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Assata
The next level in Our community as we move our people from all talk and no action, to talk with action. In terms of organizing in respective communities to promote conscious discussion and solutions powered by The Talking Drum Collective.
Updated: 1 year 14 weeks ago
A Man of Manners
"Everyone is polite to a chief but a man of manners is polite to everyone." Kongo (Afrikan) proverb This has been a Revolutionary Daily Thought
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Categories: News Feeds
Melanin (God's dust) Pt.1 of 3
YouTube - Melanin (God's dust) Pt.1 of 3
YouTube - Melanin (God's dust) Pt.1 of 3
Blackness
It is difficult to discuss color. By no stretch of the imagination can one African, black, or American find any proper definition, with, or without the help of his “European” disciple. After many a book and question one is left to ponder what is “Black”, are we that definition? What of the root of this word? First we must find, the truest since of black as a definition.
Middle English blak, from Old English blæc; see bhel-1 in Indo-European roots
Etymology:
Middle English etimologie, from Old French ethimologie, from Medieval Latin ethimologia, from Latin etymologia, from Greek etumologi : etumon, true sense of a word; see etymon + -logi, -logy.]
true sense of a word… At the root of this word we may be discouraged to understand in reference to it’s etymology, that one can be sure, in its frankness, and meaning, that it’s use actually undermines good reason, and logic of one's own personal understanding.
Let’s look at hue: The property of colors by which they can be perceived as ranging from red through yellow, green, and blue, as determined by the dominant wavelength of the light. See Table at color. Also from [Middle English, color, form, from Old English hw, ho.]
Question ('s):
Form is defined as:
1. The essence of something
Or
b. The mode in which a thing exists, acts, or manifests itself; kind
Manifest is defined as to show something clearly: to make something evident by showing or demonstrating it very clearly
understandable: capable of being understood
The definition of understood is:
Hence, you cannot deduce the value of color as a hue . Black, as a hue is not just merely something imagined to be a real, actual, or a current thing. It is not merely something written about being present as a source of dis satification. It is not something that requires your disapproval or dislike. :blkf: :souljaht:
Properties of Blackness:
Not in your wildest imagination, can one institute, as an equivalent of logic, the “wishing away” the convenience of night, without no regard to sleep. Thus, to value the character of blackness, as a “personality makeup,” becomes a clear sign of an overdeveloped sense of self worth, at "the obligation of the importance of others".:raind: A manifestation of a pathetic sense of inferiority. :oldkey: Allowing the worth or importance of others at your adequate or satisfactory usefulness to be oriented conclusively; beyond a matter of all doubt.
This source of value allows one to “create” an image inside of themselves of someone based on the “color of there skin“ as a favor to the unbeknownst victims self esteem.
This approvement; This supportive attitude of kindness. This “preferential treatment”; This small gift of intimacy that is advantageous, not to resemble favoritism as a unfair advantage, but a favorable opinion, becomes reciprocal, taken from Late 16th century. Formed from Latin reciprocus , literally “that goes backward and forward,” from, ultimately, re- “backward” + pro- “forward.”] :D
Because one can train and deduce a human, not his color. Humans can assume the pretense or function of indifference, ie. “Equal Rights”… :resist!:
Every color of humanity is a official agreement to live life on life terms; blissfully *ignorant. :blkf: To value the character of someone based on the color of there skin validates the valuable existence of imagination; a creative act: an act of creating a semblance of reality, especially in literature; especially in the mind where ideas, thoughts, and images are formed.
So being “Black” just cannot be deduced, anymore, into understanding, but must, even through the dubious claim of ownership of offense, and contempt, become consistent with “over standing”:
The Distinction between Overstanding and Understanding is a matter of "authority". We, people of color, are a manifestation of hue. A true, and undivided value withstanding social appeal.
If you can use something or do a job, you understand and memorize enough to act. In order to innovate or redesign, you must overstand. Understanding can Drive the car, but Overstanding Builds it, (or replaces it with something better).
