In answer to a Question, regarding Last night's Afronerd Radio Show

Just a quick note. One of our listeners wanted to know the name of the song we used as an outro. I could not recollect the name of the tune at the time, but it is "Tidal Wave" by Ronnie Laws. You may remember it because it was sampled by the seminal underground rap act, Black Moon in their hit, "Who Got Da Props?"

On This Day In Black History.....

From BlackFacts.com:

283 Africans were recaptured on American Shores
June 29th 1820
On Thursday, June 29, 1820, at 3:00 P.M., nineteen years before the "Amistad" incident, 283 African slaves (two dead and 281 were in chains) were aboard a slave vessel named "The Antelope", when they were recaptured by the United States Treasury cutter "Dallas", under the command of John Jackson. The seizure occurred between Amelia Island and the Florida Coast. After about 2,576 days of captivity and legal battle in the United States, 120 Africans died, 2 were missing, 39 were enslaved in the United States (the 39 included 36 men, one woman, and two boys), and 120 Africans of the Antelope, (there were 22 additional recaptured Africans that were sent with this group, bringing the number to 142), were released from custody by the United States Supreme Court, and sent to Liberia on July 18, 1827.

OK.....It Looks Like It's time for a Second Round at Afronerd Radio-Violence & Black Men.....The Solutions!

Ok Folks....we have another radio broadcast scheduled for this Sunday at 8pm. A common request from Mr. Starks and myself is to provide a substantive discussion on the solutions relating to our topics. This was the case with our first Black male violence show. So for those who have this request, we want you to call and chop it up with us. Afronerd, the blog/radio show is at the core a think tank-so stop by and engage us. Again, Sunday at 8pm-call in live at 646-915-9620 or via IM/email, afronerdradio@yahoo. And don't forget to explore our new chat room feature at the afronerdradio site....

By Popular Demand.....Our Solutions to dealing with Violence & Black Men

**Also as an aside, the above clip highlights Pittsburgh, PA's first Black Male Solidarity Day to halt community violence, encourage unity among black men and to bring positive change. This took place in the shadows of the City-County Buildings with approx. 400 men of color in attendance. It's time to be sick and tired of being sick and tired. It's cultural change time folks!

THIS Ben Chavis doesn't play around!

How do you feel about this?

Too Hot for School?

Tough-love principal Ben Chavis says it’s okay for him to use racial taunts because he’s a minority and his tactics work.

By Robert Gammon
Published: May 9, 2007

Oakland charter school principal Ben Chavis is one of the most celebrated educators in Northern California even though he uses racially charged language and humiliating taunts to motivate his students. And while it's no secret that the controversial principal, whom Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger once called a "perfect example of great leadership," has a volcanic temper and a foul mouth, a university professor and a group of her graduate students now claim Chavis has gone too far.


Justin Page
Don't like Chavis? Tough titty!In a series of complaint letters, Sabrina Zirkel, a Mills College professor of education, and four of her graduate students, say Chavis repeatedly called Unity Lewis, a 25-year-old black Mills student, "a fucking black minority punk" during a recent visit to Chavis' middle school. They also claim that Chavis, after Lewis arrived fifteen minutes late, screamed that he was going to kick the grad student's ass, and called him a "worthless piece of shit."

The letters are signed by Zirkel, Lewis, Terry Pollack, Deborah Long, and Shrimathi Bathey. They allege that Chavis, who says he is an American Indian with some black heritage, also remarked to a white female Mills student: "You look like a mix breed." When the student responded that her ancestors came from throughout Europe, Chavis said, "Well, your people sure fucked around a lot." He also referred to his minority students as "darkies" and allegedly called a parent of one of his students a "prostitute."

Over the years, Chavis' boorish behavior has been tolerated because of his school's incredible test scores. When he arrived in 2000, the school, which serves sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders, was one of the worst in Oakland. Chavis single-handedly kept it from closing, and by last year its scores were off the charts — much higher than any other public middle school in the city, and nearly as high as Piedmont Middle School. It scored a perfect 10 on the state's Academic Performance Index.

In 2006, the Bush administration named American Indian a "Blue Ribbon School," as one of the top 250 private or public schools in the nation. Schwarzenegger is so enamored of Chavis that he has twice held photo ops at his school. Chavis even appeared in one of the governor's reelection ads last year.

Some educators, however, are quietly questioning whether Chavis' success may hinge upon a dramatic demographic shift. In 2000, Native Americans made up about 65 percent of the student body, but as the school grew more popular, that percentage declined to just over 13 percent last year. Many of the new students are Asian kids from the Laurel neighborhood.

Interviewed at his school last week, Chavis said it's not surprising more parents want their kids at American Indian because of its academic rigor. He called the Mills College complaints "a witch hunt," saying they were out to get him because Zirkel was teaching race relations and that he openly derided it. "What they're doing is a joke," he said. "We don't need more race relations. We need blacks with math degrees; we need Mexicans with math degrees."

He also repeatedly declared: "Liberals are worse than the Klan." ... "They pretend to be concerned with you," he said, "then they hide behind their multiculturalism and bilingualism." Chavis also made a big deal of grammatical errors in the complaint letters, including the misspelling of his name as "Chavez." "These are graduate students?" he said. "They're idiots. They can't even write."

The principal admitted to the "mix breed" and "fucked around a lot" comments, but laughingly denied that he threatened to kick anyone's ass: "What I said was, 'You're going to look funny if you jump me and a sixty-year-old man kicks your ass.' " He also denied calling Lewis "a fucking black minority punk." "I called him a dumbass minority," Chavis said. "I said he was an embarrassment to his race."

Chavis is an erratic character who gets inches from your face during conversation and changes moods on a dime. One moment he's yelling, the next laughing heartily. The principal also seems to view the world through a racial lens: He even asked about Full Disclosure's ancestry. He openly admits to reprimanding what he called "lazy and ignorant" students by telling them they're "an embarrassment to blacks," "an embarrassment to Mexicans," or "an embarrassment to Chinese." He believes "liberal" public schools "coddle" students, and that humiliating them with racial and cultural taunts is key to unlocking their educational potential. "I'm teaching them to be warriors," he said, "and the modern-day warriors' weapon is academics."

He defends his use of "darkie" as similar to blacks using the N-word. "I use 'darkie' every day," he said. "I use it in the context that I'm Indian and I'm black. I'm a darkie."

At least two of Chavis' white staff members said that while they also are tough disciplinarians, they never use racially charged language. "Coming from me it's not going to have the same effect," explained site administrator Carey Blakely. "It's not that it's racist. It's just not going to work." Blakely defends her boss' methods as "raw and real." She and the other teachers are not given so much freedom, however. "I'm the only motherfucker around here that gets to cuss," Chavis said, laughing.

In a phone interview, Zirkel contradicted both accounts. "It's not what we heard, nor is that the story he told us afterward," the professor said emphatically. She also disagreed that it's okay for minorities to use racially charged language. "These are children. That, to me, makes the difference," she said. "I don't know of any evidence anywhere that using racial slurs and derogatory language is helpful to students."

Zirkel sent the letters to Kimberly Statham, the state administrator in charge of Oakland's public schools, and Alameda County Superintendent Sheila Jordan, and copied them to state and federal departments of education and the five board members of Chavis' school. It's unclear what, if anything, will come of it. Last week, the charter school board said it planned to investigate. In a short interview, board member Hilda Alvarado said, "I don't want to comment until we determine exactly what happened." But Zirkel said the board later canceled its scheduled meeting with her.

Statham and Jordan have no real jurisdiction over Chavis. Under state law, charter school principals are independent and answer only to their boards. Earlier this year, however, Statham had an opportunity to rein in Chavis a bit, and didn't: In February, she overruled a recommendation by Liane Zimny, Oakland's charter school czar, that Chavis be denied his application to open a third campus. "It became my belief," said Zimny, who left the district last week to become a consultant, "that the district was not going to limit the schools' expansion because his test scores are so high."

Mr. Starks

The 60's are Over Mr. Barron.......Didn't you get the memo!

This local story should serve as a cautionary tale for African-Americans who still fall victim to leftist radical politics as opposed to competent and substantive leadership. Although some of our readers may not be privy to NYC politics, this story should still demonstrate the failure of Black leaders who focus on symbolism over hard line issues such as violence, unemployment and the rampant nihilism that affect communities of color on a daily basis. We have politicians who will press the pavement for the (re)naming of a street that will undoubtedly have violence and mayhem running through it, despite the fact that the street's namesake may be in honor of someone who preached peace-think about the many Martin Luther King Drives around the country. For a specific example, check out the story below:

Aide To Be Suspended Over Threat


By GRACE RAUH
Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 26, 2007

The speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn, will suspend the chief of staff of Council Member Charles Barron of Brooklyn for an undetermined amount of time for threatening a Queens council member, a City Hall source said.

