an effort to falsely blame immigrant and minority home owners for the mortgage meltdown rather than the banks and Wall Street firms that spent years bundling up mortgages into complex packages and them selling them off before the real estate bubble burst.

It's not a new phenomenon, hate is almost like a part of a cycle

In the aftermath of the Civil War the first phase of the Ku Klux Klan arose in opposition to Federal Reconstruction efforts to direct the rebuilding of the devastated Southern infrastructure and secure rights for millions of recently-freed slaves.

During the global economic malaise that followed the first World War, Klan membership in the United States reached an all-time high of at least 4,000,000 members, numbers that included judges, members of law enforcement, members of the press, business leaders and even members of Congress.

The question is when do we begin stepping up to the plate and looking at the challenges we face in the eye as a nation rather than wasting time and effort trying to look for scapegoats to a collective responsibility.

The petty, divisive political agendas of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, the News Corporation, Michelle Malkin and others only seek to tap fear and anger and distract us from the broader responsibilities and opportunities that are before us.

It's the politics of unity, truth and responsibility that are needed now; not the politics of hate and ignorance.

Rush Limbaugh's Demented "Movement" Theory - people actually take this kind of opinionated racist fiction as fact:

Monkey Book Display at Barnes & Noble: Snopes Says It's Fake

2009-03-02T22:46:00.003-05:00

This photo was sent to me recently by a friend who claims that the Barnes & Noble store in the Miracle Mile Mall in Coral Gables, Florida had this display in the front display of the store.

Notice the various Obama books and in the center is a book about Monkeys. If you'll notice, this display is not in a place where a customer could have placed the monkey book.

I sent this to my cousin Pam who said she'd received the e-mail as well and that Snopes.com claims that according to a statement from Barnes & Noble, the monkey book was placed there by a customer as a prank and not by an employee of Barnes & Noble.

I was in a rush and blogged about the picture, but had no time to stop and check it's authenticity.

Lazy blogging on my part and I chalk it up as a lesson learned. I pledge to refrain from printing photos I receive from people second-hand in the future and will, as has been the focus of my blog, focus on issues covered by the media.

Given the number of stores and the range of employees Barnes & Noble has, I cannot in all fairness just accuse the entire corporation as a whole of being racist.

As I stated in my original blog I worked part-time for Barnes & Noble in New York (the original store on 5th avenue) and I know they had a diverse range of employees and managers working there during my brief tenure and I never had any problems or saw any such nonsense.

I'll be more careful in the future.

Gordon Brown Becomes 1st Major World Leader to Sign Anti-Semitic Pact

2009-02-26T12:27:00.007-05:00

Cheers to Gordon Brown.

The current British Prime Minister may be under fire from conservatives within the UK government over his handling of the current economic crisis, but it's a positive sign that he has become the first leader of a major Western Power to step forward and put his signature on the London Declaration against antisemitism.

On Wednesday the Anti Defamation League Website reported that 120 lawmakers from 40 countries came together at the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism.

One of the most interesting goals of this ambitious effort to combat anti-Jewish bigotry is to form a coalition of Internet experts to track the metrics of online antisemitic activity.

Perhaps they could start by monitoring racist, antisemitic hate monger Ann Coulter, who openly expresses her hatred of Jews (and pretty much anyone who isn't blond, white, Christian, American and registered with the Republican party..) on mainstream media all the time. Take a look at the clip to the right. Achtung baby.

It's a great sign to see global initiatives like this take root as humanity seeks to step into a more evolved age of awareness and begin bringing hate and discrimination in all it's forms into the light of truth and knowledge.

My hope would be to see the White House follow suit with a similar pledge of support from President Obama and raise racial unity and the healing of the wounds of hate to it's rightful place at the top of the agenda.

Ann Coulter Defends White Supremacist Council of Conservtive Citizens

2009-02-23T14:42:00.010-05:00

It simply baffles me how mainstream media organizations continue to parade Ann Coulter onto podiums, panels and talk shows to feed from the trough of her offensive slew of pseudo-journalism and demented right-wing white supremacist ideology.

Back on January 5th I blogged about the successful grass-roots efforts of thousands of outraged Americans of all races who flooded NBC with calls of protest over a scheduled appearance on the Today Show to promote her latest book; which MediaMatteers.org described as filled with blatant inaccuracies and falsehoods.

Don't get me wrong, in this nation the First Amendment grants us the right to free speech.

But just as the Supreme Court has ruled that doesn't mean you can shout fire in a crowded theater, I consider it a mockery of the Constitution to permit this anti-Semitic, homophobe-racist liar to have a pulpit on the airwaves to pollute the nation's collective consciousness with hate.

Let's take a specifc example.

To hear right-wing extremist/media pundit/author Ann Coulter describe the Council of Conservative Citizens in her latest book, one might asume that the CCC is merely a group of patriotic Americans with an atypical conservative ideology.

According to a recent article posted on the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch e-newsletter, Coulter describes the CCC as a group advocating “a strong national defense, the right to keep and bear arms, the traditional family, and an ‘America First’ trade policy.” Further, anyone who levels criticism against the CCC including the New York Times, she dismisses as liberals “who have no principles.”

But as is usually the case with Coulter, the actual truth is very different from what she says or writes. The CCC is a modernized version and the successor of what was once known in this country as the 'White Citizens' Council'.

What is the WCC?

It would be a disservice to call it a white supremacist hate group, because it's far more extensive and couches itself behind a cloak of legitimacy.

During the 30's, 40's and 50's when members of the NAACP, lawyers, human rights groups, journalists and other advocates of legal rights undertook massive grass roots campaigns across the southern United States to confront segregation and work to ensure that blacks in the south were able to exercise the right to vote, White Citizens' Councils chapters sprang up in communities across the south to defend segregationist policies and actively discourage and prevent blacks from voting - a right granted under the Constitution.

The "Councils" were typically made up of leading business and civic leaders of a given town or community and included judges, sheriffs, bank owners, real estate agents, store owners, farmers, lawyers and many newspapers publishers and editors.

In a recent article on the Anti Defamation League Website, the ADL not only tags the CCC as an extremist organization, but describes their cause as:

"Advances its ideology by inflaming fears and resentments, among Southern whites particularly, with regard to black-on-white crime, non-white immigration, attacks on the public display of the Confederate flag, and other issues related to "traditional" Southern culture."

Dime-store intellectuals like Coulter aren'the only ones who have spoken in front of and supported the CCC. Reublican Senator Trent Lott and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, both influential figures in the GOP, (take a wild guess as to how THESE guys feel about African-American Michael Steele being selected as the Republican Natonal Committee chair) have spoken at CCC events.

Read about the CCC for yourself.

If Ann Coulter defends them, what is she doing on Fox News or appearing at college campuses?

Ask yourself why mainstream media gives her a pulpit from which to spew racist, anti-Semitic lies? Why would a person like this be anywhere NEAR the Today Show?

People like Ann Coulter represent far more of a danger to the US than any terrorists; terrorists are subject to arrest and capture - we don't put them on talk shows and radio to talk about their philosophy.

New York Post's Racist Cartoon Continues to Spark Outrage and Protests

2009-02-22T14:24:00.010-05:00

The New York Post continues to make headlines around the world, although not for their coverage of the war or the struggling economy - but for depicting the President as a dead chimp.

It's a new low even by the questionable standards of the New York Post as the editorial staff is apparently reduced to resurrecting the most base racist imagery in order to sell newspapers.

In the wake of the growing firestorm of controversy surrounding the disturbing cartoon (pictured above) depicting two white police officers standing over the blood-spattered corpse of a dead chimpanzee representing the President of the United States, the owners and editorial staff of the Post have further degraded themselves by issuing a half-ass apology that defended the decision to run the cartoon as a protest against the economic stimulus bill; suggesting they have absolutely no clue of just how offensive this cartoon is for many Americans.

But if the global media reaction is any indication, the Post is about to get a lesson.

On Saturday the nation's oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP called for a boycott of the paper, demanded a detailed apology and insisted that the editor-in-chief Col Allan and the cartoonist Sean Delonas both be fired.

Local television news stations here in New York City over the weekend featured updates on the story and interviews with New Yorkers in the street - who, regardless of race seem overwhelmingly aghast at the cartoon.

The question on many minds is why?

The editorial pages of the Post are typically populated by more Republican-leaning views that span the gamut from conservative thinkers like Robert Novack or Ralph Peters, all the way to bizarre fact-bending purveyors of angry, hate-filled right-wing rhetoric like Michelle Malkin or Bill O'Reilly - but this cartoon goes beyond that.

Aside from it's sports or entertainment coverage, one can always depend on the Post's articles and writers to present a perspective that will come down on the right. That's one of the reasons I read it, as a way to gauge conservative viewpoints that differ from my own. I've had two of my letters published.

But I've noticed that whenever an unarmed black suspect is beaten or shot by members of the NYPD, the Post inevitably spins the coverage as pro-police regardless of the facts of the case. Like clockwork, an article by cranky conservative crumudgeon Steve Dunleavy will appear extholing the virtues of police and blasting anyone who has the audacity to question police brutality.

But by now it's clear to millions of people of all races that the Post has stepped off the proverbial reservation and violated the boundaries of reasonable editorial commentary.

It's not a lampoon, a political cartoon or even a jest.

It is a violent and racist statement that dredges up the tired time-honored stereotypes that depict African-Americans as apes, gorillas or monkeys in place of well-reasoned intellectual discourse.

In response the Post printed a lame excuse for an apology and used the opportunity to label Al Sharpton as an instigator. Sharpton is what he is, but he didn't draw the cartoon.