The difference between Under and Over standing is the difference between Oper-ating and Cre-ating. Understanding does the Job, Overstanding wrote the Business Plan. It is similar to the distinction between Academic "Knowledge" and "Wisdom".
The ultimate idea, of life, in hue, manifesting within itself :history:. To teach and instruct humanity. As a suggestion of thought that restores mental picture to be put forward for consideration. :sphnx:
Overstanding emerged as a word from the global hip hop culture, to help portray an ethic of entrepreneurialism , self sufficiency, and sustainability.
"Overstand the Definition, then write your own."
I was telling my recovery group today, GOD willing, "I was born white; I think black; I want to be human, and I read about being a Godly person. That today the God of my understading; The One I medidtate and pray to improve my concious contact with. Who can restore me to sanity. Can't be a God who repents for creating me to know the difference between good and evil. This is the Master's God. The Master's God was sure he didn't want we to know the difference between "right and wrong" in that he came back, after murdering himself, in "my image" again, to give "me" another chance to follow his example.
This example is one of obedience, slavery, and death. Not just any kind of death a "humilating death".
The "god" the European created has made it quite clear that the "image" of the African is not to be respected. That he should not think for himself, and surrender themselves over to bondage, willingly, just like there role models, Jesus and God.
Just for today, this God who created me in his "image". Murdered himself in my "image". Cannot be the God I surrender to, and do business with.
This is the " ol' master's god" who want's me know my place. In be in full obedience to his presence.
The God I worship today, says he does not create in vain.
Why would the God of my understanding create me to live life on life's terms, but hold a resentment towards me, cause he created me to think like him.
Which means "I ain't shit, and you'll never be shit! So quit thinking nigga and submit to a power greater than yourselves". I this case, the Kingdom of Great Britain.
I can't validate this god's thoughts about me. It was created to hold me in bondage if I "willingly" choose to follow it's example.
Cause he came back in my "image", (the first image) and told me to bow dow, after murdering himself. For thinking in the first place.
Peace be upon you
Blackness
It is difficult to discuss color. By no stretch of the imagination can one African, black, or American find any proper definition, with, or without the help of his “European” disciple. After many a book and question one is left to ponder what is “Black”, are we that definition? What of the root of this word? First we must find, the truest since of black as a definition.
Middle English blak, from Old English blæc; see bhel-1 in Indo-European roots
- 4. Very dark in color: rich black soil; black, wavy hair.
- 5. Soiled, as from soot; dirty: feet black from playing outdoors.
- 6. Evil; wicked: the pirates' black deeds.
- 7. Cheerless and depressing; gloomy: black thoughts.
- 8. Being or characterized by morbid or grimly satiric humor: a black
comedy.- 9. Marked by anger or sullenness: gave me a black look.
- 10. Attended with disaster; calamitous: a black day; the stock market crash on Black Friday.
- 11. Deserving of, indicating, or incurring censure or dishonor: "Man ... has written one of his blackest records as a destroyer on the oceanic islands" Rachel Carson.
Etymology:
Middle English etimologie, from Old French ethimologie, from Medieval Latin ethimologia, from Latin etymologia, from Greek etumologi : etumon, true sense of a word; see etymon + -logi, -logy.]
true sense of a word… At the root of this word we may be discouraged to understand in reference to it’s etymology, that one can be sure, in its frankness, and meaning, that it’s use actually undermines good reason, and logic of one's own personal understanding.
Let’s look at hue: The property of colors by which they can be perceived as ranging from red through yellow, green, and blue, as determined by the dominant wavelength of the light. See Table at color. Also from [Middle English, color, form, from Old English hw, ho.]
Question ('s):
- Can you reduce a wave length to a inferior position?
- What of it’s form?