Ms. Quinn is facing heightened pressure to fire Viola Plummer, who last month vowed to destroy the political career of Council Member Leroy Comrie, even if it took an "assassination."

Ms. Quinn will meet with Mr. Barron and Ms. Plummer prior to tomorrow's council meeting to discuss the suspension, the source, who requested anonymity, said. Ms. Plummer will be allowed to return to work if she apologizes for her threat and/or enrolls in an anger management course, the source said. Mr. Barron has said he would fight any attempt to fire Ms. Plummer.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Quinn, Maria Alvarado, said the speaker is reviewing the options presented to her by council lawyers, who already have told Ms. Quinn that she has the authority to fire Ms. Plummer.

Mr. Comrie initially called for Ms. Plummer to be fired, but he has remained quiet about her remarks since then. A spokesman for Mr. Comrie, Rance Huff, said the councilman is "a very patient person."

"He's going to wait for his speaker to address this situation. He is hoping it will be sooner rather than later," Mr. Huff said.

A leading figure in the council's Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus, Council Member Robert Jackson of Manhattan, said Ms. Plummer, who is chairwoman of a black activist organization in addition to her council work, should be disciplined but not fired.

Ms. Plummer made her remarks outside City Hall after Mr. Comrie abstained from supporting a proposal to rename a Brooklyn street after a radical black activist, Sonny Carson. Carson, who died in 2002, was a convicted kidnapper who declared himself "anti-white."

The street name measure failed in the council, with the vote split largely along racial lines and nearly all of its support coming from the Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus. Mr. Jackson, a co-chairman of the caucus, supported the proposal.

P.S. And a no thanks to podblanc for providing the clip. This is what happens when racists take isolated aberrant incidents by people of color and capitalize off of it-please pay attention to the news factor of the story and not the so-called clever editing job by this organization.

Dr. Cosby is up to his old tricks again.........and we love it!

This just in from MyFoxphilly.com:

Bill Cosby Leads School Violence Forum

Last Edited: Wednesday, 27 Jun 2007, 10:40 PM EDT


Bill Cosby spoke to Temple students about the effect of violence in classrooms. Temple University/Philadelphia --
Entertainer and educator Bill Cosby hosted a forum on school violence Wednesday. He spoke to education students at Temple University's Center City campus.

He and professors talked about how violence affects behavior and emotions in children and their teachers. Cosby says programs to help stop violence in the classroom are needed to keep teachers safe.

"Programs are being pushed out because people don't care about the children," said Cosby. "If they don't care about the children, then they don't care about the teachers."


Cosby stressed that teachers need more support and he cited studies showing frustrated teachers often leave the profession after just five years.

Today's Moment in Black History

Courtesy of BlackFacts.com:

Freedmen's Bank closed
June 28th 1874
Freedmen's Bank closed. Black depositors had some $3 Million in the bank, which had an imposing headquarters in Washington and branches in various cities President Frederick Douglass said later that the Freedmen's Bank had been "the Black man's cow and the white man's milk."

Most Important Archaeological Find since King Tut

More food for your brain and an important historical event that we ALL need to be aware of...
This is OUR history folks...

'Find of century' for Egyptology

Egyptologists say they have identified the 3,000-year-old mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt's most powerful female ruler.
Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass made the official announcement at a packed news conference in Cairo.
It is being billed as the biggest archaeological find in Egypt since the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb.
Archaeologists hope the mummy, which has lain unrecognised for decades, will yield clues about the mystery of her death and subsequent disappearance.
Mr Hawass has set up a DNA lab near the museum with an international team of scientists to verify the identification.
The study was funded by the US television channel Discovery which is to broadcast a documentary on the subject in July.
An important piece of the evidence is said to be that the mummy has a missing tooth, and the gap matches exactly an existing relic, a preserved tooth engraved with Hatshepsut's name.

Difficult process

Some archaeologists have expressed scepticism about the possibility of using DNA technology to identify the queen.
"It's a very difficult process to obtain DNA from a mummy," US molecular biologist Scott Woodward was quoted as saying by AP news agency.
"To make a claim as to a relationship, you need other individuals from which you have obtained DNA, to make a comparison between the DNA sequences."
DNA is the molecule that contains genetic information in all organisms and can be used to establish family relationships.

Obliterated

In modern times, Hatshepsut's temple was the location of the 1997 Luxor massacre when Islamic militants gunned down 58 foreign tourists, as well as three Egyptian policemen and a tour guide.
Hatshepsut was an important 18th Dynasty ruler in the 15th Century BC, having usurped her stepson, Thutmosis III.
She was known for dressing like a man and wearing a false beard, and was more powerful than either of her more famous female successors, Nefertiti and Cleopatra.
Hatshepsut's funerary temple is one of the most visited monuments around the pharaonic necropolis of the Valley of the Kings in Upper Egypt.
But after her death, her name was obliterated from the records in what is believed to have been her stepson's revenge.
The mummy was found in Tomb KV60, said to be one of the more perplexing tombs in the Valley of the Kings because it contained two unidentified mummies, both of them women.
The tomb was first discovered by Howard Carter in 1903, but it had been ransacked in antiquity and he resealed it. It was re-opened in 1906 and one mummy was removed and identified as Sit-ra, royal nurse of Hatshepsut.
The mummy now said to be of Hatshepsut herself was left behind and did not see the light again until 1990.
Speculation that it is was her was fuelled by the fact the mummy's left arm was bent in a pose thought to mark royal burials and it wore a wooden face-piece (possibly to fit a false beard).

Mr. Starks

Ladies and gentlemen - Introducing the Octopig

For our science buffs, check out this evolutionary fiasco.

Piglet With Six Legs and Two Anuses
A piglet in Croatia born with six legs and two penises has been nicknamed Octopig by his owner.

The farmer, Ivica Seic from the village of Vrpolje, said Octopig also has two anuses.

He said that the pig was growing so fast that they had decided to keep him as a pet, daily newspaper Vecernji List reported.

Mr. Starks

Looks like not everyone is cooning, some folks HAVE gotten the memo

Black college enrollment in South passes milestone

Story Highlights•

In the 16 states measured, the number of blacks enrolled in colleges has risen
• Blacks now total 21 percent of all college students
• Overall blacks represent 31.4 percent of all Georgia college students

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- For the first time ever in the South, blacks are as well represented on college campuses as they are in the region's population as a whole -- something not yet true of the country overall.

The milestone is noted in a new fact book to be released Monday by the Southern Regional Education Board, a nonprofit organization that promotes education.

In the 16 states measured, the number of blacks enrolled in colleges has risen by more than half over the last decade. They now make 21 percent of college students and 19 percent of the overall population.

The number represents progress but it also has to be seen in context. A major contributing factor is the South's rapidly growing Hispanic population, which has reduced the proportion of the population that is black, and thereby made the milestone easier to reach mathematically.

And educators also stressed that the number should not obscure the persistent achievements gaps affecting blacks both in the South and nationally. In particular, black enrollment rates for college-age students, while improving, still lag well behind those of whites, as do the graduation rates of black college students.

With a college degree now almost a prerequisite for high-paying jobs, those achievement gaps pose an economic threat -- and the South will be on the cutting edge of that. In 2005 about 61 percent of public high school graduates in the South were white, the education board said, but by 2018 that figure is expected to be 45 percent.

"We've made tremendous progress, don't get me wrong," board President Dave Spence said. But, he added, unless achievement gaps narrow, "we're going to be in trouble. We already are in trouble, but we'll be in more trouble seven or eight years down the road."

The latest report may not reflect precisely what many consider the South, because the 16 states it covers also include border states Kentucky, Delaware, West Virginia and Maryland.

Still, the report reflects the reality that many more Southern blacks are enrolling in college. In those states, about 1.1 million black students were enrolled in college in the fall of 2005, 52 percent more than a decade earlier.

The increase have come largely at new and expanding public, traditionally white universities and two-year colleges rather than at historically black colleges, which for many years shouldered nearly all the burden of higher education for Southern blacks. Many of those schools still exist, but their share of black enrollment in the region has slipped from 26 percent to 19 percent over the last decade.