It's flat out wrong of the Post to suggest the murder of the President (at the hand of two white police officers) because they disagree with the economic stimulus package.

What's next? Inspiring lynch mobs to storm the White House and lynch Presdent Obama because he passes legislation the Post doesn't like?

The editor-in-chief needs to resign immediately along with the cartoonist and an apology must be made by Rupert Murdoch. Period.

As an American I'm not really comfortable with an arrogant power-obsessed Australian media-tycoon condoning the murder of a US president because he doesn't like his legislation or his skin color - not when he owns other newspapers and two television stations here in the city as well.

Haven't we got enough problems to deal with without racists like Murdoch fanning the flames of hatred and ignorance to sell more copies of a newspaper?

Hugo Chavez Fans Anti-Semitic Flames in Venezuela

2009-02-12T21:15:00.007-05:00

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's defiant ideological stance against the United States and in particular former-president George W. Bush reveals a man with an unquestioned grasp of the power of the media.

He garnered worldwide media attention after calling Bush "The Devil" at the United Nations. He openly denounced Bush's Iraq War policy and sought to align the world's poorest nations in opposition to US foreign policy.

When skyrocketing oil prices in 2004 pumped billions of dollars into the Venezuelan economy, Chavez defiantly thumbed his nose openly at Washington by shipping free heating oil to poor urban residents in the Bronx and other areas in the United States during the winter months.

He has hosted Hollywood admirers like Sean Penn and Danny Glover.

But according to a February 12th New York Times article long-held accusations of anti-Semitism leveled against him have once again surfaced amidst a recent wave of violence against Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues and other property after Chavez denounced Israel for their actions in the Gaza War.

He expelled the Israeli ambassador then demanded that the members of Venezuela's Jewish population denounce the leaders of Israel's government as "assassins." When a synagogue was desecrated with anti-Semitic slurs on January 31, Chavez brazenly dismissed the attacks as the work of Israel's intelligence wing the Mossad - despite a report from the Venezuelan attorney general that 5 members of the Venezuelan police and an intelligence operative were arrested in connections with the attacks.

State-sponsored anti-Semitism? Chavez's positions on Jews go back well before 2009; one of his closest advisers in the 90's was Norberto Ceresole, an Argentinian sociologist recognized by many as a fascist and an anti-Semite.

To his credit Chavez offered aid to residents of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina and actively campaigned on the part of the poor in his own country; but that's not a blank check to dredge up anti-Jewish rhetoric in an attempt to tap anti-Semitic feelings in his nation.

His recent actions leave cause to wonder if those efforts to help blacks in the US were sincere, or just clever media spin employed to solidify his own power. For someone who accuses the Israelis of acting like Nazis, Chavez certainly seems to have the lessons of the Third Reich's resident spin-meister Josef Goebbels down to a tee.

Michael Steele Named RNC Chair - Republicans Make a Stand for Change

2009-02-07T14:12:00.007-05:00

As anyone who's read this blog might know, on the weekends I love cooking brunch and listening to NPR.

I did pretty well on this afternoon's always hysterical radio news quiz "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me" think you know your current events for the week? Click the link and take a shot at this week's quiz!

Tavist Smiley is doing a phone interview with the newly selected chair of the Republican National Committee. A Black president AND a black chair of the GOP in one year? I gotta sit down.

In January I kicked off 2009 with a blog in the wake of perpetually hostile femme-Nazi-freak Ann Coulter's book plug appearance on NBC's Today Show being pulled after viewer outrage promted a flood of calls to 30 Rock.

It wasn't just former Republican National Committee chair-candidate Chip Saltsman's sending out CD's with the song "Barack the Magic Negro" on it to the members of the RNC as a holiday stocking stuffer (it's not his fault, that disengaged schmuck wanna-be power broker didn't even grasp how that affects the perception of the party, he was strictly status-quo....zzzzzzz) that clarified the need for the Republican Party to step back and redefine itself to re-connect with the American electorate.

In 2008 the GOP learned the hard way that it cannot possibly survive as a party that speaks exclusively to privileged white males.

Political novice Sarah Palin's selection as the VP candidate was nothing more than a failed media gimmick designed to try and counter the media fervor and energy that stemmed from the Democratic party's selection of Barack Obama as their candidate for president.

What was the GOP honestly thinking picking an obscure governor of a state with a population of 686,293 people who has difficulty conjugating and thinks Africa is a country as the next person in line for the highest office in the land?

John McCain didn't even select her as his running mate, the party did; and it's now well-known he was privately pissed about it.

Time will tell but I think it's a pretty big statement on the part of the GOP to pick Michael Steele, the first African-American lieutenant governor of Maryland (who lost a bid for former Senator Paul Sarbanes US Senate seat to Ben Cardin) as the head of the party.

It's not going to alter the culture of the party over night, but listening to Steele's interview, its the little things that are slowly going to change the perception problems and branding issues that the Republican party faces looking ahead.

For instance Steele told Tavist Smiley he requested that the daily press briefing the party issues be sent to all major African-American media outlets for radio, newspaper and Internet.

Prior to that, communicating with the media outlets that speak to blacks wasn't even part of the of the Republican agenda. That's the kind of thinking that will have to change if the GOP expects to move forward in the 21st century as a party that has the ability to govern on behalf of all Americans regardless of salary, skin color or religion.

Put simply change is the natural order of the universe and it's time for the GOP to cowboy up.

Steele's appointment is a step in the right direction.

Two Ad Industry Execs Discuss Their Experiences in a 2007 Ad Age Interview

2009-02-06T15:02:00.006-05:00

I was thinking about my previous entry about the state of the ad industry and I recalled a very interesting interview from AdAge.com a couple years ago with two African-American ad executives from different generations.

Doug Alligood and Erika Emeruwa were both ad execs with BBDO in March, 2007 at the time of the article.

They were 73 and 27 respectively at the time the article was written.

I thought it might be lend some perspective to the challenges facing the ad industry to look at their perspectives to lend some insight into how we can better understand the kinds of steps the leaders of this industry might consider to not only bring some balance to the ranks of Madison Avenue; but to get a sense of how difficult it is for people of color to feel comfortable about choosing to work in such an industry.

It's a good surface look at what it's like to be black in the advertising world.

Doug Alligood was at BBDO in the early 60's, almost unheard of at the time. In that respect he is something of a pioneer in the industry - a black man who found success and a career working in an industry that is today, almost exclusively white.

Erika Emeruwa is bright, confident graduate of George Washington University, a young woman raised in circumstances very similar to my own - an environment in which she was usually "the only black person in the class" and I know what that is like having been raised in the suburbs of Bethesda, MD.

Their 2007 interview in AdAge.com (written by Lisa Sanders) is an interesting and I think objective look from the perspectives of two African-Americans with middle class upbringings who simply had a passion to work in the ad industry...and succeeded. It's worth a look.

Looking at ways to encourage diversity within the ad industry.

Ad Industry - the Last Frontier?

2009-02-02T11:41:00.004-05:00

Last February when I blogged about advertisers under-serving Asian-American consumers, I referenced a Calgon commercial (pictured left) I remember well from my childhood which was rife with stereotypical assumptions and images of Asian-Americans.

Just look at the image, does anyone honestly think the commercial was written, or cast with a sensitivity to Asian-Americans in mind?

Images like this illustrate how the appalling lack of diversity amongst advertising professionals sanctions the creation and use of commercials that often use racial stereotypes to sell products to a demographic that isn't Asian-American.

Don't be fooled either, very little has changed within the advertising industry since this commercial was running in the 1970's - take a look at the Bendick & Egan Advertising Industry Report: Race and Employment in the Advertising Industry, January 2009.

On January 9th I blogged about the ad industry being taken to task for the alarmingly lax strides made in the hiring of minority ad professionals and inequity in compensation for blacks in the industry. I generally don't see a lot of mainstream media coverage exploring the extent of the influence that advertising wields over our perceptions of race and culture.

Most mainstream media, be it NBC Nightly News, Time or even People Magazine are far more concerned with selling ads than looking at how those ads affect the way Americans think about race or perceive people of different backgrounds.

Fortunately there are b2b publications like Ad Age that consistently devote coverage and analysis of the ad industry's power over perception; and how that impacts race.

To mark Black History Month Ad Age.com kicked off a month-long series of articles with an interesting piece on how the ad industry serves, or under-serves the 40 million African-American consumers in the US.

The article raises interesting questions about how the ad industry engages black consumers, who spend almost $3 trillion annually. $3 trillion in spending and the ad industry still takes that segment of the US population for granted? How pathetic.

The unprecedented initiative launched by law firm Mehri & Skalet and the NAACP to confront the ad industry about it's inability to desegregate it's ranks and create a work environment that is more reflective of our nation's cultural makeup is receiving a lot of publicity - but not in the mainstream publications, television stations, Websites and radio that reach most Americans.

With the Superbowl hype making headlines recently, journalists and media pundits alike have been looking at all kinds of questions about commercial content. Which Superbowl ads made them laugh? How much does a 30-second buy during the Superbowl cost? Are TV advertisers pitching the appropriate products in a given time slot?

How many people watch commercials on TV and count the number of minority faces they see? How many people pause to think what a magazine ad says to people of different religious backgrounds?

When there isn't a diverse group of people sitting around the conference room table or in cubicles of the major ad agencies creating the commercial content we see, we shouldn't be surprised when ads don't enage or speak to consumers of all backgrounds.

Until Madison avenue and the holding companies that dominate the industry get serious about it, we'll get exactly what they've been serving us; commercial content served up by people who don't represent the demographic they're targeting.