Form is defined as:
1. The essence of something
Or
b. The mode in which a thing exists, acts, or manifests itself; kind
Manifest is defined as to show something clearly: to make something evident by showing or demonstrating it very clearly
understandable: capable of being understood
The definition of understood is:
- 1. grasp the meaning of something: to know or be able to explain to yourself the nature of somebody or something, or the meaning or cause of something
- I can’t understand what all the fuss is about.
- 2. come to know something: to realize or become aware of something
- Only then did she understand the urgency of the situation.
- 3. be able to handle: to know and be able to use something such as a foreign language
- She thoroughly understood the workings of the system.
- 4. know and sympathize: to recognize somebody’s character or somebody’s situation, especially in a sympathetic, tolerant, or empathetic way
- It’s such a relief to find someone who understands.
- 5. take as meant: to interpret something in a particular way, or to infer or deduce a particular meaning from something
- I understood it as a peacemaking gesture.
- Am I to understand from this that you are refusing our offer?
- 6. take as settled: to believe something to be agreed, settled, or firmly communicated
- The bank was given to understand that you would repay the loan in six months.
- 7. know by learning or hearing: to gather or assume something on the basis of having heard or been told it
- They’re not due back, so I understand, until next Tuesday.
Hence, you cannot deduce the value of color as a hue . Black, as a hue is not just merely something imagined to be a real, actual, or a current thing. It is not merely something written about being present as a source of dis satification. It is not something that requires your disapproval or dislike. :blkf: :souljaht:
Properties of Blackness:
- It is the sound of music. A quality that makes you move your hips or knod your head to a bashing beat.
- It is the legality of that which lays a claim or appearance of our legal birthright; our blessing.
- In physics our hue is used to saturate the property or aspects of something that involves light.
- As a property of visual sensation. Red, blue, and green, or other shades depend on this object as a source of reflection; as a source of light that reflects there perception..
Not in your wildest imagination, can one institute, as an equivalent of logic, the “wishing away” the convenience of night, without no regard to sleep. Thus, to value the character of blackness, as a “personality makeup,” becomes a clear sign of an overdeveloped sense of self worth, at "the obligation of the importance of others".:raind: A manifestation of a pathetic sense of inferiority. :oldkey: Allowing the worth or importance of others at your adequate or satisfactory usefulness to be oriented conclusively; beyond a matter of all doubt.
This source of value allows one to “create” an image inside of themselves of someone based on the “color of there skin“ as a favor to the unbeknownst victims self esteem.
This approvement; This supportive attitude of kindness. This “preferential treatment”; This small gift of intimacy that is advantageous, not to resemble favoritism as a unfair advantage, but a favorable opinion, becomes reciprocal, taken from Late 16th century. Formed from Latin reciprocus , literally “that goes backward and forward,” from, ultimately, re- “backward” + pro- “forward.”] :D
Because one can train and deduce a human, not his color. Humans can assume the pretense or function of indifference, ie. “Equal Rights”… :resist!:
Every color of humanity is a official agreement to live life on life terms; blissfully *ignorant. :blkf: To value the character of someone based on the color of there skin validates the valuable existence of imagination; a creative act: an act of creating a semblance of reality, especially in literature; especially in the mind where ideas, thoughts, and images are formed.
So being “Black” just cannot be deduced, anymore, into understanding, but must, even through the dubious claim of ownership of offense, and contempt, become consistent with “over standing”:
The Distinction between Overstanding and Understanding is a matter of "authority". We, people of color, are a manifestation of hue. A true, and undivided value withstanding social appeal.
If you can use something or do a job, you understand and memorize enough to act. In order to innovate or redesign, you must overstand. Understanding can Drive the car, but Overstanding Builds it, (or replaces it with something better).
The difference between Under and Over standing is the difference between Oper-ating and Cre-ating. Understanding does the Job, Overstanding wrote the Business Plan. It is similar to the distinction between Academic "Knowledge" and "Wisdom".
The ultimate idea, of life, in hue, manifesting within itself :history:. To teach and instruct humanity. As a suggestion of thought that restores mental picture to be put forward for consideration. :sphnx:
Overstanding emerged as a word from the global hip hop culture, to help portray an ethic of entrepreneurialism , self sufficiency, and sustainability.