"We've removed a lot of the barriers and accepted that we will have to provide higher levels of learning support in the short-term," said Erroll Davis, who oversees the 33 institutions in the University System of Georgia, noting minority students arrive on campus with lower levels of college preparedness on average.

Overall, blacks represent 31.4 percent of all Georgia college students, about 1 percent higher than the proportion in the overall population. The proportion of blacks in the state university system is about 24 percent -- higher than a decade ago but still below the population as a whole.

The number of Hispanics in higher education in the South has also shot up sharply over the last decade -- by about 71 percent to about 552,000 in the region the board studied. But unlike for blacks, it remains well below the proportion of Hispanics in the region's population.

Nationally, 25 percent of Hispanics aged 18-to-24 attend college, compared to 33 percent of blacks and 44 percent of whites. That means the fastest-growing major group has the lowest college-going rate -- an alarming long-term threat to the goal of increasing the percentage of workers with college degrees.

The board's report did not calculate graduation rates for its region, but an analysis done by The Education Trust, a nonprofit group, on behalf of The Associated Press calculated the graduation rates for the 16 states in the board's report.

The analysis, which applies only to four-year colleges, found six-year graduation rates of 40 percent for blacks, 46 percent for Hispanics, and 56 percent for whites.

Nationally, the rate is 41 percent for blacks, 44 percent for Hispanics and 60 percent for whites.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

Mr. Starks

New Feature-Today in Black History.......

Courtesy of BlackFacts.com:

1890-First Black World Title
George Dixon, born in Africville, (Halifax), Nova Scotia becomes the first Black to hold a WORLD title in boxing.

George beat Nunc Wallace in the Pelican Club in England & recieved $4,250.00

Are You Listening Now Mr. Liles?....Crouch was correct in calling your "employees"clowns afterall!!!

I hope our readers were fortunate enough to view Oprah's Townhall special which was originally broadcast a few months ago. I believe a repeat airing was shown sometime last week. Anyway, if anyone is familiar with this terrific episode, there was a point during the show when it appeared that Kevin Liles, former president of Def Jam and present Warner VP and my favorite columnist, Stanley Crouch were about to put on a fisticuff exhibition. Liles feigned indignation regarding Crouch's use of the term "clowns" in reference to today's minstrel rap artists. Crouch in no way called Liles (personally) a clown but he insisted that he was due an apology. Crouch rightfully declined. All I could think about was......imagine being called bitch, ho or nigga, Mr. Liles. What a complete hypocrite. When you read the story below you will see that Crouch was right on target-send in the clowns. Also check out Crouch's Oprah appearance (and the clown reference), courtesy of Youtube:


Oprah, Crouch and the Clowns

Hot beat at rap brunch

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Tuesday, June 26th 2007, 4:00 AM
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A rappers' brawl sent celebrities scrambling Sunday at Warner Music executive vice president Kevin Liles' Make It Happen Power Brunch.

The pre-BET Awards event at the Sunset Towers Hotel was honoring actress Holly Robinson Peete, among others. Also in the room were guests Ludacris, BET chief Debra Lee, Tatiana Ali, singer Brandy, Nick Cannon and Flava Flav.

According to a witness, a fight broke out between rapper T.I. and Ludacris' manager, Chaka Zulu, around 2 p.m.

"First it was two guys, then it was six guys, then it was 10 guys," said the source, describing how the fight escalated.

"Plates were being smashed, the hotel lost a palm tree. The place got trashed," said the witness.

"T.I. was like a dog in a meathouse. Chaka's shirt got all torn up. As people spilled outside, [onlookers] were asking, 'Who got shot?'"

Yesterday, the alleged parties did not return calls. But a rep for Zulu acknowledged the incident to mtv.com.

Liles' Power Brunch coincides with - but is not connected to - tonight's annual BET Awards.

We Explore Violence & The Black Male, a Marriage in need of a divorce-next on Afronerd Radio! This Thurs. at 9pm

The above clip dates back more than a year ago but I'm sure you get the gist. It represents yet another senseless act of violence perpetrated by Black males against Black males. We will take our analytical scalpels and dissect the root causes and solutions for violence in communities of color coming up this Thursday at 9pm. Unfortunately, we have a whole host of cases to discuss as examples. Whether it's the pizza deliveryman case that Mr. Starks has just highlighted or the OJ Par Deux matter (Jesse Davis killing)-the image of the violent Black male must be addressed. Is it a matter of media misrepresentation? Or something more sinister and endemic?
Again, Thursday at 9pm (back to our original time)-call in live at 646-915-9620 or via IM/email, afronerdradio@yahoo. We also have a new chat room feature at the afronerdradio site....And in my immortal words-we have reached critical mass folks. Time to stop the excuses.

Et tu Brute? Why are Black Men killing each other? We have answers & solutions!

Look at the type of commercials MTV Europe produces.....First, Last Year's PS2 Ads....Now This!!!

I just happened to find this video while perusing the halls of Youtube. Check out what the original poster of the clip had to say about this particular commercial:

In this advert called 'Colored Is Better', we see a housewife who takes her skinny, out of shape, white husband, tosses him into the washing machine, and with the help of the detergent, she turns him into a muscle bound black man. This ad is so over the top with it's misandristic message as well as playing on old racial stereotypes, and is patently so biggoted on so many levels, I don't know where to begin with the criticism. The line forms on the left. What's your opinion? This ad is being shown on MTV Europe.

Let's try to answer the above poster questions. What do you guys think about this ad? Is it reverse racism? Or is it original recipe racism, playing into old Black male stereotypes?

Looks Like Jena, La. is not exactly Mayberry, USA......Introducing the Jena Six

Please accept my apologies for getting to this story at the tail end, but you know what they say about being better late than never. Actually, I just found out about this story while viewing tonight's episode of Paula Zahn's Out in the Open show on CNN. It appears that we have yet another racially tinged case occurring in a southern town that is holding on to dated precepts and actions pertaining to its citizens of color. In a nutshell, we have six African-American high school students being charged as adults for the Dec. 4, 2006 beating of a fellow White student in a town with a predominant White population. These young men were brought up on attempted murder charges totaling in excess of 80 years!! Here's more on this story as reported by NOLA.com:

JENA, La. (AP) — Attempted murder and conspiracy charges against a black high school student accused in the December beating of a white student amid escalating racial tensions were reduced Monday to less serious charges that could mean far less prison time if he is convicted.

Mychale Bell still faces trial Tuesday on charges stemming from the Dec. 4 beating. But instead of sentences totalling 80 years, he now faces maximum sentences totalling just over 22 years if convicted.

Bell was one of five black Jena High School students charged in the beating, which occurred about three months after three white students were suspended for hanging nooses from a school yard tree.


Another juvenile, whose identity and charges were not released because of his age, was also accused. They were dubbed the "Jena Six" by supporters who say the attempted murder charges resulted from racism by authorities and were far out of proportion to the seriousness of the crime.

Prosecutors have refused to discuss details of the case.

Bell's charges were reduced to aggravated second-degree battery, which carries a sentence of up to 15 years, and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery which would carry a maximum sentence of 7 1/2 years, according to statutes on the state government Web site.

"I think he feels a lot better since they lowered the charges. At least that's a good first step," his mother, Melissa Bell, said after Monday's hearing.

Still, supporters say they are curious about the latest charges. Statutes define aggravated second-degree battery as involving use of a dangerous weapon and parents of the accused said they had heard no previous mention of a weapon.

It was not immediately clear if the other suspects' charges would be reduced as well. One other suspect, Theodore Shaw, also had been scheduled for trial this week, but his case was delayed. Trial dates for the others — Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis, Carwin Jones and the unidentified juvenile — had not been set.

Shaw and Bell, have been jailed since their arrests, unable to make $90,000 bond.

Let's hope that through community support and public attention, these young men can find justice and fairness through Louisiana's court system. One can only hope. But my contrarian nature must also comment on this matter from another perspective. When will people of color learn to be more proactive by teaching (better yet, training) our children not to put themselves in compromising situations where they are at the mercy of a biased US court system?. And what would have happened if this victim had died? In addition, would Jena's Black community want absolution for the alleged attackers if the race of those involved were reversed? Once again, if African-Americans are aiming for progress in these type of cases (as well as in other societal endeavors) a choice of rightness versus righteousness must be made. Perhaps my opinion doesn't jibe with our readers-share your thoughts with the class and for more on the Jena Six case, click on the link below:

Reduced charges for one suspect in race-tinged beating case

Possibly Los Angeles' most prolific serial killer, and he's not what you think he might be

Pizza man accused of killing 10 women

DNA evidence ties a former pizza delivery man accused of being one of Los Angeles' most prolific serial killers to the slayings of 10 women and an unborn foetus, a prosecutor told jurors at the start of his trial.

