Keeping Them Honest: What do a 9-year-old girl, a federal judge, and a 76-year-old retiree all have in common?

What does it say about our society that we kill each other over theories of political ideology? The media’s aim should never be to take aim at a political party. Moreover, its goal is and should always be to ask the questions that lead to the answers society wouldn’t otherwise get. In the wake of the shootings in Arizona, the elephant in the room seems to be silent but rank with a pungent odor. We all must admit that there is something quite fishy about Sarah Palin’s remarks to her followers to “reload and retreat” against the remaining two congressional representatives on her target list. The crossfire’s she places over their heads should be chillingly disturbing to us all regardless of our political convictions. What was she trying to imply with her remarks?

Maybe she was suggesting that there be a second mid-term election which could annihilate the remaining two villains, as she views them. And, if that be the case, why the sudden hurry by her campaigners to delete any remnants of her suggestive remarks? Doesn’t add up to you huh? It doesn’t add up to us either. So, rather than incite a riot or suggest some conspiracy theory let’s just restate the obvious; Sarah Palin and any other public servants who carelessly throw around odious political jargon should be held accountable. Certainly our politics are rooted in religious morality aren’t they? Rather, it seems we have become a self serving race of people too hung up on our own beliefs about governance to count the victims of senseless bloodshed and call them by name—Christina Taylor Green. Dory Stoddard. Gabe Zimmerman.

Ambivalent of our fate as a nation—we are far from being one. Too ignorant of each other to find any sort of common ground let alone relish in our likeness and reject everything about ourselves that resembles an indifference to the principles of one nation. We the people are unwavering, unforgiving, and unapologetically killing each other. Words turn into bullets fast. We’ve been hoodwinked by Palinism yet again. We have turned our founding principles into a one-hour melodrama comedy.  It’s like we’ve declared war on ourselves. These days we should be less concerned with Osama Bin Laden and worry more about the terrorists in our political midst—those who use and incite fear in their followers by putting out viral “hits” against the other side. Lest we forget, in times of war innocent bystanders are always likely to be caught in the crossfire.

 The question we are left to ask ourselves: what do a 9-year-old girl, a federal judge, and a 76-year-old retiree all have in common? It’s not their political party or point of view. They share—shattered memories of a tomorrow where red, white, and blue aren’t divided into two. They lost—those star spangled hopes of standing together when they fell from the good graces of a repressive society. They have—one less candle on a cake which marks a decade since towers fell, no more oath’s to take, or grandchildren to miss. They are—Americans; Citizens of a country that threw them to the wolves. The discourse around the issues we face as a nation is not only unproductive, it has become deadly. The consequence of our politics is human sacrifice. How many more lives will we loose at home and abroad before we realize that life is too high a price to pay for power? We just raised our national debt by 6 human lives and counting. No tax cut, nor deduction can repay that debt. Violent threats have consequences and they have no place in American democracy. Shouldn’t the consequence for using them be the loss of ones political platform. We must stop putting the future of America in the crossfire’s of hell.

Marissa Calhoun, Reporter Demo (CNN)

12/23/2010

"Today's Headlines/ News Cut-In's" 

"I am hungry. I have nothing. Can I please have some food. You can give me anything you want."