"Overstand the Definition, then write your own."
I was telling my recovery group today, GOD willing, "I was born white; I think black; I want to be human, and I read about being a Godly person. That today the God of my understading; The One I medidtate and pray to improve my concious contact with. Who can restore me to sanity. Can't be a God who repents for creating me to know the difference between good and evil. This is the Master's God. The Master's God was sure he didn't want we to know the difference between "right and wrong" in that he came back, after murdering himself, in "my image" again, to give "me" another chance to follow his example.
This example is one of obedience, slavery, and death. Not just any kind of death a "humilating death".
The "god" the European created has made it quite clear that the "image" of the African is not to be respected. That he should not think for himself, and surrender themselves over to bondage, willingly, just like there role models, Jesus and God.
Just for today, this God who created me in his "image". Murdered himself in my "image". Cannot be the God I surrender to, and do business with.
This is the " ol' master's god" who want's me know my place. In be in full obedience to his presence.
The God I worship today, says he does not create in vain.
Why would the God of my understanding create me to live life on life's terms, but hold a resentment towards me, cause he created me to think like him.
Which means "I ain't shit, and you'll never be shit! So quit thinking nigga and submit to a power greater than yourselves". I this case, the Kingdom of Great Britain.
I can't validate this god's thoughts about me. It was created to hold me in bondage if I "willingly" choose to follow it's example.
Cause he came back in my "image", (the first image) and told me to bow dow, after murdering himself. For thinking in the first place.
Peace be upon you
Categories: News Feeds
Solar restitution and the end of an era
Brothers and sisters, I want to know what you all think about the impending solar storm of 2013. For those who don't know, the Solar Storm I speak of has been mentioned on most major news networks in recent weeks, and despite drawing zero reaction from the public.....I think its definitely worthy of discussion, if not serious consideration.
Scientists have recently predicted that our sun will hit its next solar maximum around may of 2013, bringing with it intense solar storms and a coronal mass ejection (ball of fire erupting from the surface of the sun that shoots long distances outwards) pointed right at our earth. Solar maximums are nothing new, as our sun goes through its magnetic cycle approximately every 10-12 years (right now we are in a solar minimum and our sun is virtually silent), bringing with it increased solar activity as well as solar storms. These storms can become a problem for certain satellites and space-faring equipment, but nothing that affects life here on earth. The big difference with this upcoming solar maximum is the intensity at which it will occur.
The last time a solar storm like the one predicted for 2013 has occurred was in 1859. The solar maximum of 1859 was so intense that it sent shockwaves through telegraph wires that were enough to kill a few telegraph operators, and the coronal mass ejection it came with caused northern lights to be seen all around the globe (whereas it can usually only be seen in arctic regions). The sky was so lit up, there are reports that people could read their newspapers at midnight.
If a solar storm like this happened before, what difference does it make if it happens again?
The major difference with this solar storm isn't the storm itself, but the world it will touch. In 1859, the world was pretty much run on steam-power and man-power. Now, our modern infrastructure depends entirely upon electricity. If a solar storm like the one in 1859 struck earth today, our power-grids and telecommunications satellites would all fail. The mechanisms and infrastructures that move products, like groceries into local markets, would cease to exist. Planes wouldn't be flying and ships that depend on electronic equipment could not ship goods overseas.
Essentially, we would return to a time before electricity
Truly the end of an era. To some this means the end of civilization...I view it a little differently: I believe it will bring balance.
Needless to say, white pagans are scared to death (look at their faces on news reports regarding the storm). This solar storm means an end to all of the pagan institutions and industries that they've murdered, raped, and pillaged for CENTURIES to create!