The women's killings happened over 11 years and Deputy District Attorney Bobby Grace said Chester Turner was finally caught after he was arrested in 2002 on charges of raping a woman in Los Angeles.

Authorities charged Turner, 40, in October 2004. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Turner's DNA was submitted to cold-case investigators and "like water from a faucet" each unsolved murder was linked to Turner, Grace told jury.

Police allege he accosted most of his victims on a street in crime-plagued south Los Angeles, raping and strangling them in a killing spree that extended from 1987 to 1998.

"Time has passed and we've waited for the name of that killer to emerge," Grace said. "Today we can say the name of that killer - Chester Turner."

Turner has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of murder. His defence was expected to explain the DNA evidence by saying he was a drug dealer whose customers were mainly prostitutes who often paid in trade.

Defence attorney John Tyre deferred his opening statements until he presents Turner's side later in the trial.

One of the killings was recorded on a grainy security camera videotape, but Turner's lawyer has said the footage is so rough that it is impossible to identify the victim or assailant.

Turner is already serving an eight-year prison sentence after pleading no contest to rape in 2002.

Dorothy Patterson, 28, sat in the courtroom just metres away from the man accused of murdering her mother, Regina Washington, and her mother's unborn foetus.

"I came for closure," Patterson said outside court. "It's been a very long time. I just want justice to be served."

Before police identified Turner as a suspect, a mentally disabled janitor was wrongly convicted of three other slayings police believe are connected to Turner.

David Allen Jones, 44, was released in 2004 after spending 11 years in prison, and was awarded $US720,000 ($A886,755) in compensation.

Turner has not been charged with those three killings.

Dorothy Patterson grew up as an only child. She probably would have had a sister if her mother had not been strangled with an electrical cord when Patterson was only 11 years old.

AP

Mr. Starks

Messy Jesse arrested

Rev. Jackson arrested in gun shop protest

By Michelle Gallardo

June 23, 2007 - Rev. Jesse Jackson was among those arrested while demonstrating outside a south suburban gun shop. Father Michael Pleger was also arrested.

They were released around 3:45 p.m. Saturday, but they were back inside the police station in Riverdale Saturday evening talking to the police and trying to press charges against the gun shop owner who called the police on them.

The arrests stemmed from a gun control march that Saturday afternoon. Chuck's Gun Shop has often been linked to guns that are later used in crimes. Therefore, it is a frequent target of gun control activists.

Jackson and Pfleger claim that, at one point, they were invited in by the gun shop owner, but they declined, fearing for their safety. They also claim that the shopkeeper pushed Reverend Jackson just before they were arrested.

" The police believe that store has a right to lock us out and that is not offensive to push us physically," Jackson said.

"We stopped nobody from going in or coming out," Pfleger said. "They said we were being arrested for trespassing. According to what is written on my paper, [we] 'knowingly entered and remained on the property.' I never entered anything. I was standing on the sidewalk."

Reverend Jackson is pressing charges against the gun shop owner for what he said was an assault on his person. The incident only intensifies activists desire to see the doors to the gun shop shut.

Marchers will be at the shop again on Friday at noon.

ABC7 Chicago spoke to the gun shop owner and he also said that he invited Jackson and Pfleger in, and when they did not accept his invitation to come in and talk to him, that is when he called the police. However, he did not address charges as to whether he pushed or did not push Reverend Jackson.

Mr. Starks

Like Whoa!

Isn't it amazing that these White supremacists still feel the need to defend some warped sense of honor when it comes to African-American media. As Mr. Starks and I have stated many times on our radio broadcasts (and the blog), the Klan can literally sit back in a barcalounger and witness aspects of Black America imploding without intervention. The supremacists didn't adhere to that memo when it came to African American columnist, Leonard Pitts, Jr. Check out the latest from EurWeb.com:

WHITE SUPREMACISTS THREATEN BLACK COLUMNIST: FBI called to investigate threats against Leonard Pitts Jr.

A column about black-on-white crime written by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and first-ever RadioScope editor Leonard Pitts Jr. has rankled the white supremacist underground and led to serious threats that are being investigated by the FBI.


Days after his column "Oppressed Whites? Give Me A Break" appeared in The Miami Herald, white supremacist Web site Overthrow.com posted his address, his home phone number and the name of his wife. Similarly-themed Internet sites picked up the baton and added directions to Pitts’ house along with a satellite image of his neighborhood.


"Pitts has received dozens of hostile phone calls at his home and about 400 e-mails,” said Dave Wilson, The Miami Herald's managing editor for news, in a Herald article. "An unsettling number of those were threats.”


Pitts' June 3 column disagreed with a belief among white supremacists that the recent murders of a white couple in Knoxville, Tenn. reflected a surge in racially motivated violence by blacks against whites and is not being reported by the “liberal media” as much as white-on-black crime. The supremacists cite the Duke Lacrosse case as an example.


Although five blacks have been arrested for the Knoxville murders, Pitts emphasized that the killings weren't being investigated as a hate crime, and he rejected the groups' contention that black-on-white crime is underreported. He also wrote that blacks and Hispanics ``are underrepresented in news media as victims of crime and significantly overrepresented as perpetrators, based on crime statistics.'

Pitts, who won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, closed by offering four words to white Americans who feel victimized: "Cry me a river."

Take a look at what the "stop snitching" campaign has resulted in

We have folks telling us that the term "lower tier" is unsophisticated, yet we have the "lower tier" folks committing acts like this. Complete insantity.
Let's see you rationalize THIS story liberals...

Ariz. woman's face branded with 'snitch'

By AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press WriterSat Jun 23, 6:43 AM ET

A woman had the word "snitch" burned into her face with a branding iron in apparent retaliation for helping police in a domestic violence case, authorities said.

The brand singed into her flesh during a June 13 attack is 4 to 6 inches long and stretches across her left cheek from lip to earlobe, Mesa police Sgt. Chuck Trapani said Friday.

"Obviously, they were trying to send a message to her, and they were obviously trying to humiliate her," Trapani said.

Trapani declined to identify the 38-year-old woman. He said the woman had not returned calls relaying interview requests from the news media.

The woman told police she was attacked by four people, including an acquaintance whose Mesa apartment she was visiting, Trapani said. That acquaintance, Preston L. Valdez, 21, told police the woman was smoking methamphetamine with him shortly before the attack.

The woman said the three others who attacked her were hiding in the bedroom, Trapani said. She said they came out, knocked her unconscious, then cut and shaved large swaths of her hair and branded her, Trapani said. She was treated at a hospital and released.

Two of those who attacked the woman — James H. Standridge, 34, and, Jackie L. Getz, 26 — were arrested in a domestic violence case in February 2006 after the woman answered officers' questions about them. The police investigation later led to the removal of a child from the home because drug paraphernalia was found there.

Trapani said a picture of the woman shows that the word on her face had scabbed over and that "snitch" was clearly legible. He said police were searching for the branding iron.

Standridge, Getz and Kibbol A. Avila, 33, were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, aggravated assault and unlawful imprisonment. Valdez, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault and unlawful imprisonment.

The four were being held Friday in the Maricopa County jail. Bond for Standridge and Getz was set at $270,000 each. Bond for Avila was set at $90,000, and no bond was set for Valdez. The suspects are scheduled back in court next week.

The Maricopa County Public Defender's Office would not confirm whether it was representing the suspects, and declined to comment on the case Friday. The Associated Press made a request through authorities to interview the four but had received no response as of Friday evening.

Mr. Starks

Juneteenth Nonsense, Part 2 on Afronerd Radio this Sunday at 8pm

We just have to do a part 2 on this issue.....so many stories and so little time. Check out the video above, especially the intro. The intro used a simian motif as a direct shout out to the Black community who must pay for the reprehensible behavior of a few. The monkey analogy is insulting but it's just one more image to place on a virtual stack of symbolic (and some quite specific) references meant to demean people of color. As I have mentioned countless times on this blog, we must be disciplined if we are to identify those who do not have the interests of upholding pride and respect in the African-American community. The world is watching and maintaining the victimization standard of liberalism is literally killing an entire segment of the population. Join Mr. Starks and I as we use our cyber scalpels to diagnose, dissect and prescribe medication for this lower tier cancer growth. Again, Sunday at 8pm (a later hour for the summer months)-call in live at 646-915-9620 or via IM/email, afronerdradio@yahoo. Be very afraid....In the immortal words of Mr. Starks-the truth may be unattractive.