It's not an 'Ancient Chinese secret.'

The Legacy of Dr. King's Vision

2009-01-19T20:37:00.011-05:00

On the eve of the inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama, the impending sense of change felt across this nation is intense and immediate.

Magnified by the observation of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. it lends a transcendental quality to the moment unfolding before us.

What is taking place before the scrutiny of the lens and the pen that will describe this moment in history and the eyes of millions of observers is nothing less than a new declaration of an awakening of our collective consciousness.

The culturegeist is evolving before our very eyes.

It's not just for black people, or Democrats, or for Americans but for the world and for humanity. Millions of people across the globe recognize this sense that we are witnessing the ascension of an intelligent and pragmatic world leader grounded in humanity and character; tethered by his faith.

Every media channel is poised to capture each moment of the time-honored ceremony about to take place in the Nation's Capitol. The millions of people who've descended upon the city to witness the occasion or simply "be there" will stretch the limits of the bandwidths and electronic conduits through which millions of gigabytes of data will flow back and forth between mobile devices and computers well into the night.

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 80 years old last Thursday January 15th had he not fallen to an assassin's bullet on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

Here in America one of the ways we recognize King's legacy as a human rights icon and transformative figure is with the observance of a federal holiday on the third Monday of each January.

There's a powerful Tsunami of change pushing it's way through America. Towards a more advanced and inclusive culture born of the core of our country's complex history. It's part of a movement with many soldiers and participants; many heroes and many martyrs.

It didn't just start with Obama but his character, ideas about this nation and record as a politician have placed him in synch as the path of this wave prepares to usher in unprecedented change.

Dr. King could not have wished for a greater gift.

Watch the "I Have a Dream Speech"

Still Afraid of the Dark? Madison Avenue Gets an 'F' for Diversity in New Report

2009-01-09T11:36:00.013-05:00

A January 8th Adweek article rips into the the advertising industry for it's dismal record of hiring minorities and a culture which discourages hiring or promoting people of color.

In a story that ran on the Media & Advertising page of the New York Times Stuart Elliot focused on the collaborative efforts of attorney Cyrus Mehri and the NAACP to bring attention to the advertising industry's dismal record of creating a racially diverse workplace.

On Thursday Mehri and representatives from the NAACP held a press conference in New York to announce the initiative Mehri's firm Mehri & Skalet calls 'The Madison Avenue Project'. They released a 100-page report, 'Research Perspectives on Race and Employment in the Advertising Industry' that outlines their conclusions.

The Times' piece quotes Mehri as saying: “Forty-five years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it’s still a closed society,” he added, where “favoritism rules and merit is cast aside.”

For anyone familiar with the media industry, this does not come as earth-shattering news by any means. For years Madison Avenue has taken heat for keeping it's ranks essentially closed to people of color and today it remains the most segregated professional sector in the United States.

They were talking about the same thing 30 years ago.

For example, the report released Thursday (click the link above for a PDF of the report) cites in part: "In 1978 the New York City Human Rights Commission found that limited minority employment (in the advertising industry) was 'not simply the result of neutral forces, but emanated directly from discriminatory practices.'"

It wouldn't be accurate to malign everyone in the advertising business for bearing responsibility for the entrenched culture of hierarchy quietly linked through connections through school, family or professional association; and skin color.

To be fair, a number of professionals from the industry have made calls over the years for the industry to improve it's track record of minority hiring and recruitment. The advertising organization known as the 4A's (American Association of Advertising Agencies) has made efforts, such as their 2005 Diversity Career Fair pictured above.

But the industry has yet to undertake a serious effort to back up the scattered rhetoric usually bandied about during Adweek or in February during Black History Month.

Mehri, who has a proven track record of successfully bringing suits against large corporations including the NFL, is leading what seems the most concrete initiative to encourage changes within the industry.

I for one hope it takes root, I used to temp for ad agencies in the mid 90's when I moved to Manhattan and let me tell you as a black man I felt like an alien walking around a new landscape.

But it's so much more than any one group of people feeling anger at restrictions built into the structure of the industry they are excluded from.

Through a constantly-evolving media merger of images, text, colors, sounds, shapes, words and music delivered to Americans across a range of media platforms, advertising wields enormous power and influence in shaping the ideas and concepts we have about ourselves and the society we live in.

By all rights it makes sense that the industry should be comprised of a collective workforce that mirrors the fabric of the nation.

But unfortunately, as Cryus Mehri reminded the attendees during Thursday's press conference, entertainer Nat King Cole once shrewdly observed;

"The advertising industry is afraid of the dark."

Cyrus Mehri accuses the industry of non compliance.

Riots Erupt in Oakland After Police Fatally Shoot 22 Year-Old African-American in the Back

2009-01-08T14:01:00.010-05:00

I hate doing this kind of blog entry but it's happened once again.

Police have fatally shot and killed yet another unarmed African-American male citizen of the United States.

CNN.com reports on riots and mass arrests of protesters in Oakland, California in the wake of community outrage over the death of 22 year-old Oscar Grant, a father who was shot in the back by Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle as he lay face down on the ground while another officer had him subdued on the ground of a train station.

Multiple witnesses at the scene captured the shooting on video which sent community residents into a fury. Apparently Grant and two friends were pulled from a BART train for being involved in a brawl around 2am as they celebrated New Years at the popular Embarcadero waterfront area in San Francisco.

Racial injustice over the shooting sent crowds into a fury on Wednesday night to protest against excessive use of force by police.

Interestingly, national media attention seems more drawn to the riots that have erupted in the wake of the shooting than the actual shooting itself.

Why aren't police held accountable for excessive use of force in this nation?

Watch the video for yourself, why would a police officer need to shoot an unarmed suspect already held to the ground?

Fortuno's Victory in Puerto Rico Brings Hope to Moderate Republicans

2009-01-07T20:45:00.013-05:00

Addendum to my last post about Ann Coulter and Chip Saltsman.

This morning as I read through the Wall Street Journal I came upon clear evidence that reasonable-minded and principled Republicans were just as sick as I am of the right-wing nut jobs of the conservative movement (*see Ann Coulter) garnering the lion's share of media attention as the nation prepares to close the door on the Bush/Cheney presidency and celebrate the innauguration of president-elect Obama.

Easha Anand put the spotlight on the newly-elected governor of Puerto Rico Luis Fortuno in this morning's Journal. The 48-year old Hispanic politician (pictured above) is the kind of candidate many Republicans see as the real future of the party.

At Georgetown University he subscribed to the William F. Buckley-founded National Review and counts Ronald Reagan as his hero.

Part of that future is certainly Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Elected in the fall of 2007, he was the first Indian-American and first non-white politician since Reconstruction elected to the office of governor in the state of Louisiana.

Jindal and Fortuno are part of the base of a potential bridge to the millions of conservative Hispanic, African-American and other minority voters the GOP often ignores in the planks of their political platform and alienates in the execution of their core ideals; a few politicians not withstanding.

Certainly the National Black Republican Association might take issue with that statement. The short-list for GOP party head includes two African-American men.

Michael Steele has become more familiar on the national stage in recent years. The bespectacled former Maryland lieutenant governor addressed the party delegates at last summer's Republican National Convention.

His views are seen as somewhat more moderate than fellow black Republican Party chair-candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell, the ex-secretary of state of Ohio (a critical battleground for presidential delegates. Blackwell led a 2004 Ohio amendment to ban recognition of same-sex marriages, supports gun ownership rights and opposes abortion.

Those positions might sound conservative but they mirror the views of millions of African-American and other minority voters the GOP has yet to put out the welcome mat for.

When Jindal first won in Louisiana there was definitely something of a magical quality to his public personae and his eloquence. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and serious questions about government responses to the crisis he seemed to symbolize and radiate a sense of hope.

His intelligence and forthright manner remind me very much of a Democratic candidate who moved from notoriety as a state politician to national office with incredible speed - Barack Obama.

Jindal "has that", back in October I blogged that he was going to change the face of the Republican party. He was born in 1960 and raised in a middle-class suburban environment with parents who instilled a combination of conservative traditional Indian and American values into his character along with a genuine love for the nation.

No coincidence that the Fortuno piece ran in the Wall Street Journal either.

Irrespective of your opinion of Rupert Murdoch it's an excellent newspaper that bears the standard of what I consider (for the most part) to be a progressive, pro-capitalist conservative mindset.

It's the perspective of many (I suspect) who silently yearn to distance the GOP from it's current conventional wisdom tag as a party that has no interest in appealing to a wider spectrum of Americans that represent different races, religions, backgrounds, sexual orientation and nationalities.

Guys like Furtuno and Jindal are the Republican party's first steps on the long road back to a White house they probably won't see until at least 2016 at the earliest. After their bruising defeats in the recent elections the GOP is clearly facing an immediate, crucial and defining moment in their party's history.

Let's face it people, from a pure media perspective, the Republican Brand is dead in the water.

Will they shift their ideals to embrace the America that is, or will they continue to give off the impression that they're scared of it?

As long as Republican Party chair-candidate Chip Saltsman can send copies of "Barack the Magic Negro" out to the current members of the Republican National Committee as Christmas presents, that Elephant ain't gonna hunt.

Coulter Gets Cancelled - RNC's Saltsman Defends Sending Out Copies of "Barack the Magic Negro" to RNC Comm Members

2009-01-05T19:49:00.012-05:00

In recent days the acrimonious cogs of the more conservative elements of the Republican media machine have kicked into high gear with an all-out assault on the African-American president elect they worked so hard to defeat in 2008 - they're even chucking pot shots at the future First Lady too.