No longer will the white pagans have a stranglehold on the rest of the world, no longer will brown and black babies die so that a pink pagan can eat a big mac, and no longer will white bombs splatter black flesh on hollowed ground. All of the modern "conveniences" they've created will be paid for. Ironically, the world's poorest nations will be the LEAST AFFECTED. I don't believe there are shortcuts to anything, I believe that there is a balance to the universe, and all things will be balanced...eventually
The obvious negative repercussions for our people involve the fates of those throughout the diaspora that have come to rely on these modern conveniences for survival, and, due to the nature of this event will most likely even affect our brothers and sisters who simply live in a country with a heavy dependence on modern infrastructures. I personally haven't worried too much about my own survival, because I'll be making my home on the continent in a couple of years. But I definitely think this is a time for us brush up on our survival skills (farming, locating and drawing from water sources, solar cell production and use, windmill manufacturing, etc).
Brothers and sisters, I'm sure many of you realize that complete independence from the white pagans and their industries is one of our main goals, and necessary to rebuild black civilization, however the time for this independence may be coming sooner than we thought. I'll admit that this solar "revolution" is still news to me (and the world), and my thoughts on it are far from complete, which is why I'd like to hear some of your thoughts on the subject.
Uhuru.
(googling "solar storm 2013" will produce researchable results, sorry I didn't include an article here, i just didn't want to bore anyone)
Scientists have recently predicted that our sun will hit its next solar maximum around may of 2013, bringing with it intense solar storms and a coronal mass ejection (ball of fire erupting from the surface of the sun that shoots long distances outwards) pointed right at our earth. Solar maximums are nothing new, as our sun goes through its magnetic cycle approximately every 10-12 years (right now we are in a solar minimum and our sun is virtually silent), bringing with it increased solar activity as well as solar storms. These storms can become a problem for certain satellites and space-faring equipment, but nothing that affects life here on earth. The big difference with this upcoming solar maximum is the intensity at which it will occur.
The last time a solar storm like the one predicted for 2013 has occurred was in 1859. The solar maximum of 1859 was so intense that it sent shockwaves through telegraph wires that were enough to kill a few telegraph operators, and the coronal mass ejection it came with caused northern lights to be seen all around the globe (whereas it can usually only be seen in arctic regions). The sky was so lit up, there are reports that people could read their newspapers at midnight.
If a solar storm like this happened before, what difference does it make if it happens again?
The major difference with this solar storm isn't the storm itself, but the world it will touch. In 1859, the world was pretty much run on steam-power and man-power. Now, our modern infrastructure depends entirely upon electricity. If a solar storm like the one in 1859 struck earth today, our power-grids and telecommunications satellites would all fail. The mechanisms and infrastructures that move products, like groceries into local markets, would cease to exist. Planes wouldn't be flying and ships that depend on electronic equipment could not ship goods overseas.
Essentially, we would return to a time before electricity
Truly the end of an era. To some this means the end of civilization...I view it a little differently: I believe it will bring balance.
Needless to say, white pagans are scared to death (look at their faces on news reports regarding the storm). This solar storm means an end to all of the pagan institutions and industries that they've murdered, raped, and pillaged for CENTURIES to create!
No longer will the white pagans have a stranglehold on the rest of the world, no longer will brown and black babies die so that a pink pagan can eat a big mac, and no longer will white bombs splatter black flesh on hollowed ground. All of the modern "conveniences" they've created will be paid for. Ironically, the world's poorest nations will be the LEAST AFFECTED. I don't believe there are shortcuts to anything, I believe that there is a balance to the universe, and all things will be balanced...eventually
The obvious negative repercussions for our people involve the fates of those throughout the diaspora that have come to rely on these modern conveniences for survival, and, due to the nature of this event will most likely even affect our brothers and sisters who simply live in a country with a heavy dependence on modern infrastructures. I personally haven't worried too much about my own survival, because I'll be making my home on the continent in a couple of years. But I definitely think this is a time for us brush up on our survival skills (farming, locating and drawing from water sources, solar cell production and use, windmill manufacturing, etc).