Reminder.....8pm, Live-Call in, Afronerd Radio

Just a reminder folks...8pm today and then 9pm next thursday. Call no. 646-915-9620.
We have to talk about this.

Discussing criticism vs racism and Juneteenth Riots..WTF!!!

Check out the visuals on the riot issue:

Juneteeth Mayhem

Witnesses sought in mob beating

People in a crowd in Austin, Texas, killed the passenger of a car that had hit a child.

By Liz Austin Peterson
Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas - Police yesterday pleaded for witnesses to help them track down members of an angry mob that beat a man to death after the car he was riding in apparently struck a child.
Investigators were struggling to piece together what happened Tuesday when David Rivas Morales died defending the driver from members of a crowd leaving a Juneteenth celebration. There could have been anywhere from two to 20 attackers, Austin Police Commander Harold Piatt said.

The car in which Morales, 40, was a passenger had entered an apartment complex's parking lot when it struck a 3- or 4-year-old child, Piatt said. The child was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The driver got out of the car to check on the child and was confronted by several people, Piatt said. When they attacked the driver, Morales went to his rescue and was attacked as well. Police said no guns or knives were used.

The driver got away and is cooperating with police, who have not identified him.

Margaret Morales said a young boy came to her door to tell her that her brother was lying on the ground outside. She found him sprawled on the pavement 100 feet from her townhouse, battered and choking on blood. She said her mother came running after hearing her screams, but police wouldn't let either of them get close.

The Morales family remembered David, who was a painter, as a caring brother. "I just want the people caught and brought to justice," said his sister Elizabeth.

An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people were in the area for the Juneteenth festival, marking the day Texas slaves got the word that they had been freed.


Story #2


Cars smashed, drivers attacked after Milwaukee's Juneteenth celebration


A handful of violent incidents tarnished Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Juneteenth celebration for the second year in a row. The festival itself was peaceful, but police in riot gear had to deal with several incidents after the event.

Among the incidents, a large group of teens were jumping on unsuspecting drivers' cars and kicking in windows on at least two vehicles.

In one incident, a crowd surrounded a car stuck in traffic. A couple of teens jumped on top of the car. One smashed out the rear windshield. The driver stayed in the vehicle and was not hurt, but he did smash into the car ahead of him trying to speed away from the attackers.

Further down the same street, a woman in car stopped after a teen jumped onto the back of her car. She got out and yelled at the teen, then she got back into her car. She also hit the car in front of her as she tried to get away.

A short time later the crowd surrounded another car, pounding on the hood and trunk and breaking out the windows. After a woman reached into his open window, the driver got out and was assaulted. He was kicked in the head by a man and fell to the ground. He was taken to the hospital for treatment.

In another incident, police said a young woman hit an officer in the face as the officer was trying to break up a large fight. The blow shattered the officer's face shield. The officer was cut by the shattered face shield and needed stitches at the hospital.

The woman was arrested.

Many people who attended the celebration are angry that the celebration, marking the end of slavery in America, was once again marred by violence. Last years celebration also resulted in violence and arrests.

Organizers are concerned there will be pressure to cancel the ceremony next year.

Thousands of people attended the Juneteenth celebration itself without incident.


Copyright WTMJ TV. All Rights Reserved

Mr. Starks

Yet another Black man crumbling before our very eyes

I've always found this guy to be somewhat of an irritant...

Circus act

By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
June 19, 2007

So now we have Kobe Bryant trashing teammates and management alike on some covert amateur commando video.

This coming after a statement on his Web site spoke of continued dissatisfaction with the direction of the Los Angeles Lakers and a new interest in being traded. Which came after Bryant flew to Barcelona to meet with owner Jerry Buss and, according to the Los Angeles Times, figured out he still wanted to be dealt.

All of this, of course, comes in the wake of his Memorial Day weekend schizophrenic radio tour where he alternated claiming he would never play for the Lakers again and affirming his commitment to winning a fourth title in L.A.

You follow all of that?

What a couple of weeks this has been, even by Kobe standards.

Slowly but surely, day after day, bizarre act after bizarre act, he keeps hurting only himself. All of the goodwill, good soldier, good teammate stuff that he painstakingly built up after Colorado is eroding with each passing episode.

It's not that what Bryant keeps saying is all that incorrect – it's that he keeps finding worse and worse ways of saying it.

Web site open letters? Radio flip flops? And now some strange rant in a shopping center parking lot, mouthing off to a couple of strangers whom he may or may not have known were filming him? Was this really the best place to rip teammate Andrew Bynum and general manager Mitch Kupchak?

Bryant is essentially correct about this entire deal. He is the most talented player in the NBA and in his prime at 29, and the Lakers have done little to surround him with enough talent to compete for a championship, especially in the brutal Western Conference. This isn’t the easy breezy East where LeBron James can reach the finals with similarly average support.

Kupchak has been bad. Just about every Lakers fan wishes Jerry West was still running the team. The idea that L.A. used a lottery pick on Bynum, a high school project in 2005, was questionable enough, but the idea that they wouldn’t pursue Jason Kidd because they wanted to keep him?

"Are you kidding me?" asks Bryant in the video.

Well, are they?

The thing is, if Bryant had an ounce of savvy, he could have spun this completely to his advantage. When the truth is on your side, when your core argument is that you just want to win, you shouldn’t come out looking like the bad guy – petulant, power hungry, ungrateful and unstable.

But what everyone is seeing is an irrational tantrum, stranger and stranger each time. And Bryant sure isn’t helping himself get traded. The past three weeks have done nothing to convince a contender to gamble on him, an owner to believe in him, a fan base to trust him. His handling of this has been career suicide – burning bridges on both sides of the island.

What a disaster and no amount of Phil Jackson talks are going to settle it down. Bryant’s true feelings are evident. His desire to get out of L.A. is real; it wasn’t just frustration and emotion talking. The temporary backtrack was the emotion – guilt, loyalty, embarrassment, whatever.

At this point, the Lakers are going to have to actually consider the unthinkable: trading him.

Buss understandably wants no part of that. Or at least he didn't three weeks ago. He banked the franchise on Kobe and dealt Shaquille O'Neal for what has amounted to little. He can't now give up Bryant for what will assuredly be below market value.

First off, the list of potential destinations dwindles by the day. Second, even a sound basketball trade can't replace the star power of Kobe. In L.A., you can’t sell three dimes for a quarter. The fans want the bright lights guy. Bryant, no matter what, remains that.

But he is also a wild card, a wild child and no one knows what he'll do next. One time, when he was getting criticized for shooting too much, he pouted and stopped shooting, passed the ball every single time like a wise-guy fifth grader.

If he doesn't want to be in L.A. next season, he can sabotage things in a million different ways. Really, at this point, do you put anything past him?

Bryant is a spectacular talent who has a deep desire to win, to compete, to get his front office and ownership to help make it happen.

But he has no idea how to tell them that. No idea at all. He just keeps thinking of the newest wrong way. And so it keeps getting worse, for the franchise, for the franchise players.

First a radio tour, now a bootleg internet video?

Are you kidding me?

Mr. Starks

There Seems to be One Way to get an absentee father to get involved.............Money!

Mother And Her Ex-Husband In Court Over 9/11 Money

John Slattery
Reporting

(CBS) NEW YORK A Paterson man was in court Wednesday to fight for half of the nearly $3 million dollars awarded to his son who died in the World Trade Center attacks.

Leon Caldwell's ex-wife, Elie Goss-Caldwell says her husband hadn't seen their son Kenneth in 28 years and didn't know the 30-year-old had died until long after.

Kenneth Caldwell was a technology manager at the World Trade Center. He was single and had no will, so his mother became the administrator of his estate.

Elie Caldwell, who raised Kenneth and his two siblings, says the father abandoned the family when Kenneth was just two.

The victim’s mother said the father abandoned the family when Kenneth was just two, and feels her ex-husband’s actions are “terrible. I think he’s immoral. There was no relationship between Kenny and his biological father.”

Leon Caldwell said in court papers that the mother "prevented" him from seeing his children.

Goss-Caldwell, who lives in Philadelphia, says her ex-husband left her with her two sons when Kenneth was two.

The judge indicated that she would make her decision after 60 days of considering arguments on the law.