Rising out of the political primordial ooze of cess-pool media with her bizarre mix of fact-bending empty right-wing rhetoric and intellectual hot air is Ann Coulter. Concocting a book that Media Matters identifies as filled with unsupported claims and complete fabrications.

After being deluged with e-mails and calls (prompted by Media Matters.org I called last Friday and left a message, call 212-664-4444 and share your opinion!) NBC bowed to pressure and pulled the plug on Coulter's appearance to plug her book on the Today Show.

Kudos to the cooler heads who prevailed in THAT decision. Who honestly thinks the network that partially defined the 2008 presidential election with Tina Fey's hysterical lampooning of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin can, in good conscience provide a platform for Ann Coulter to pitch a book filled with lies and distortion?

Who's the Einstein over at 30 Rock who booked her in the first place?

While I'm glad viewers will be spared from having to listen to her, part of me feels bad that there are people who won't get to hear and appreciate the racist, anti-Semitic schpeel that comes out of her mouth when she knows a camera or a mic is on.

She's so obstinate and grimly spunky, I really admire her steadfast determination to defy reason, truth and sense and live her life from her own perspective, however irrational it is. It lends truth to the oft-repeated phrase; Dinosaurs DO walk the earth.

Oh but wait! There's music in the air to accompany this multi-pronged assault too!

Also leaving pockmarks strewn across the media landscape is the now-infamous CD that Republican National Committee chair-candidate Chip Saltsman sent out to members of the Republican National Committee as a stocking stuffer for Christmas.

It includes the song first played on Rush Limbaugh's show back in 2007, "Barack the Magic Negro" , but it doesn't stop there! This kooky collection of juvenile racist slag also includes such holiday classics as "The Star Spanglish Banner" and "Ivory and Ebony". Really.

And this comes from a guy in the running to HEAD the GOP? From CNN:
"I think most people recognize political satire when they see it," Tennessee Republican Chip Saltsman told CNN. "I think RNC members understand that."

Um, okay. Chip.

In the face of one of the most challenging times in American history it's reassuring to see the GOP making these efforts to broaden the reach of their party and reach out to a wider demographic and counter the perception that the GOP is simply not equipped to serve the needs of the millions of people who voted for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

You have to wonder how many of those voters were voting AGAINST the very message the noisiest wing of the GOP media seems to be sending out on all frequencies these days. Coming in loud and clear with seemingly little interference from the more reasoned minds of the Republican Party.

Coulter lampooned on SNL:

Madoff's Betrayal

2009-01-02T14:41:00.004-05:00

I've been weighing the cultural fallout from Wall Street investor Bernard Madoff's recent admission to authorities that his financial firm was just an elaborate scam.

The majority of the media attention about the curious case of this entrenched financial con artist (pictured left) has been focused on the alarming scale of the scheme, the failure of government agencies to react to the warning signs and the high-profile investors he swindled.

But what kind of impact will this shameful $50 billion scandal have on our country and culture? The extent of the damaged to his victims clearly goes way past money.

Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet was a descendant of French royalty and sailing enthusiast whom many wealthy European investors (including members of the Rothschild family) entrusted with growing their capital in US markets.

He was just one of the wealthy fund managers who watched their investments vanish into thin air after Madoff's multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme unraveled recently.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning December 23rd, just two days before Christmas Villehuchet was found dead at his desk his New York City office with his wrists slashed after he'd spent days trying frantically to recoup some of the $1.4 billion he'd invested with Madoff.

There were politicians impacted as well.

New Jersey Senator Senator Frank Lautenberg's charity lost money. On Christmas day Associated Press journalist Angela Delli Santi reported that New Jersey State Senator Loretta Weinberg, a 73 year-old grandmother was also one of Madoff's victims after her Los Angles-based money manager Stanley Chais informed her that their money had been invested with Madoff's firm - and there was nothing left of the $1.3 million she and her family had unknowingly invested with Madoff.

Her story was echoed in the Blogosphere as well.

Was it really worth it for Madoff? His once-sterling reputation on Wall Street will forever be overshadowed by the truth of the deprived nature and depth of his greed and deception.

I haven't seen a lot of mainstream media discussion about the impact on the Jewish community.

Nor have I seen a lot of dialogue about the unfortunate reality that the incident only serves to fuel the simmering stereotypes fueled by the age-old anti-Semitic images and distorted caricature of the "greedy Jewish banker" which still run through the fabric of this nation and in many parts of the globe.

I say that as an African-American guy who gets sick of hearing media headlines about ignorant criminal acts committed by young black men; it's not just that it's an embarrassment to the black community as a whole when I read about some kid in Brooklyn who attacks and beats an elderly woman of color in her building elevator for 30 bucks. To me that's a disturbing sign we ALL need to pay attention to.

So I wonder how Jewish people feel about Madoff.

How does a man pass himself off as a wealthy, well-connected financial genius for decades when he's just a guy who uses knowledge of the stock markets & institutional investing, common sales techniques, and a fictionalized word-of-mouth reputation to play on people's greed and loyalty to their faith?

I'll leave it to writers with far more expertise in the complexities of financial oversight to uncover the wordy, numbers-laden details surrounding exactly how this slick hustler pulled this off under the scrutiny of government regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Award-winning NY Times financial reporter Diane Henriques offered one of the best pieces I've read on the scandal and the man behind it; it helped offer some perspective to this complex case.

We're looking at a man who spent years on golf courses in the US and ski slopes in Europe culling relationships with influential investors, financiers, celebrities and bankers (often based on their shared Jewish heritage) and selling them an intoxicating cocktail of false word-of-mouth assurances of trust, inflated hard-to-believe yearly returns and the alluring promise of belonging to an elite company of prominent investors based on religious ties and wealth.

Bernie never used the hard sell, you had to be "referred" to him.

While hard work helped propel Madoff to the top of Wall Street and his early belief in electronic trading reflects his foresight, he is certainly not some kind of financial prodigy or market wizard as he was oft-called; for instance, according to the New York Times he had personal relations with one of the SEC officials charged with oversight of his "firm".

Even in normal circumstances there's something inherently distasteful about about a scam artist who serves his own greed by taking advantage of others in order to line his own pockets. But in the current economy it takes on a nauseating and distinctly un-American quality; even if he was duping the rich.

The Yeshivaworld.com Website offers interesting insight into the New York Hasidic community's thinking on current events. There are some Jewish people from New York who simply dismiss Madoff because he's not "really" Jewish.

A mistake is only a mistake if we learn nothing from it. Let's hope this doesn't just become another cultural marker of our times, another opportunity for people to make money.

What a sad statement of the inherent greed that in many ways defines our current culture.

Would-Be Obama Assasin Claims Court is Racist

2008-11-27T23:46:00.009-05:00

With the economy, the holidays and the horrifying attacks in Mumbai dominating the headlines of mainstream media it's only really online that you can follow the absurdity of the legal proceedings against 20 year-old wanna-be assassin Daniel Cowart (pictured left).

Cowart, along with fellow neo Nazi Paul Schlesselman, 19, used up their respective 15 minutes back in October when they were busted for alledgedly plotting to kill Senator Barack Obama.

It's been exactly one month to the day that I blogged about their bizzarre dim-witted plot to murder innocent people (some by beheading) and then kill the president elect while attired in white tuxedos.

In a laughable twist worthy of a (good) M. Knight Shalaman movie, Cowart is seeking to have his indictment dismissed, claiming that he cannot recieve a fair trial because there are African Americans and other non-white people on the grand jury.

Check out the details and a shot of Cowart sporting a wife-beater t-shirt on the CBS Website.

These two knuckleheads are like a walking example of what happens when you have no education, no purpose in life and basically sit around your basement playing ultra-violent video games for hours at a time while idolizing the Third Reich.

Limbaugh/Hannity Hold Obama Accountable While Bush Occupies White House

2008-11-21T23:37:00.010-05:00

Is it possible that the now-legendary Willie Horton ads created by Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes (which played a major role in the outcome of the 1988 Presidential election between George Bush H.W Bush and Democratic candidate Massachusetts governor Mike Dukakis) could inspire someone to find a way to blame the worst US economy since the Great Depression on a man who hasn't yet been sworn into office?

Could be! Media Matters.org is one of many different media sources reporting about Rush Limbaugh joining forces with fellow bitter fact-bending conservative media pundit Sean Hannity to blame the credit-mortage crisis, Wall Street slump and global banking glut on Barack Obama.

In a page torn straight out of the Nazi uber spin meister Joeseph Goebels (pictured above) playbook, Limbaugh and Hannity have leap-frogged sanity and reason and instead orchestrated a campaign to repeatedly use the term "Obama Recession" to describe the current economic woes.

"His ideas are killing the economy, his ideas are killing Wall Street." Limbaugh exclaims in a strange excerpt from his syndicated radio show, click the video above right to hear it for yourself.

Wasn't Obama one of 100 Senators (and of course the DC "Shadow Senator"...) on Capitol Hill?

Bush is still President, correct? Juuust checking.

And people wonder why the Republicans lost the White House and seats in both the Senate and House?

Austrian Transit Worker Fired for Saying Seig Heil!

2008-11-13T21:16:00.004-05:00

It's been some time since I've looked at some the stories the media covers outside the United States so I thought I'd share this one from Austria.

Back on October 26, 2008 Yahoo! News reported about a 35 year-old streetcar driver from Austria who was fired for using the term "Seig Heil!". Apparently the Third Reich aficionado was finishing his streetcar's last run on a historic section of downtown Vienna, he shared this news on the intercom with his passengers then completed his statement with a hearty "Seig Heil!"