Brothers and sisters, I'm sure many of you realize that complete independence from the white pagans and their industries is one of our main goals, and necessary to rebuild black civilization, however the time for this independence may be coming sooner than we thought. I'll admit that this solar "revolution" is still news to me (and the world), and my thoughts on it are far from complete, which is why I'd like to hear some of your thoughts on the subject.
Uhuru.
(googling "solar storm 2013" will produce researchable results, sorry I didn't include an article here, i just didn't want to bore anyone)
Categories: News Feeds
Producing Mental Images
"Students who have become accustomed to passively receiving their mental images
ready-made via television, have trouble actively producing their own mental
images when reading or participating in any other active form of learning."
Sanyika and Makini Anwisye
TV's Talking But We Don't Have to Listen
ready-made via television, have trouble actively producing their own mental
images when reading or participating in any other active form of learning."
Sanyika and Makini Anwisye
TV's Talking But We Don't Have to Listen
Categories: News Feeds
Tyson's daughter, 4, dies day after accident
Tyson's daughter, 4, dies day after accident
Associated Press
MMA/Boxing - Tyson's daughter, 4, dies day after accident - FOX Sports on MSN
add this RSS :BlogThisStoryTools();void(0)" target="_blank">blog email print
Updated: May 26, 2009, 8:54 PM EST
PHOENIX (AP) - The 4-year-old daughter of boxer Mike Tyson died at a hospital Tuesday, a day after her neck apparently got caught in a treadmill cord at her Phoenix home, police said.
Mike Tyson left Las Vegas for Phoenix upon hearing of his daughter's accident. (Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)
Exodus Tyson was pronounced dead just before noon, police Sgt. Andy Hill said. She had been on life support and police have said their investigation showed her injury on Monday was a "tragic accident."
"There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Exodus," the family said in a statement. "We ask you now to please respect our need at this very difficult time for privacy to grieve and try to help each other heal."
Police said Exodus either slipped or put her head in the loop of a cord hanging under the console. Her 7-year-old brother found her and told their mother. She took Exodus off the cord, called 911 and tried to revive her.
Responding officers and firefighters performed CPR as they took the girl to the hospital.
Former heavyweight champion Tyson was in Las Vegas at the time of the accident and flew Monday to Phoenix, where he was seen entering the hospital.
The family's home is in a modest, quiet neighborhood. Neighbors say they saw Tyson there from time to time and the children played outside regularly. Dinka Radic, who lives across the street, says the little girl would ask her if she had any chocolate in the house. When Radic would get some and give it to her, Exodus would hug the woman's knees and "kiss, kiss, kiss."
The death of his child in such an unusual accident adds an awful chapter to the boxer's troubled life.
Peace be upon you
Associated Press
MMA/Boxing - Tyson's daughter, 4, dies day after accident - FOX Sports on MSN
add this RSS :BlogThisStoryTools();void(0)" target="_blank">blog email print
Updated: May 26, 2009, 8:54 PM EST
PHOENIX (AP) - The 4-year-old daughter of boxer Mike Tyson died at a hospital Tuesday, a day after her neck apparently got caught in a treadmill cord at her Phoenix home, police said.
Mike Tyson left Las Vegas for Phoenix upon hearing of his daughter's accident. (Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)
Exodus Tyson was pronounced dead just before noon, police Sgt. Andy Hill said. She had been on life support and police have said their investigation showed her injury on Monday was a "tragic accident."
"There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Exodus," the family said in a statement. "We ask you now to please respect our need at this very difficult time for privacy to grieve and try to help each other heal."
Police said Exodus either slipped or put her head in the loop of a cord hanging under the console. Her 7-year-old brother found her and told their mother. She took Exodus off the cord, called 911 and tried to revive her.
Responding officers and firefighters performed CPR as they took the girl to the hospital.
Former heavyweight champion Tyson was in Las Vegas at the time of the accident and flew Monday to Phoenix, where he was seen entering the hospital.