Even I have to admit that this was a great idea

Hey, even a conservative can admit certain things. I would even go as far as stating that Hillary's Sopranos parody was genius-inspired. To utilize the internet and a pop culture reference as a prop may ultimately result in Clinton being called Madame President. Heaven help us.

Alright minstrel Rappers, looks like the church is coming for ya too!

NBC5.com

A local church is behind up to 20 billboards around Chicago calling for an end to demeaning rap.

Church's Billboards Target 'Degrading' Rappers
Local Rapper Upholds Move

CHICAGO -- A South Side church is taking a stand against demeaning and violent music by putting up billboards around the city Monday.

Twenty billboards denouncing music artists that demean women and perpetuate violence are going up Monday, according to a release from St. Sabina Church.

The billboards read "Stop Listening To Trash," and they name 10 modern-day disrespectful rappers, the release said.

Pastor of St. Sabina Church, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, said in the release, "If we are going to end the violence and disrespect of women, we must fight every form of negativity, including the music industry."

"When you disrespect women and you continue to demean a community or race by names and by language, that's unacceptable," he told NBC5's Alex Perez. "We can kill with our words."

Mixed opinions were expected from the public as well as from the artists themselves, but Chicago rapper Shala Esquire -- of the popular group Qualo -- told NBC5 he thinks the billboards seem like a good idea.

"I think the billboards are a bold step in a world that has been pretty cowardly lately. Hopefully it brings balance back to hip-hop so folks can move on to b--chin' about something else," he said. "I'm not going to say that we don’t use certain words to depict the reality of life, but it's becoming kind of crazy and it's getting out of control. Don't fix the music, fix what causes the music."

Among the artists targeted by the billboards are Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Fat Joe, and Lil' Wayne.

Meanwhile, Chuck D., the founder of political rap group Public Enemy, is set to meet with Pfleiger and Sen. James Meeks on Tuesday about the billboards and about rap music in general.

Mr. Starks

For true HipHop Fans. Early history of the music on exhibit

I happened to be a part of this movement at WBAU during this period. The music really did leave you with a good feeling, unlike todays current dumbed down version.
For those in the New York area check out this exhibit if you can, and get a look at HipHops early brilliance.

By Chris Richburg

Hip-Hop activist Harry Allen will offer an alternate point of view concerning the history of rap music with his new photo exhibit, Part of the Permanent Record: Photos From the Previous Century.

The exhibit will be open to the public from June 29 to Aug. 16.
The displayed photos chronicle Allen's stint as a photographer during his days as a student at Adelphi University on Long Island, between 1983 and 1986.

It was there, mostly at the student radio station, WBAU, that the activist became friends with former Yo! MTV Raps co-host Andre "Doctor Dre" Brown as well as the men who would go on to comprise the Hip-Hop group Public Enemy and its production unit the Bomb Squad (Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Hank and Keith Shocklee, Bill Stephney, Terminator X, and Eric Sadler).

"I connected with these guys because, at a time during which the conventional wisdom was that rap was a 'fad' that would eventually 'go away,' they were the first people I'd met who, like myself, looked at Hip-Hop scientifically and took it utterlyseriously,"" Allen said.

Allen's photographs not only showcase the creation of Public Enemy, but also capture notable Hip-Hop artists and activists such as Run-DMC, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, LL Cool J, Whodini, Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde, T. La Rock, Stetsasonic, Dick Gregory and Angela Davis.

Despite his talent behind the lense of the camera, Allen chose to pursue writing because he "simply could not figure out how to make a living as a photographer."

As a journalist, Allen's works have appeared in various publications such as VIBE, The Village Voice, The Source, Essence, Billboard, and other media since his debut in June 1987.

In addition, he has been quoted as an expert in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, on National Public Radio, MTV, VH-1, and CNN.

Other achievements include co-producing and narrating features for BBC Radio as well as hosting and producing the weekly WBAI-NY arts radio show Nonfiction since 2003.

Those interested in seeing the exhibit can visit the Eyejammie Fine Arts Gallery from 2 to 6 p.m. For details, go to http://www.eyejammie.com/harryallen.html.

Mr. Starks

More Wisdom (Hack!!!! Excuse the Phlegm) from Mr Jackson.......and it's worth far less than 2 quarters!

He definitely has a point about corporate complicity-but I still want him to go. Even Ned the whino knew his place. When are we going to bring balance back to hip hop and stop the purchase of snake oil from these talentless minstrels? In the immortal words of Prince Rogers Nelson-Shut up already....damn!

Hey a Brother Can Race Cars Too! Just ask Lewis Hamilton!

F1 McLaren Lewis Hamilton's 1st place podium Canada
Uploaded by dmars72

First Richard Pryor in Greased Lightning now this......Is Lewis Hamilton the Tiger Woods of auto racing? And can we stop highlighting Black firsts? Will achievement ever be applauded without a racial subtext? Time will tell. Here's a snippet from the NY Daily News:

The 22-year-old Englishman fought off a couple of challenges from Mercedes McLaren teammate and two-time world champion Fernando Alonso yesterday to win the U.S. Grand Prix, the second straight victory for the first black driver in F1's 61-year history.

"Coming into the season, being realistic, I never expected anything like this, but I hoped to do well," Hamilton said. "I hoped maybe I'd get a podium at some point. This is just insane."

This latest win, coming on the heels of his inaugural F1 victory a week earlier in the Canadian Grand Prix, gave Hamilton his seventh top-three finish in as many starts - one of his numerous unprecedented feats for a rookie. Another is his lead in the points.

After being tied for the top with his teammate, Hamilton took an eight-point lead in the standings with his win in Montreal and will now carry a 10-point margin over Alonso into the French Grand Prix in two weeks.

The two finished 1-2 for the third time this season, but this time the order was reversed from Malaysia in April and last month's race at Monaco.

Check out the remainder of the article below:

Pioneer has winning Formula

Next on Afronerd Radio-Can Blacks be Critiqued by Whites (and others) without a racist intent?

I must say that I do not agree wholeheartedly with everything spouted by the gentleman in the above video. For instance, I disagree that affirmative action is inherently racist-it's genesis derived out of a need to address historical inequities against people of color. Conversely, I also believe that at some point people of color have to be weaned off affirmative action in order to compete with others in society. If there is a set standard, then we must rise to the challenge just as our forefathers did without the opportunities that we are afforded in the present day.

The video also addresses political correctness and the inability a White person (or a Black person perceived as a sellout) may have in critiquing behavior exhibited by a minority without being labeled a racist. Can the behavior be analyzed without race being thrown in as an ingredient? This is what will be discussed live this Thursday at 8pm (next Thursday we will be back to our original 9pm broadcast) on Afronerd Radio. Be sure to give us a call at 646-915-9620 or send us an IM/email (afronerdradio@yahoo.com) which we will read during the live broadcast. Be there and be square-and don't be afraid of the PC police.

Horrible Father's Day

Another tragic story. I will refrain from any deep editorializing here but I would like an opinion from our readers. Is this another case of hyper-masculinity gone awry by a man of color? Another child left fatherless due to senseless beef? Or is this a structural/societal problem? Share your thoughts. The article is courtesy of today's NY Daily News:

Dad's day horror

He's fatally shot after deli feud but scrambles home for last look at baby

BY MIKE JACCARINO and ERNIE NASPRETTO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Tuesday, June 19th 2007, 4:00 AM


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Germaine Persaud cradles his baby girl Diniah in family photo at Queens home.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A 22-year-old single dad who had just celebrated his first Father's Day was gunned down outside his Queens home early yesterday - but managed to run inside to get a last glimpse of his baby girl.

Germaine Persaud used his final moments to hug his parents and stumble into his bedroom, where 11-month-old Diniah Destiny was sleeping in her crib.

She was the last thing Persaud saw before he dropped to one knee, collapsed into his father's arms and died, cops and relatives told the Daily News.

"I heard three shots and saw him running up the steps with blood coming out of his mouth," said sister Crystal Persaud, 27. "He went to mom's room. Every time something happened he went to my mother. He always looked for my mother to save him."

But mother, Cheryl, and father, Vernon, could only watch in horror.

"My mom said he tried to tell her something, but she couldn't tell what he was saying," said sister Margaret Persaud, 31. "My parents were in bed. He went over to his dad and said, 'They shot me.' The blood was gushing really fast."

The shooting stemmed from an earlier confrontation in a nearby deli, cops and family said, when Persaud and two cousins got into a staredown with two unknown men and exchanged angry words.