I've been to Berlin, Germany twice and it's well known that even a mention of Nazis, Hitler or the Nazi party will earn you stern looks of disaproval from native German's within earshot. After some afternoon beers at a cafe a friend of mine was just talking about WWII and mentioned Nazi tanks and at least four people sitting near us turned around and glared at him. No lie.

Sharing any kind of pro "Nazi talk" or wearing a swastica will get you arrested FAST.

The story was first reported by a Jewish newspaper and later picked up by other media sources.

Recently many Austrian officials were concerned that thousands of neo-Nazi's would descend on the country for the funeral of 58 year-old right-wing extremist Jorg Haider who was killed in a car accident in October.

Haider was something of a lightning rod for the global neo-Nazi movement having frequently and openly expressed pride and admiration for Nazi Germany and their anti-Semitic policies. Haider's parents were both members of the Nazi party, offering a sad testament to the power of hate and fear to corrupt minds when it is reinforced and celebrated in the home.

I suppose the family that goose-steps together stays together.

Regardless the world will be a better place without this politician who celebrated one of the world's most heinous regimes that brought about the death of millions of innocent people.

Being fired for saying two words may seem harsh, but it's a testament to the legacy of hate unleashed upon the world by Hitler and the architects of the Third Reich.

The Science of Hope

2008-11-10T20:20:00.004-05:00

I envisioned this blog as a place to engage in an exploration of race, culture, tolerance and the too-often divisive nature of our nation's culturegeist.

I use that term to describe the mass subconscious as it relates to how we see each other and ourselves. What irks me is that it seems we've developed a mental laziness, a lethargic tolerance of fear-based intolerance that runs totally contrary to the ideals and principles upon which this nation was founded.

It is my opinion that the media plays a huge role in how we perceive ourselves and hence, I make an attempt to look at how the media covers and reports race to better gauge our culturegeist.

So I was fascinated by an article I just read in the Science section of the New York Times that examines how tolerance and racial coexistence can expand and heal - just as much as racism can constrict and damage. The article, written by Benedict Carey, offers a compelling look from a scientific viewpoint at how the simple act of taking time to learn to trust and get to really know the individual from a race or culture different from one's own can have a virus-like effect the expands outward exponentially.

It suggests that a metaphysical healing of our nation's deep racial divisions is entirely possible and scientifically plausible. For generations American's have become adept at tucking people into tiny little boxes where we classify, assume and ultimately shape our perception of an entire people - based on an encounter or experience with one or a few people.

A black guy mugged my grandmother so all black people are dangerous criminals; a white man refused my uncle a job so all white people are vindictive racists; a cab driver of Arabic descent drove past me to pick up a white passenger on the street so all cab drivers who look like they are from the mid-east hate and fear black people; my great grandmother was raped and brutalized by a Japanese soldier in Nanking, China during the occupation of mainland China during WWII so all Japanese are violent

The Times article reinvigorates my sense of hope that we are just as able to humanize one another if we can learn to stop dehumanizing one another and therefore evolve humanity as a whole. Not by complex and costly scientific or sociological experiments, or bloated government initiatives; but by exploring the human instinct to trust rather than fear; to feel unconditional love rather than illogical hate.

I think the recent election of our 44th President is a glaring example that we can cast aside our fear and mistrust, challenge the limitations that have shackled ALL Americans for so long and move past the stereotypes that blind us to the immense and unlimited possibilities of true human evolution and racial harmony.

Obama's Victory Stirs Disturbing Suburban Resentment

2008-11-07T23:11:00.012-05:00

The tectonic shift that occurred on Tuesday night is reverberating across our nation and in countries around the world.

Last night C-Span ran clips of various news broadcasts from around the world and the same energy that has fueled such inspiration and hope in towns and cities in every corner of America was also palpable in countries like India, Germany, Japan and so much so in Kenya that a November 5th national holiday was declared for the country's students and workers.

But the reality is that not everyone shares that sense of jubilation. There is also an unquestionable sense of fear and resentment simmering throughout members of the US populace. And there is anger.

The shift that immediately altered the cultural landscape of our nation has unsettled many people uncomfortable with the impending changes that will inevitably occur in our perceptions of race, culture and indeed history.

The rain and humidity in New York has been brutal for the past couple days so I immediately clicked on WCBS radio to get the weather before I left for work this morning; but it wasn't the weather that made me stop and listen.

It was the story of 51 year-old Gary Grewal of Hardwick Township, Warren County, New Jersey. As he left his home to take his daughter to work at 7:30am the day after the election, Grewal, who is of Indian descent, discovered the homemade cloth banner his wife Anlina had put up in front of their home to congratulate Obama on his victory was draped across the ugly remnants of a burned cross.

The New Jersey Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the attack as a hate crime. I'm not sure how much, if any national coverage it generated but the story was covered by the Philadelphia Inquirer and other local news outlets. I would imagine the story will be picked up by AP but I didn't see any mention of it on either the NBC or ABC network news broadcasts.

The Staten Island Advance Website reported that officials from the Washington, DC-based CAIR also called on the FBI to launch an investigation into a Staten Island, New York attack on a 17 year-old African-American boy named Ali Kamara. Reporter John Annese wrote that Kamara was walking home on the night of the election when a car pulled up and four white males inside yelled "Obama!" at him before jumping out and beating him bad enough that he was taken to a hospital to have stitches to repair a laceration on his skull.

It is critical that law enforcement address these incidents as we aren't talking about the expression of 1st Amendment rights, these are mindless acts of violence and intimidation.

We will never move forward as a nation until we examine the deeper psychological meaning behind the fear and anger that drive people to attack innocent people for exercising their Constitutional right to vote. If anything, this election has made clear that the days of driving people of color away from the polls by using intimidation and physical force are over, but without question we see all too clear that within our nation we have citizens living in a past that will never return.

Checking the temperature: It's 2008, and people are still burning crosses.

>

With Cultural Dexterity Obama Makes History

2008-11-05T00:03:00.006-05:00

The November 4, 2008 elections were on my mind from the moment the sound of a Barack Obama supporter shouting with excitement drifted through my open bedroom window as the polls opened at 6:30am.

I roused myself and began getting ready as I wanted to cast my vote before work.

My apartment building sits on the west side of Frederick Douglass Boulevard between 111th and 112th street in Manhattan. The northwest corner of Central Park sits one block south across from the 110th street MTA subway stop where I catch the downtown B or C train each morning.

The Election District 72 polling site where I vote sits directly across the street of my apartment in a medium-sized recreation room located on the ground floor of the Charles Hill Tower on 2050 8th Avenue. Normally, voting is a breeze in the early morning but as I stepped outside at 7:20am the first thing I saw was a quiet group of people waiting quietly in a line that snaked around the corner onto west 112th street.

That was my first inkling that something monumental was about to happen in America.

It was a struggle to keep my mind on work and I arrived early in order to leave at 5 to race home and scan the television channels for the latest election results. In doing so I witnessed the dawn of a new era for tolerance, intellectual evolution and social cohesiveness in this nation.

The global media was glued to the massive cultural shift that ended at 11pmEST when the results from the crucial California race came in and showed that Senator Obama had surpassed the requisite 270 electorial votes needed to win the 2008 presidential election; and for the first time ever, a black man became the 44th president of the United States.

There are so many things I feel thankful for one is being alive to witness the momentous occassion in US politics and indeed, history.

We came together as a country and voted in record numbers and I'm proud of that. I listened to both candidates give speeches that were gracious, eloquent and thoughtful. It was an inspiring testament to both men's character that they called for unity in their remarks to their supporters.

I wanted to hear a sampling of what people were thinking about this momentous election, so I watched C-Span's coverage of Obama's speech and I'm of the mind that while the election of the nation's first black president is an historic occasion in every sense; I was reminded that we've got a lot of work to do.

C-Span fielded a variety of uncensored calls from people all over this country expressing their impression of the election results. I was struck by the nearly identical tone of almost 95% of the calls in support of John McCain. Nearly everyone of them expressed disappointment with the victory of Barack Obama as they talked about a sense of being fearful of the rapid changes unfolding before them.

Numerous callers claimed the election wasn't valid because Obama wasn't from this country and that he is a Muslim terrorist. Apparently some of these callers are seriously misinformed or just don't realize that Hawaii is in fact the 50th state, Obama was born there, so he's an American.

It seemed to elude them that you cannot be elected to the United States Senate without being a US citizen.

One woman with a thick foreign accent talked at length in fear-driven abstract generalities, confusing non-specifics and ignorant half-truths about why Obama was a poor choice for president; she claimed that he got into Columbia University because a Saudi prince wrote him a letter of support - which she claimed validated her concerns that he was a friend to terrorists. She sounded like a frightened child who's father has dropped her hand in crowded room.

Poor silly creature, I'm honestly not sure what's more pathetic; her not realizing how uninformed and brainwashed she sounded - or that she has no clue that the Bush family are all far closer to Saudi princes and kings than Obama ever was or will be.

Think about THAT one. If there was anyone who got into an Ivy League school based on the merits of a letter of Saudi royalty, it was our current president.

Of course don't mistake my observations of some of the media coverage for not feeling excited and hopeful that a real leader has been restored to the White House for the first time in long while. But I'm a realistic optimist. There's a lot of work to be done right here inside the hearts and minds of Americans living in every corner of the land.

For people from every background, religion, ethnicity and race, it is a time of hope and anticipation to begin the Herculean job of restoring this nation. But let's not forget that for some in this country, skin still matters more than reality, science, truth or character - and therin lies our most critical battleground. Our most daunting challenge.