     The more God blesses me, the heavier the burden he places on my heart. As I sat at work complaining about having to be here on Christmas Eve, I decided to go across the street and grab a salad from Union Station. The place was swarming with homeless and poor people. I was annoyed by one lady who followed me around the entire store for 35 cents. After I had finished my window shopping and talked my self out of that new pair of shoes, I went into Chopt' for a salad. A man walked in and kindly said to the merchant "I am hungry. I have nothing. Can I please have some food. You can give me anything you want." The merchant immediately responded by offering the man any salad he wanted to have on the menu. My heart sank an my eyes swelled with tears; that was the spirit of Christmas. As I rode back to work, I had to ask myself "why you tripping? You seen homeless people before. Hell, you work in DC you see them all the time." This experience was different for me. This man appeared to be an ordinary man; he seemed to have ordinary luck. He spoke well, and was fully clothed and clean. This man could have been anyone-- he could have been me. In the eve of a recession and in the wake of the personal storms so many people are experiencing, this holiday season should be a time for reflection. I may not ever have everything I  want in this life, but I have a life that does not reduce me to having to beg in order to survive.  Tomorrow as I gather around a table and laugh with my beautiful family creating new memories I will do so bearing in mind that so many people have no memories to recollect, no family to visit with, and no food to eat. I may not be a millionaire with all the riches in the world, but I have been blessed and I am rich with love and opportunity. I can use this to glorify myself and build my own pedestal or I can use this to build the Kingdom of heaven here on earth. As far as I'm concerned every man and woman poor or rich, weak or strong, broken or beloved deserves a seat at His table. As far as I'm concerned so long as His cup overflows we all deserve to eat! May God bless this man and his life and all the others who are without food and shelter this holiday season. And may God continue to advance and use me so that I may repay my debts to him through others in need. "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours in the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh." Luke 6 vs. 201-21

Go to the Mat, President Obama! Examining President Barack Obama’s Core Values and Ability to Fight for the American Middle Class

Go to the Mat, President Obama!

Examining President Barack Obama’s Core Values and Ability to fight for the American Middle Class

Flash back to 2008, cameras flash and lights glimmer. All eyes are on the first African-American President of the United States whose rhetoric and prose left most of us spellbound. A resounding “yes we can” rang clearly throughout the crowds of people flooding the streets of DC during Inaugural weekend. I was one of those people. I attended Uncle Rush’s Presidential Inaugural Celebration Ball hosted in Barack Obama’s honor on behalf of hip-hop. I let the tears flow as I looked up to see our brown-skin President and First Lady romance to Etta James; at last we had all come along. I was proud to share that moment with hip-hop. It brought us all together—the beat boxer and the boardroom brothers and sisters—with a certain sense of sophistication and pride that we had never known before. We sent the world a very clear message about how far we had come as a country that night.

Soon after the celebration ended, the elevated sense of euphoria faded, all eyes were on the White House. What would the President do first? What would be his order of priorities moving forward? President Obama had made allot of campaign promises and galvanized much of his support on the premise and promise of hope and change. But what exactly did hope and change mean? Coincidentally enough it could mean completely different things to everyone. The reality is that President Obama ran on two very vague campaign principles which were great for slogans and rebel rousing but didn’t do so well as tools of governance. The truth is hope and change will strike a chord with everyone: Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.  Nonetheless when it comes to making smart delegation decisions about serious issues like healthcare, the national deficit, the national budget and creating jobs its fair to expect that the perspectives of all parties involved won’t intersect in order to weave some sort of mythical “more perfect union.”

We are seeing this anecdote play out in a series of current political debates. Healthcare; the Democrats can’t get enough of it, it makes the Republicans sick and the Independent’s are indifferent on the issue to say the least. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Well there is a question with no concrete answer. Two years ago when I cast my first vote ever in a Presidential campaign, I voted for a man who I believed would stand-up for the rights of the disenfranchised.  Against all odds I was prepared to back him and believed that he would act diligently in the best interest of the American people. Not just Democrats and Republicans—but everyday people whose sweat and blood built the bridges we cross and maintained the roadways; everyday people who were the first in their families to graduate from college and who returned home in recent years jobless and overwhelmed by student-loan debt; everyday people, who work in the hospitals that they can’t afford to get sick in; everyday people who are loosing their homes in foreclosure and jobs to lay-off’s; everyday people who unlike big business can’t just phone in for a government bail-out. Who is going to bailout us everyday people?