The family's home is in a modest, quiet neighborhood. Neighbors say they saw Tyson there from time to time and the children played outside regularly. Dinka Radic, who lives across the street, says the little girl would ask her if she had any chocolate in the house. When Radic would get some and give it to her, Exodus would hug the woman's knees and "kiss, kiss, kiss."
The death of his child in such an unusual accident adds an awful chapter to the boxer's troubled life.
Peace be upon you
Categories: News Feeds
If you care about Theatre ... Even a little ... Check this out ... Spread the word
Categories: News Feeds
First Shot for Engaged Artists
I was reminded by someone … Something I was reminded of This I told them a long time ago … I was taught this very thing She somehow made it new I was not left bereft … but She saw something inside me Brand new …
“What do you have to say, worth the trouble of communicating to another person?” This was the thing … For me, this has still kept its form … The very thing I do … The very life I have made … Is in question … Maybe you should do it too …
Before you pick up your pen … Before you go to see wardrobe … Before you draft your first design … What is art? What is an Artist?
Wow! Ask that question in these days … Yeah, the Ancestors will not let me sleep … Greatness is not yet done they whisper … I look around … I see shadows … Greatness is making a form again …
“What do you have to say, worth the trouble of communicating to another person?” This was the thing … For me, this has still kept its form … The very thing I do … The very life I have made … Is in question … Maybe you should do it too …
Before you pick up your pen … Before you go to see wardrobe … Before you draft your first design … What is art? What is an Artist?
Wow! Ask that question in these days … Yeah, the Ancestors will not let me sleep … Greatness is not yet done they whisper … I look around … I see shadows … Greatness is making a form again …
Categories: News Feeds
Happy Earthday Miles Davis
For the Jazz lovers out there
Or just the lovers of good music
Here's something from the great himself
YouTube - Move-Birth of the Cool YouTube - Move-Birth of the Cool
:wavey:
Or just the lovers of good music
Here's something from the great himself
YouTube - Move-Birth of the Cool YouTube - Move-Birth of the Cool
:wavey:
Categories: News Feeds
Is Slavery Why Black Women Aren't Breastfeeding?
Is Slavery Why Black Women Aren't Breastfeeding?
Monday, May 18, 2009
by Kimberly Seals-Allers of Maternity tees, Baby Gifts, Pregnancy and Black Parenting | Home
Is Slavery Why Black Women Aren't Breastfeeding? | Momlogic
When it comes to breastfeeding, black mothers have somehow lost their way. For over 30 years, African-American women have had the lowest breastfeeding rates, and though the numbers have greatly increased in recent years, black moms still have the lowest rates of all ethnicities. And when it comes to the gold standard of infant nutrition -- six months of exclusive breastfeeding -- among African-Americans, the rate is only 20% compared to 40% among whites. At a time when black infant mortality rates continue to climb to woefully high levels, momlogic and MochaManual.com take a deeper look at why more black mothers aren't breastfeeding, and urge moms to give their infants the healthiest start.
Slave Owners Purchased Us As Wet Nurses
To get to the bottom of this breastfeeding business, it's important to go back. Waaay back. A long time ago, black women were notorious for nursing. In fact, slave owners used and purchased black women as wet nurses for their own children, often forcing these mothers to stop nursing their own infants to care for others. "On the one hand, wet nursing claimed the benefits of breastfeeding for the offspring of white masters while denying or limiting those health advantages to slave infants. On the other hand, wet nursing required slave mothers to transfer to white offspring the nurturing and affection they should have been able to allocate to their own children," writes historian Wilma A. Dunaway, in the book The African-American Family in Slavery and Emancipation, published by Cambridge University Press. And since breastfeeding reduces fertility, slave owners forced black women to stop breastfeeding early so that they could continue breeding, often to the health detriment of their infants, Dunaway writes.
wet nursing and slavery
Breastfeeding is for Poor People
But there's more to our story than breastfeeding interrupted at the hands of slave owners hundreds of years ago -- though many may argue that some vestiges of slavery still exist in the mindset of the black community. Aggressive marketing by the formula companies in the 1930s and 40s made formula-feeding the choice of the elite -- "the substance for sophisticates" -- white or black. And who doesn't want to be like the rich and famous? That marketing continues to this day, down to the formula company-sponsored bag of goodies you probably received on the way out of the hospital. Then there's something I call the National Geographic factor -- that is, most of the images we see of black women breastfeeding are semi-naked women in Africa whose lives seem so far away from the African-American lifestyle and experience.