I take a measure of solace in my faith in the general of eloquence, grace and quiet strength now charged with leading us, ALL of us, into the fray left from over a decade of Republican control of Washington...Once more unto the breach.

Grant Park, Chicago - November 4, 2008

Cultural Stereotypes - Italian Style!

2008-11-04T19:39:00.003-05:00

Anthony Crupi is a senior editor of Mediaweek and one of my favorite columnists.

His weekly column covers all manner of advertising-related topics and alway seem to connect with the human elements of advertising.

Crupi's irreverent tone, off-beat observations (how many columnists drop 15th century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch's name?) and self-depreciating style offer insightful looks at, and into the world of advertising; specifically cable TV.

I earned myself some looks from depressed-looking early morning Manhattan commuters when I laughed out loud while riding the packed downtown "B" train on way to work as I read his November 4, 2008 column entitled, "Si, perfetto".

In an effort to illustrate the absurd nature of television content, Crupi describes a thirty-second television commercial for Barilla Plus pasta that that sets a new standard for the use of totally inauthentic ethnic stereotyped characters to pitch product.

Are ANY of those people even partially Italian?

I've been making the same observations about warped ethnic stereotypes in commercials for years. My brother and I used to laugh at the Popeye's and Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials which were replete with tables full of grinning black people sucking down artery-clogging pieces of fried chicken with fatty side dishes, licking their lips to a gospel-like soundtrack.

One of my absolute favorites was an Olive Garden commercial with the usual 15-person Italian-American family sitting round a table. The commercial began with a guy in an absurd dilemma that began something like:

Man
"Mama was in town from the old country and the whole family
was gathered to eat; but I didn't have enough room to cook for
everyone and Mama is so particular about the food!"

Cut to: Closeup of Italian Grandmother type in black dress wringing her hands and looking about the kitchen in terror.
Man
"My sister said, Let's take her to Olive Garden'"

You can picture the rest, "Mama" spooning up watery-flavorless sauce over dead-looking pasta and cardboard-like bread and smiling warmly at the members of her Italian family as guys make kissing sounds and expressive hand gestures amidst the faux-Italian decorations of their local Olive Garden.

I mean, I'm not even Italian and I was offended by it! But it was so funny I literally laughed myself silly every time it came on.

Advertisers have seconds to draw an audience into a commercial and I suppose appealing to the one-dimensional assumptions of ethnic characteristics, physical traits and racial stereotypes is just their way of grabbing our attention.

This isn't to say I haven't enjoyed a meal or two at Olive Garden before. And I guess there are worse things than moderately-priced family-style Italian restaurants located in US strip-malls; but do they have to skewer a rich cultural tradition to promote it?

check out this Olive Garden commercial spoof!

Cowart, Schlesselman Plotted Racial Killing Spree

2008-10-28T19:54:00.010-04:00

On the surface the Deseret News article about FBI reports of increasing hate crimes in places like Utah, might not seem all that alarming. But it's the overall trend that concerns me right now.

A subtle something no one seems to speak of though we all certainly feel it; as in the results of the recent AP-Yahoo! poll revealing that at least 40% of white Americans harbor some degree of negative view of black Americans.

It wasn't that long ago that three men (pictured above left) were arrested in Colorado for an alleged plot to kill Obama during the Democratic National Convention.

There seem to be a plethora of strange signals that both contradict and illuminate. To me the more complex issues aren't really being sufficiently explored in the mainstream media - but I still some of the stories and the facts being reported.

This blog has followed the increases in hate crimes in cities and towns across the globe, now it seems that many extremist hate groups are attempting to disguise their nature to tap into the currents of racial fear and division coursing through this nation.

The USA Today Website reports that many Neo Nazi groups are now tailoring their messages for a more mainstream appeal. Re-enforcing the fact that acts of bigotry, racial hatred or intolerance are agitated by factors like high unemployment and fears induced by immigration issues.

It's impossible for any media source to ignore the latest white supremacist threat against Senator Barack Obama's life. An article from Yahoo! News reports that the two braniac bigots who were arrested in connection with the case, 20 year-old Daniel Cowart of Bells, Tenn., a high school drop-out living with his grandparents and 18 year-old Paul Schlesselman of West Helena, Ark. were unlikely in any position to actually carry out a bizarre plot to kill Obama by driving towards him in a vehicle shooting weapons while wearing all-white tuxedos and tops hats.

The Yahoo! report states that both rookie racists doomed their demented far-fetched scheme from the start:

"Among the blunders: They drew attention to themselves by etching swastikas on a car with sidewalk chalk, only knew each other for a month, couldn't even pull off a house robbery, and a friend ratted them out to authorities."

What's most troubling is that even if this was a sort of fantasy that was being lived out by two uneducated disenfranchised kids seeking attention, it's hard to stomach their intentions to execute 88 black people and behead 14 of them.

Or comprehend their desire to take a cache of weapons (taken from their own relatives) and go to a predominantly black high school on go on a killing spree.

It might not lead me to understand exactly why and how two kids could harbor such virulent hate at such a young age, but it does compel me go back and look at that Deseret News article again - maybe 55 incidents of hate crimes in Utah should be more alarming to the nation than it seems to be.

The two are being held without bond for weapons violations and plotting to kill a presidential candidate. In an interesting snapshot of American culture, thekansascity.com site reports that Schlesselman's sister admits her brother believed himself to be a part of a 'master race' and often used the phrases 'Heil Hitler' and 'White Power' around the house - but the boy's father insisted, "I think it's just a lot of talk. He would never do something like this,"

According to police, the father's .357 handgun was part of the boy's arsenal.

McCain's Family Tree

2008-10-23T13:24:00.003-04:00

The news that Barack Obama and Dick Cheney were related through a common ancestor was pretty eye-opening considering how far apart on the political thread they are, but not shocking given the long and complex history of slavery and inter-racial relationships in this nation.

Now the CNN.com Website has a fascinating video interview with some of Senator John McCain's black relatives from Mississippi. McCain's great-grandfather was a slave owner and the African-American relatives in questions are his descendants and thus, blood relatives of John McCain.

It strikes me as somewhat ironic that, given all the divisive race-based rhetoric employed by members of the GOP during this election that we discover that McCain himself has black relatives.

Not surprising though. It's far more common than many people might believe, some people are either too freaked out about it to explore or acknowledge it; or simply have no idea.

In the small North Carolina farming town where my father was raised during the Great Depression, there are many white people with my last name; it is somewhat odd to drive around down there and see oil company trucks or businesses with my last name emblazoned on them.

These are descendants of the slave owners who once owned my relatives. This is the reality of the nation we live in.

It's kind of weird. I actually want to do a documentary about it and see if I could get some of the white people who are my distant relatives to participate.

Will the Bradley Effect Tilt the Results on November 4th?

2008-10-18T18:39:00.003-04:00

It's a close race even though Obama seems to be maintaining a lead over Republican rival John McCain according to most poll buzz.

To counter concerns about the hard-to-track Bradley effect - the theory that based on racial fears, white voters who voted for Obama in primaries and polls will secretly vote for John McCain once they get inside the booth.

Theory? It's named after former five-term Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, who despite a commanding poll lead was trounced in his 1982 run for Governor.

The New York Times reports Obama shattered campaign funding records by raising at least $100 million in September alone and is now outspending Obama 4 - 1 in advertising across the country.

But serious concerns about the racial attitudes of many white voters remain. Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha himself came out and said the Western part of the state he represents is racist.

It's hard for many Americans to look some of this hatred and prejudice in the eye but some things have to be heard to believe.

Check out this video.

Joe the Plumber, Voice of a Nation

2008-10-16T02:11:00.007-04:00

As the final debate of the 2008 presidential election campaign wound to a close I had a moment of sad nostalgia as the end of the campaign trail draws near. Some campaign trails are excruciating. This one has been engaging, exciting and for the first time in what seems like ages - relevant.

Regardless of who you did or did not support, or if your candidate even made it past the primaries, you have to agree this campaign has produced some exceptionally bizarre media moments. Few more curious than the mind-numbing references to "Joe the Plumber".

The Ohio resident who by some reports, though eloquent, is neither an actual licensed plumber or registered to vote.

Though Obama and McCain both seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to "Out-Joe" one another, on the whole this was a better debate. Obama seemed more calm and explained his positions more coherently. There were a lot of zingers tossed back and forth between him and McCain but my favorite happened towards the end of the debate.

While commenting on abortion Obama countered that an effective sex education curriculum is critical to combating teen pregnancy and ensuring that teens avoid falling into "Cavalier activity". A sly dig at McCain's rowdy years as a young fighter pilot - McCain visibly flinched and his eyes blinked rapidly. My friend Tim told me that McCain seemed to blink a lot during the debate. Did anyone else notice that?

If nothing else this election has elevated the national discussion on race to a new level as Americans are compelled to look the thoughts, words and faces behind and on both sides of the racial division in this country. It's an election I'll never forget.

Remember Harriet Christian, the "crazy New York Hillary supporter" who had a complete meltdown about Obama in a hotel lobby in front of reporters and a guy holding a video camera? Or how about Hillary's eyes tearing up in New Hampshire while the exhausted candidate talked candidly in front of the cameras about the stress of the campaign trail? Who can forget Fred Thompson's unremarkable implosion?

In time we may look back and wonder why we spent so much time dwelling on inconsequential matters. Probably because it's really hard to look the matters that impact us most as humans right in the eye and not blink.