They thought it ended there - but minutes later, the men showed up at the Persaud family's home on 192nd St. in St. Albans.

"You got a problem with me?" said the taller of the two, a black man in his 20s wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and a red bandanna, before firing at least six shots at Persaud, his cousins said.

Family members insisted Persaud did not know the shooter or his shorter stocky friend. Cops were questioning two men yesterday, according to family members and a police source.

Persaud emigrated from Guyana with his family when he was 4 years old, his family said.

They said he worked full time for his father's company, VCG Trucking, and was also an aspiring filmmaker who started a company called Hollyhood DVDs, which taped local rap artists and sold the videos to area stores.

But his first love was the daughter he was raising as a single father, his sisters told The News.

"He really loved [Diniah]. He'd bathe her. He would spend the whole day with her," said sister Margaret, a fashion designer.

He got a "World's Best Dad" picture frame as a Father's Day gift on Sunday, and spent the whole day cradling his baby in his arms, she said.

But that night, he went to a nearby party with cousins then stopped at the deli on their way back home after midnight. Persaud went inside to grab some hamburgers, the cousins said - and when he stepped outside at 12:50 a.m., the armed thug was waiting.

"He wanted to have the world," sister Crystal said as her family mourned her youngest sibling.

Mr. Crouch is at it again......and I Love it! Preach!

More words of wisdom (which the above video also demonstrates) from the great social critic and columnist, courtesy of the NY Daily News:

Books reveal true hip hop, chapter & verse

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By STANLEY CROUCH

Monday, June 18th 2007, 4:00 AM


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The serpent curling in the box of trends, sentimentality, self-righteousness and bad taste that we recognize as the most adolescent side of popular culture, has been taking a number of blows, spears and stompings over the past few months. For many, this seems unfair. To call hip hop a serpent seems a bit extreme. They feel that hip hop is being battered because it has become the scapegoat for a level of violence, glamorization of criminal behavior, crude materialism and misogyny that was in place long before hip was invented.

Fine. It is true that exploitation of sex and violence has existed in popular culture for many years but that does not change the fact that what is wrong in hip hop is being recognized, and people are finally stepping forward to call out those things that they find degrading and tasteless. Hip hop's defenders always say that there is a much greater variety of styles to the idiom than its critics acknowledge.

I have seen three new books that should be looked at by anyone interested in the degree of precise, imprecise and naive thought brought to the matter or that avoids the facts of the matter. Tayannah Lee McQuillar's "When Rap Music Had a Conscience" is a perfect example of precision, confusion and extraordinary intellectual laziness. "Pimps Up, Ho's Down" by T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting is much more intellectually rigorous but gets caught in academic language and feminist cliches. "Beats, Rhymes, & Life: What We Love And Hate About Hip Hop" is an anthology edited by Kenji Jasper and Ytasha Womack that spans the gamut from extremely clear criticism and analysis to some of the looniest excuses I have ever read given for anything.

The problem with McQuillar's work is that while she is critical of the thug extremes and the prison values that mislead too many young black people, she provides a chapter, "The Sacred Scrolls," that is overladen with Afrocentric claptrap and shoddy propaganda presented as if it is real scholarship.

Sharpley-Whiting's book does not suffer from the sort of cowardice one too often hears from black academics who genuflect to hip hop in order to stay current with the tastes of the students who provide them with whatever power they have on college campuses. Sharpley-Whiting calls them as she sees them and wisely quotes the offensive material when necessary. Her book is high level in its research and its thought, and those looking for adult ideas about the subject should look it up.

The anthology is quite good because it contains very insightful pieces, interviews with rappers in which they unknowingly damn themselves, and essays so crazy, like "A Christmas Story," that they add new definition to the word insane.

All in all, however, we are seeing something rising up from the ground and moving through the bling and the smoke machines to ask only that we Americans recognize what is happening to our young people and understand that part of the reason it exists is that popular culture at large has far too frequently substituted sensation, pornography and shock for the mysteries and the grandeur of human feeling. In that sense, for all of its violent minstrelsy, the worst of hip hop is just following the pack.

**And just so it's clear....here at Afronerd, we are hip hop fans. We are anti-minstrel, anti-gangsta, anti-misogyny and anti-commercial hip hop. Nuff said!

The lowering of standards? or is it Racism? What Do You Think?

I received this next article as an email from a colleague at work earlier today. We had a slight difference of opinion as to the writer's intent. My friend/colleague was under the impression that the writer (Mike Adams of Townhall.com) was using coded Fox News-speak as an excuse for racism. I just did not get that inference-if anything, Adams was making an anti-racist supposition. Suffice it to say, the article appears to denote certain Whites' refusal to question the low expectations of certain Blacks for fear of being labeled a racist. Check out an excerpt of the Adams' piece in question, courtesy of Townhall.com:

The other day, a guy at work was telling me about another university employee who has been siphoning gas from one of the university vehicles. It’s understandable that he’d want to steal gas. In the wake of this Republican “war for oil” gas prices have never been higher.

But the funny thing is that the university appears unwilling to do anything about what seems to be an obvious case of larceny. And, oh yes, I forgot to mention that the employee just happens to be a black male. It’s understandable that people would want to avoid a rush to judgment against a black male because it could be misinterpreted as racism. But isn’t holding black males to a lower standard of behavior itself an example of racism?

The Rev. Al Sharpton speaks in this April 20, 2007 file photo in New York. Bernard McGuirk, Don Imus' former producer on Friday called Sharpton a "race-baiter" who was looking for attention when he led a campaign to fire the radio host. Sharpton said Imus and his producer got what they deserved for making a racist, sexist remark on the air.

A teacher once told me about a student who walks around campus with a comb in his afro, a jam box on his shoulder, and a pair of jeans falling off his butt leaving six inches of his boxers exposed to the public. Unsurprisingly, the teacher thinks his appearance is working to his detriment. No one would hire someone unless his position in the boxers versus briefs controversy was a well-kept secret throughout the entire interview process.

But the teacher never said anything to the young man. And, yes, the jam box-toting fellow is a young black male and the teacher is white. It’s understandable that the teacher fears being labeled a racist the second he says something to the youngster. But, by holding his tongue, isn’t he holding the student to a lower standard of behavior and, hence, contributing to racism? Not to mention the fact that he’s allowing a young black male to exacerbate harmful stereotypes of other young black males.

For the Adams' article in its entirety, click on the link below:

Homie-phobia

I'm curious to hear our readers' take on this.....am I delusional? Or perhaps, the writer has a point-lift every voice and shout an opinion.

YouTube Loves Obama

Incredible. It appears that Youtube's influence on the general populace knows no bounds. If you haven't lived under a kryptonite rock for the last few days, you probably are aware of a new YouTube music video entitled, "I have a Crush on Obama" courtesy of the same folks that brought you "My box in a box." Am I the lone person that believes this video ultimately trivializes Obama's historic presidential run? Although I may not be wholly pleased with Obama's leftist political leanings, he is still worthy of the respect that any other presidential hopeful deserves. Check out the Daily Page's take on Obama Girl:

One of the hottest viral videos over this past week, created by UW graduate Ben Relles, also happens to be the biggest hit of its kind so far in the 2008 race for president. A music video for "I Got a Crush... On Obama" debuted Tuesday as the first in a promised salvo of videos from barelypolitical.com.

Featuring a scantily-clad curvy young woman singing an ode to her presidential paramour Barack Obama, it is the latest in a series of videos created outside the confines of a campaign that has grabbed the attention of media and pundits, not to mention millions of viewers.

Both the video and its eye candy are better known as Obama Girl, but its real star is the Illinois Senator, a leading contender in the Democratic primary who is an increasing beneficiary of support from an immense online host of prospective voters. It was created by Relles, a 1997 graduate of UW-Madison who subsequently attended the Wharton School of Business before getting a gig with Agency.com as an advertising executive.

For more from the Daily Page piece, click on the link below:

Obama Girl is latest satire with Madison roots to go big

The Days Seem Overcast for Weatherman Al Roker

I just happened to hear about this developing story involving the Today show's resident weatherman, Al Roker. It appears that Imus supporters remained ever watchful for any missteps that Roker could make in lieu of the famed Imus debacle. If anyone familiar with the past Don Imus incident surely knows, is that Roker was one of the lead voices demanding the veteran shock jock's ouster. Now, Imus supporters are demanding Roker's removal for a recent off the cuff remark made against another protected class-the disabled. Check out Eurweb.com's take on the Al Roker fiasco:

*The backlash continues for “Today Show” weatherman Al Roker, who finds himself the target of Don Imus fans after making an on-air joke last week about epileptic seizures.