Today, the President stood before a press conference and announced that for those people he would not fight. Today, the President verbally traded two years of Bush era tax-cuts and estate tax-cuts for the wealthiest American’s for only 13 months of extended unemployment benefits for those American’s who are jobless as a result of a down spiraling economy. In total, this agreement if passed by congress will add 900 Billion dollars to our grandchildren’s debt and deepen the hole which the Bush era undoubtedly dug for us. A recent CNN Opinion Research Poll shows that only one-third of American’s favor a tax cut extension for the wealthiest American’s. I find it rather puzzling that President Obama would settle for an agreement which hampers the agenda of the American people without a fight, a campaign slogan, something? This does not coincide with the principles he so eloquently outlines time and time again in his rhetoric. This further display’s the lack of stamina that his administration will have in the marathon to the 2012 Presidential election. It is not enough to talk politics anymore. The honeymoon season is over. People want, need, and expect change. Not just the kind they can believe in, but the kind the can feel and touch.

It is time for President Obama to put one foot on the shoulder of Dr. King and the other on the back of Malcolm X in order to achieve the dream for the American middle class by any means necessary. It’s time for President Obama to stand up because we have been sitting on the hands of hope and change far too long. We must not see the future of our country go up in a smoke of political warfare. We need a President who has the audacity to do more than hope, but rather to also act in our best interest.  Has President Obama lost his grass roots? —it seems he has divorced the struggle and is currently engaging in an affair with “politics as usual.” Go to the mat President Obama, the time has come to fight!

Words from the past..guiding lights for our future!

This posting inspired by a GREAT conversation... 


A compilation of my favorite quotes from Sr. Dubois

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity."

"One ever feels his twoness-an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."


"But what of black women? . . . I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire."

 

"There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained."

 

 "A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills."

 

"Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime."

-W.E.B. Dubois 

DEFINE YOURSELF, FOR YOURSELF!

Hitting "The Dougie" with Hip-Hop legend Dougie Fresh in The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer!

"The human beatbox or the entertainer
No other title could fit me plainer
In a passing generation I am a remainer
And I'm also known as the beatbox trainer
Cashin' checks, make sound FX
And after I finish rockin' Slick Rick is on next" 

-Fresh

‘Dear Michelle’: A Young Sisters Open Letter to First Lady, Michelle Obama

To some people you are just a woman; to fragile to be fearless.

To me you are iconic—timeless even.

You are that rose that Aretha sang about.

You know—the one that is and always will be a rose?

Your spirit is in full bloom in life’s garden,

And dispersed throughout the seas.

All of this and more is what you mean to me.

Rooted deep in the soil that our ancestors plowed—

The product of black foremothers, who could do nothing but dream.

You are black women— in all our diversity and depth.

Maya Angelou spoke of you—

Welling and swelling and bearing in the tide of us.

You channel our inner royalty;

The Cleopatra of our dreams—

The Nefertiti of our hearts.

No need to be adorned with gold to have worth,

Nor crowned with jewels to be a Queen.

All of this and more is what you mean to me.

You are the prayer Margaret Garner prayed when they came for her children—

Sojourner’s Truth even.

You are that song Billie sang when there was no holiday for “back folk,

just the strange fruit decorating the trees.

You’ve got Madame CJ’s in the bend of your hair.

and Winnie Mandela’s in your speech.

All of this and more is what you mean to me.

In a generation where sisters seem to have lost their way,

selling their souls for cheap—

You are the light.

A constant reminder to plant a seed.

I’ve grown underneath your watch,

and been humbled at your feet.

All of this and more is what you mean to me.

You teach us what we can do with our clothes on—

And what can be accomplished when we get off our knees—

Stop bowing to a thrown of materialism.

Stop looking for someone other than ourselves to need.

You show us who we really are.

Not just who the media would have us to be.

All of this and more is what you mean to me.

You give video vixens back their virtue—

By showing us the true flavor of love is sweet.

You bring the nay-sayers’ to shame,

And make the hearts of men skip a beat.

But as they sit and wonder,

And flash their camera’s just to see—

They’ll never truly know just what it means to be:

A black woman with a burden,

On a mission to set her people free—

Giving little girls of color something to aspire to be.

They’d rather see you broken, bowed head—

Bludgeoned down to your knees.

But by his grace you stand tall just so I can see.

That’s why all of this and more is what you mean to me!