Son of William F. Buckley Goes for Obama

2008-10-15T22:11:00.010-04:00

The Website of the Austin American-Statesman reports that the author Christopher Buckley, son of the late William F. Buckley, has shocked readers of the conservative standard, The National Review after penning an article entitled, "Sorry Dad, I'm Voting for Obama."

Of course the news sent ripples of delight through the liberal blogging community -Wonkette posted the MSNBC video of Chrisopher Buckley being interviewed.

But it hasn't really splashed on the mainstream media as the final debate is primetime at the moment. I think a lot of people don't really fully appreciate the symbolic irony of William F. Buckley's son writing a column in The National Review (his father was the founder) about his decision to vote for a black Democrat for president.

Carpe diem folks, moments like this are rare.

William F. Buckley was an iconic American conservative intellectual/thinker even liberals love and admire; a true WASP conservative forged before the Neocons hijacked the party of Lincoln; a man of singular wit; an unmatched wordsmith of the English language.

He also grew up rich, was Ivy-educated, a member of Skull & Bones and worked for the CIA under future Watergate co-conspirator E. Howard Hunt, but alas that my friends is another blog unto itself. (It all kind of makes sense doesn't it?)

Either way you look at it it's a message to Republicans; if McCain can't convince the son of William F. Buckley how is he going to convince the American people?

Will Blacks Vote Republican in 2008?

2008-10-12T18:25:00.009-04:00

As the White House played host to global economic meetings it seemed like my October Sunday television-radio-online media was littered with talk about the increasing displays of irrational anti-Muslim rhetoric and anger directed towards Senator Obama at recent GOP political events for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

I watched a panel of Black journalists conduct an interesting debate about African-American membership in the Republican Party.

Washington Times reporter Tara Hall and one-time possible GOP Vice Presidential pick Michael Steele joined a lively discussion group on the weekly Sunday WABC, New York television show "Our World with Black Enterprise" that weighed the question and perspective of Black Americans who vote conservative.

There is a subtle stigma amongst African-Americans about blacks who vote Republican - while virtually all black people know that many blacks vote conservative, we don't really seem to talk about it much.

According to the "Our World" discussion more than a million African Americans voted for George Bush in 2004, something like 1.4 or 1.6 million. Maybe that doesn't seem like a lot but remember that's during Bush's 2nd term.

They suggested the mainstream media tends to cover almost exclusively negative aspects of African-American/Republican initiatives

I can totally respect one's right to vote one's own conscience, but after watching crowds at GOP rallies last week whipped into an almost borderline hysteria related to Obama's "not one of us"-ness as repeatedly defined by Sarah Palin - I think the GOP has a ways to go to present itself as a party that will credibly represent the interests of all Americans.

Let's get serious there are people at these rallies who think Obama is some kind of terrorist. Do people honestly believe that? Or is it just easier and more comfortable to click the fear button?

ABC Sued by Japanese Producer for Ripping Off "Takeshi's Castle"

2008-10-10T00:33:00.003-04:00

I'm a huge fan of Japanese culture. Akira Kurosawa is one of my favorite directors and one of the most important filmmakers, period. Japanese animation has had a enormous impact on shaping and influencing my own creative expression. I find it interesting that Japan absorbed many aspects of American culture and made them their own.

Now, Americans are apparently doing the same. In their zeal to impose even more glib versions of 'Reality Television' upon US audiences in the wake of the after-effects of the Hollywood writer's strike apparently ABC is now accused of gleaming it's creative concepts straight from the-often bizarre world of Japanese television.

Japanese actor Takeshi Kitano (pictured above left) played the "Count" in the original Japanese cult hit "Takeshi's Castle" - which ABC apparently ripped off to create "Wipeout".

James Hibbard wrote a nice piece on the subject on the Hollywood Reporter website on Monday, October 6th. Amongst the juicy details:

"From the moment ABC revealed 'Wipeout' to the public, that program has been routinely described as a 'rip-off' and 'knockoff' of Plaintiff's shows," reads the complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. "ABC's willful and wrongful use of Plaintiff's shows to create 'Wipeout' is egregious, inexcusable and not to be tolerated."

"Wipeout" was created by Endemol USA, a production company that speacializes in non-scripted gameshows, reality TV-type productions. It's actually a sub-division of Endemol Holding, a Netherlands-based holding company that produces a variety of television content in 21 countries through various subsidiaries, partnerships joint ventures.

No doubt it's going to be a long day for the geniuses at ABC who decided a blatant, Americanized version of original game show concept developed years ago by the Tokyo Broadcasting System.

TBS also owns the Japanese News Network (JNN) and was the original creator of global television cult-hit TV show "Takeshi's Castle"; which aired from 1986 - 1989. The show featured a "Count" played by actor Takeshi Kitano (pictured above left)who set up strange obstacles for people to try and reach him inside his castle. For any cult fans reading this, Wikipedia provides a concise list of all the challenges; from the "Bite the Bun" to the "Indestruct-a-Ball".

It's really interesting how some of the totally outlandish Japanese game shows seem to go against the reserved nature that is often seen as characterizing Japanese culture and people.

How about the "Nut Buster Show"? Yes guys, it's exactly what you think it's about, with trepidation I offer a link to this painful-sounding game show.

One of the craziest things I ever saw on Japanese television was a show, or sequence of a show called "Man in the Street". A crew would carve out a hole in some street with just enough room for the man to fit into. They'd camouflage him so that it was nearly impossible for passersby to see him lying just below the level of the street carefully painted exactly like the street itself.

Then with the cameras rolling, he'd wait for some unassuming person to stroll by before leaping out of the hole with a scream - terrifying the unsuspecting victim. It was one of the funniest and most bizarre TV shows I've ever scene; unfortunately I couldn't find a link online. But I'll keep searching.

ABC should license THAT one legally and broadcast an updated American version - I'd watch it.

TIRED: Crips v. Bloods - WIRED: Shmira v. Shomrim

2008-10-07T20:49:00.011-04:00

The beating of an innocent African-American man in Crown Heights has shed light on tensions that exist within the Jewish community as well as tensions with blacks who live alongside them.

Back in April, 2008 a 20 year-old black college student named Andrew Charles was walking along Albany Avenue in his Crown Heights, Brooklyn neighborhood when a man on a bicycle and a man behind the wheel of an SUV attacked him by spraying him with pepper spray mace and hitting him with a nightstick.

The two men beat Charles then sped away in an SUV. A witness got the plate and it turns out the vehicle was registered to Menachem Ezagui. A local man police say was an active member of the Shmira Civilian Patrol , an Orthodox Jewish community police group that operates in the Orthodox Jewish communities of Crown Heights.

Very quickly law enforcement officers suspected that Shmira members were involved in the beating but were frustrated by noncooperation by the members of the tight-knit community who were questioned.

When it was revealed that Andrew Charles was the son of an NYPD officer, the media spotlight on the story increased dramatically.

It raised the spectre of the tensions of the tragic deaths of 7 year-old Gavin Cato and 29 year-old Yankel Rosenbaum and the chaos of the Crown Heights Riots in 1991. It brought to light long-held allegations of unchecked use of excessive force by members of Shmira and a similar rival organization known as Shomrim, on minorities living in the surrounding neighborhoods.

A September 22, 2008 New York Post article written by Reuven Fenton reported that tensions (which go back years) between Shmira and Shomrim were so bad that NYPD officials were trying to mediate a settlement and bring both groups under the oversight of the NYPD.

Binyan Lifshits, a Shomrim spokesman rejects the NYPD oversight because they worry about non-Orthodox police responding to domestic situations between members of the Orthodox community.

Shomrim split with Shmira in the late 90's after the ejection of Shmira members allegedly involved with unspecified criminal activities.

The 38 year-old director of Shmira Yossi Stern, in the same Post piece, claims that Shmira's approximately 100 members really are there to protect the members of the entire Crown Heights community. Check out the Crown Heights Shmira Webpage for a taste of the kinds of things they claim to be doing.

What's interesting is that Shmira parols now seem to be venturing into African-American neighborhoods, sparking resentment from blacks who remember the anger and polarization of the Crown Heights Riots; as well as from NYPD members tired of mediating disputes with the two organizations they accuse of vigilante-like behavior.

Word is the beating of the son of an NYPD officer didn't sit well with New York's Finest either.

Lubavitcher Hasidim have been living in Crown Heights since the 1940's, I can understand their desire to protect the community, but their leaders need to do a better job of making sure the zeal for peace does not don the cloak of bigotry and prejudice.

Shmira in action!

NBC's Newest Niche: Fey Pods!

2008-10-07T00:15:00.001-04:00

I'm a Fey Pod and I'm not the only one.

If you didn't watch Tina Fey's latest send-up of Republican VP candidate Governor Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live do yourself a favor and check it out. It was my birthday on Saturday night so I timed my primp/departure to catch the 11:30pm SNL opening with Queen Latifah doing a hilarious Gwenn Ifill.

NBC suddenly has this new niche audience. It cuts across race, religion, sex and income level; the common denominator? We don't go out until we watch the opening of SNL. Then we watch it online AGAIN during the week while laughing at it with our friends. Repeatedly.

Like I'm the only one? Fay Pods are like an elusive, fleeting fan base. A reminder to the content creators that audiences will adjust their schedules to willingly put themselves into orbit around something that truly engages them.

There's something about actually seeing the latest Tina Fey Palin-spoof live that can't be recreated online or over a mobile device. In this multi-media, multi-channel world where innovative platforms are constantly evolving, there are still ideas that can only executed on television.

That's reassuring, grounding in some way. I grew up watching Mr. Bill and Samurai Delicatesen. Even when I'm 80 I'll still be inclined to tune into SNL. It's impact on our culture is massive. Garret Morris and Eddie Murphy helped to shape the way we see the black male.