"Remember that controversial Olympic logo for the 2012 Olympics in London? Some folks have complained that the campaign actually sent them into epileptic seizures," Roker said on last Thursday's show. "Well, we asked you to weigh in on our Web site in an informal poll; those of you who could get up off the floor after shaking around were able to actually log in . . . "

Although Roker issued an apology later on the same show, bloggers are labeling him a hypocrite for poking fun at a medical condition after pushing so hard for Don Imus to be fired for his offensive remarks.

I really think they are reaching on this issue, but never let it be said that I didn't see this one coming. Some have stated (yours truly included) that many folks are looking at Black leadership as being hypocritical in the wake of the Imus incident, when the same leadership allowed commercial hip hop to compromise the African-AMerican image prior to the statements made by Imus. Now Roker (who is a cousin to Lenny Kravitz via his mom, the late Roxie Roker, fyi) is caught up in this selfsame maelstrom of hypocrisy. Hopefully, Al just like his many weather predictions, can weather this storm. For more on the Roker remarks, click on the link below:

FOLKS WANT AL ROKER FIRED OVER EPILEPSY JOKE

Ok....This is pretty funny....

I'm sorry but I had to laugh at Madtv's take on Heroes. Take a look....and laugh. You know you want to. More serious fare coming up. Well sort of-YouTube has a crush on Obama-next.

A Request from Our Readers......

After conversing with my blog contributor/co-writer, Mr. Starks, I have come to the conclusion that the one thing that we request from our readership is discipline. What exactly am I talking about? Mr. Starks posted several stories that one would assume should have raised the ire of our commenters, but no one provided an opinion. One story entitled, Funny how the media is slow to respond when a missing woman is not White and blonde did not garner much attention from our visitors and yet when we highlighted stories referencing the Sopranos or Michael Jackson vs. Prince....well, folks found the time to express their opinions. One thing that we attempt to do here at Afronerd, is provide the reader with information as well as submit food for thought. I guess gossip is a mainstay within our culture, but it is disheartening when I visit celebrity/gossip based blogs (Black gossip blogs, notwithstanding) and the comments reach in the hundreds when the topic deals with Beyonce, Bobby Brown or the usual roster of minstrels. We must remain vigilent when the welfare of our culture and community are at stake. Case in point, here's an excerpt from The New York Times, pertaining to two toddlers found wandering the streets of New Jersey unattended:

FAIRVIEW, N.J., June 15 — Al Carbone, a Bergen County cabdriver, was nearing the end of his shift about 4 a.m. Friday when a man approached him in the parking lot of the A.&P. here and told him that two children were wandering in front of the supermarket.

In a quarter-century on the job, Mr. Carbone said, he had never seen anything as troubling as the two sparsely clad toddlers running on the sidewalk “like they were in their backyard.” Police later identified them as brothers, one 3 years old, the other 18 months.

Mr. Carbone, 74, said the first thing he did was tell his dispatcher to call the police. Then, as he got out of his cab, the two shivering toddlers ran toward him.

“They weren’t dressed at all,” he said. “One was in a pajama top and underwear, and the older one had on pajama bottoms, no shirt and a blanket.”

Please folks, let's stop falling prey to innocuous stories that promote the tenets of yellow journalism, insult the reader's intelligence and degrade our culture. For more on the abandoned toddlers piece, click on the links below:

Mother Charged After Sons’ 4 A.M. Walk

2 Boys Abandoned Outside New Jersey Supermarket

Afronerd Radio talks about Fatherhood......ALL are Welcome!

Well, we spoke about Mother's on their day, now it's time to address fatherhood in communities of color on our special Father's Day show. This is going to be a very special broadcast so we implore our readers to call in with your thoughts. Tomorrow's show will start at 5pm. Give us a shout out at 646-915-9620 or you can reach the show via IM/email at afronerdradio@yahoo. Happy Father's Day to the responsible dads.

Check out where your tax dollars are going- A Gay Bomb!

I have to give credit to Blacksmythe.com for this one.
Should we really be surprised about this?

Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A 'Gay Bomb'

Hank Plante
Reporting

(CBS 5) BERKELEY A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb."

Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another," Hammond said after reviewing the documents.

"The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soliders would become gay," explained Hammond.

The Pentagon told CBS 5 that the proposal was made by the Air Force in 1994.

"The Department of Defense is committed to identifying, researching and developing non-lethal weapons that will support our men and women in uniform," said a DOD spokesperson, who indicated that the "gay bomb" idea was quickly dismissed.

However, Hammond said the government records he obtained suggest the military gave the plan much stronger consideration than it has acknowledged.

"The truth of the matter is it would have never come to my attention if it was dismissed at the time it was proposed," he said. "In fact, the Pentagon has used it repeatedly and subsequently in an effort to promote non-lethal weapons, and in fact they submitted it to the highest scientific review body in the country for them to consider."

Military officials insisted Friday to CBS 5 that they are not currently working on any such idea and that the past plan was abandoned.

Gay community leaders in California said Friday that they found the notion of a "gay bomb" both offensive and almost laughable at the same time.

"Throughout history we have had so many brave men and women who are gay and lesbian serving the military with distinction," said Geoff Kors of Equality California. "So, it's just offensive that they think by turning people gay that the other military would be incapable of doing their job. And its absurd because there's so much medical data that shows that sexual orientation is immutable and cannot be changed."

Mr. Starks

Afronerd Radio talks about Ryneisha, Jayquon and the Mandingo Club!

As promised..this Thursday we will be discussing the controversial trend of Ghetto names for Black children. Are these authentic African inspired names or are they indicators of poverty and dysfunctionalism-you decide. We will also discuss the Mandingo club phenomenon. Tomorrow's show will start at 8pm. We will return to the original 9pm slot in one more week. Give us a call at 646-915-9620 or you can reach the show via IM/email at afronerdradio@yahoo. We'd like to hear from our readers/commenters-share your opinions and thoughts. We'll even accept your call if your name is Shayquon.

Shakeisha! Rayquon! Beware...Talking about Ghetto Names!

Everybody Stop the Presses......Another rapper shot....Shocking!

Of course the above entry title is meant to be facetious, but this story happens with such frequency that I (and I suspect the public at large) have become immune to this type of news. I believe that we will address this story (as well as what some of our lot name their offspring, hence the victim's name-Rayquon) during our Thursday radio broadcast. Suffice it to say, that I once joked that many folks that possess ghettoized names have a tendency not to be long for this world. But what once started out as joke, possess a ring of truth. Case in point, check out today's NY Daily News article on the shooting of the rapper/victim in question, Stack Bundles:

Queens rapper shot dead

Stack Bundles ambushed on way home

BY ALISON GENDAR, MIKE JACCARINO and JONATHAN LEMIRE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Tuesday, June 12th 2007, 4:00 AM


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Rayquon Elliott aka Stack Bundles

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An up-and-coming rapper with ties to stars like Fabolous and Jim Jones was gunned down in an apparent ambush just outside his Queens apartment building yesterday, police said.

The artist Stack Bundles - whose real name is Rayquon Elliott - was shot once in the head and once in the thigh as he entered the lobby of his Far Rockaway building just before 6 a.m., police said.

Bundles, 24, was pronounced dead at the scene. His mysterious murder comes just as the underground rapper was negotiating with record labels to release his debut album, relatives said.

"They took his life out of jealousy; they didn't want to see him blow up," said his distraught aunt Davida Wooten. "This was his dream. This was all our dreams and he was doing it."

Bundles, who first won attention for his mix tapes, had collaborated with rappers like Fabolous, Joe Budden and his mentor, Jim Jones of the Dipset and ByrdGang groups.

Bundles was returning to his home in the Redfern Houses on Beach Channel Drive after a night performing and socializing with Freekey Zekey and other Dipset members at Club Stereo on Manhattan's West Side.

After a stop at White Castle for onion rings, a friend left Bundles just outside the building's lobby and told investigators he heard shots moments later. He ran back to find Bundles bleeding heavily, steps from his apartment.

"He was the intended target, no doubt about that," a police source said.

A pair of .45-caliber shell casings were found at the scene. Bundles' wallet, which held cash and credit cards, was still on the slain rapper's body, though one of his medallions had been taken, police said.

"He was a good dude; he was putting Rockaway out there," said cousin Toya Floyd, 29.