SNL could have something here. I remember staying in on Friday's just to watch the X-Files on Fox.Think about SNL bringing a rotating crop of talent on for 6 - week engagements, just to open the show?

Christopher Walken or Chris Rock. Mick Jagger. Just something completely off-the Wall.
Today's television programming is increasingly populated with superficial reality TV, average TV dramas and glitzy redressed versions of old game shows that deaden, rather than engage or challenge the imagination of the audience.

One of the appeals of Tina Fey's spoof is that it cuts right through the filters and actually uses them to deliver a political and social message that many people are tuned into. It's refreshing television content. Behind the comedic writing, makeup and costume lies truth.

Like it Is

2008-10-05T13:10:00.002-04:00

More than 70 million people tuned in for the only VP candidate debate scheduled for 2008 between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin. I think people are not only curious about Palin, they just also enjoy hearing people actually communicating with one another in this era of reality TV.

It's not "sexy" but C-Span and the Sunday morning news discussion shows are some of the best exchanges of ideas, thinking and live debate going on television. My personal Sunday favorite?

"Like it Is" hosted by Gil Noble, one of THE coolest journalist-thinkers on television.

His show comes on channel 7 WABC in New York on Sunday morning's; part of their public affairs programming. Save for Tavist Smiley, Saturday and Sunday mornings are the usual slot for news programs with African-American hosts. The SaveLikeitIs Website says it's the longest African-American produced news program on television.

Bob Marley was interviewed by Gil Noble in 1980 shortly before the singer collapsed in Central Park and was diagnosed with cancer. The video quality isn't the best, but you can see parts 1 - 3 of the interview on Youtube.

Newsday columnist Les Payne is always on. To me he is one of the most interesting media-news people to listen to, but you don't really see him on CNN or any of the network news shows.

Interestingly "Like it Is" was developed during one of the most tumultuous social periods of the 1960's. According to their Website:

"Like It Is" was born amidst the nation's racial turmoil of the 1960s. President Lyndon Johnson's "National Commission on Civil Disorders" issued a (Kerner Commission) report...part of which recommended that African-Americans be hired in major market TV News, so that Americans could have access to a broader perspective of post and present-day issues."

It's the most realistic discussion of the implications of the bail out package I've heard. Not many news shows discuss the influence of corporate ownership on how the media is covering both the sub-prime and credit market fallout and the specifics of the $700 billion bail out.

Les Payne is the only journalist on TV I've heard remind people that Lehman Brothers paid out $8.7 billion in bonuses to their own employees in 2006 or 2007. And we're bailing them out?

AP - Yahoo! Poll Paints a Distorted Perception of African Americans

2008-09-20T22:06:00.006-04:00

I don't harbor a lot of illusions about the reality of race in this country. If you want to see how difficult it is just to have a honest dialog about it just look what happens people begin to talk about it.

Maybe I shouldn't have been shocked by actor Michael Richards' (pictured left) bizarre racist tirade in an LA comedy club but I was. It made me wonder how many people harbor such virulently hateful thoughts about blacks in this country.

With economic fears temporarily eased by the promise of a massive federal bailout, there's a story about poll results that's gaining a lot of traction on the Web. I have to confess I'm a little bewildered after actually seeing these hard poll numbers about how voters in this country view Barack Obama as a potential president.

According to a recent poll conducted by AP and Yahoo! in conjunction with Standford University 40% of white Americans who participated in the study harbor negative views about African-Americans.

I'm not a poll researcher or anything but I wonder how much of a genuine reflection of America that poll represents.

According to the article I read on the New York Times Website: ''We still don't like black people,'' said John Clouse, 57, reflecting the sentiments of his pals gathered at a coffee shop in Somerset, Ohio.

Why do millions of white Americans I've never even met feel that way about me?

It's a little weird for me to walk out onto a street thinking 4 out of the 10 white people who walk past me on any given day think I am "lazy" and "violent".

Wow, I thought it was 2008?

Macy's, Not Sleeping on the Beat

2008-09-17T23:45:00.005-04:00

As I was walking out through the 7th avenue doors of Macy's on 34th street in New York (pictured left) this afternoon about 3:3opm about 6 security guys in identical blue blazers and ties were walking a young man back into the store. They'd obviously busted him for shoplifting, the guys hands were bound behind him with these thin white plastic strips.

He was tall, about 6'2" and he couldn't have been more than 17. He looked mid-eastern or sort of Pacific-Asian and had a handsome gentle face. He was dressed quite well and stylishly urban.

What had he stolen and why? I wondered. He looked like a "good kid". It's wrong to steal merchandise from any store of course, but I felt sorry for him. There was this uncomfortable moment when we passed, customers were stopping to look at him with disapproving looks; a little Hispanic girl no older than 5 clutched her mother's pants leg and looked up at the perp with wide dark eyes as he was led past.

Some part of him had to be embarrassed but he held his head high and stared straight ahead and as I glanced at the meaty left hand of a powerfully built security guard guiding the kid in, I sensed fear in the young shoplifter.

The security guys looked all charged up and exhilarated from the chase, one was breathing heavily and talking excitedly into a walkie talkie; no doubt alerting headquarters that they'sd bagged their guy. In the past couple years there've been some incidents of shoppers, mostly poor minorities but others as well, being falsely accused of shoplifting and taken by Macy's police and held there for unusually long periods.

A grandmother in Georgia was awarded $1.2 million for being falsely accused of shoplifting at Macy's.

Many retail stores are fighting back at shoplifters with elaborate security systems and small quasi-incarceration areas run by private police who process shoplifters by entering their personal information and photo into a national database and serving up stiff fines that must be paid to the store to prevent the real police being contacted.

I guess I'm wary of private policing in this nation given that the prison system is in itself an industry. But it doesn't make sense to clog the NYPD's time and the city's courts with people who try to steal merchandise from a store. So I think the private police system is a valid concept.

I can't seem to shake the image of the boy I saw this afternoon being led to the private police station in Macy's. I really hope the security personnel's professionalism and training is valid too.

GOP Fear Tactics Target Jewish Voters in Florida

2008-09-16T00:41:00.002-04:00

According to the Huffington Post Website, The Jewish Council for Education in Research is reporting that at least two Jewish residents of Florida have recently been "push polled" by telephone reps asking them a variety of leading questions that falsely accuse Barack Obama of being linked to Hamas, the PLO and a variety of anti-semitic policy stances.

Looks like the McCain campaign and the GOP are all fueled up by reports of Obama's low poll numbers among the white male and female demographic in some states. Aggressive and misleading polls like this are intended to play upon racial stereotypes and cultural prejudices. It's nothing new for the GOP. Same sleazy tactics, different year.

Republicans were using them on one another during the primary season, you don't think they'll use them against Obama and Biden?

Smells like GOP low-ball strategist Warren Tompkins at work to me; this morally-challenged political hack was working Mitt Romney's campaign during the primary but was likely recalled to the mother ship in advance of the Republican National Convention.

Interesting tactical campaign choice for McCain.

The same man of principle and honor who stood underneath the big banner of integrity and straight talk at the Republican National Convention is determined to exploit the media-generated assumption that Jewish voters will be put off by Obama's race.

With the dismal economic forecast getting even gloomier with the fall of investment bank Lehman Brothers coupled with spiking fuel prices, McCain and running mate Sarah Palin's non-specific plain-folk talk seems even more irrelevant to working towards finding real solutions to the economic problems Republicans don't seem to think exist.

Fishing Legend Frank Mundus Dies at 82

2008-09-14T13:13:00.004-04:00

"Farewell and adieu to ye fair Spanish ladies, farewell and adieu ye ladies of Spain!"

The scene in which actors Roy Schieder and Richard Dreyfuss watch Robert Shaw drunkenly belt out this tune in the cabin of Captain Quint's worn fishing boat just before the shark attacks is a contemporary film classic.

For a cinema-addict like me it was particularly sad to learn that Montauk sport fishing captain Frank Mundus passed away (pictured above left) from complications from a September 6th heart attack. The NJ-born angler was a legend on the Jersey Shore and and Robert Shaw's searing on-screen portrayal of him helped make "Jaws" the movie the defining summer blockbuster horror /thriller of the 70's.

Newsday writer Robert Wargas wrote an excellent obituary on the Newsday.com site.

A buddy of mine from Colt's Neck, NJ told me he knew a NJ fisherman who said Mundus would troll his boat around the carcasses of dead whales to find Great Whites - he'd jump out and walk on the carcass, in open sea even with large sharks feeding on it. He liked to use pureed whale blubber in the special chum mix he used to attract sharks. He was nuts, and I mean that with the most sincere admiration.

Don't take my word for it, Mundus wrote "Fifty Years a Hooker" in 2005, a book chronicling his numerous sport-fishing adventures.

It's kind of sad seeing characters like this fade, men who come from the generation forged in the depression. I heard an NPR interview with some of the shrimp boat captains in Louisiana; talking about the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the industry.

Higher fuel costs and more profits from each pound of shrimp going into the pockets of middlemen are just some of the factors that are driving shrimp fishermen with family ties to the industry going back generations in some cases, away from their boats and nets forever.

You simply can't replace some of that knowledge and experience, and our culture will be the lesser for it. Fishing has been a staple industry in cities, towns and villages in the United States since it's inception as a nation.

Men like Frank Mundus are one of a kind but people will at least glimpse the spirit of what he was like when they watch Jaws. A movie with an immense impact on our culture and one that will be watched and enjoyed as long as film remains a relevant medium that entertains, teaches and reveals.