"'Breastfeeding is for poor people,' my mom once said to me," explains Nicole, a 37-year-old mom from New Jersey, who breastfed two children for a year. "My mom is a very progressive woman, but this was the thinking of her generation. I couldn't believe it."
Breastfeeding Hurts and Takes Too Long
As children of that generation, many modern mothers don't have that breastfeeding legacy or support from their mothers, mothers-in-law, or extended family members. And due to the oversexualization of the breasts, some women have forgotten or are even uncomfortable with using the breast for its actual intended purpose. Go figure! Others worry that their man will complain (please tell him baby comes first). Myths such as "breastfeeding hurts" (truth: only if the baby is not latched properly) or "breastfeeding is too time-consuming" (truth: whipping out a breast is a lot quicker than sterilizing bottles, mixing, measuring, or heating up formula) still linger among black mothers.
Throw in the economic pressures that put many black women back at work soon after delivery, and there's a "why bother" mentality that makes breastfeeding seem more like a challenge and a chore. The results speak for themselves. According to national data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about 45% of African-American women breastfed their babies during the early postpartum period, compared to 66% of Hispanic mothers and 68% of white mothers who breastfed during that same period. Of African-American women who do choose to breastfeed, the duration is short, with many discontinuing in the first days after birth, their data shows.
"Before I nursed my son and daughter, none of the women in my family had ever breastfed before," says Kathi Barber, founder of the African-American Breastfeeding Alliance and author of The Black Woman's Guide to Breastfeeding. "But I decided change would start with me when I learned breastfeeding has health benefits for mothers and babies alike."
We Owe It To Ourselves and Our Babies
And while modern white mothers have reclaimed breastfeeding as hip and trendy, with help from outspoken and high-profile celebrity moms like Angelina Jolie, black celebrity mothers are still mostly mum on the topic. As a new generation of confident, empowered black mothers, we owe it to ourselves and our babies to give them breast milk -- the very best. According to the CDC, black babies are twice as likely as white infants to die before their first birthday. A 2001 study in Pediatrics concluded that an increase in African-American breastfeeding rates alone could reduce this disparity. To do so, every black mother needs to become our own celebrity spokesperson (hey, we're beautiful with full lips!) to speak out and speak up to encourage and support breastfeeding in our own sister circles. It begins with you.
Monday, May 18, 2009
by Kimberly Seals-Allers of Maternity tees, Baby Gifts, Pregnancy and Black Parenting | Home
Is Slavery Why Black Women Aren't Breastfeeding? | Momlogic
When it comes to breastfeeding, black mothers have somehow lost their way. For over 30 years, African-American women have had the lowest breastfeeding rates, and though the numbers have greatly increased in recent years, black moms still have the lowest rates of all ethnicities. And when it comes to the gold standard of infant nutrition -- six months of exclusive breastfeeding -- among African-Americans, the rate is only 20% compared to 40% among whites. At a time when black infant mortality rates continue to climb to woefully high levels, momlogic and MochaManual.com take a deeper look at why more black mothers aren't breastfeeding, and urge moms to give their infants the healthiest start.
Slave Owners Purchased Us As Wet Nurses
To get to the bottom of this breastfeeding business, it's important to go back. Waaay back. A long time ago, black women were notorious for nursing. In fact, slave owners used and purchased black women as wet nurses for their own children, often forcing these mothers to stop nursing their own infants to care for others. "On the one hand, wet nursing claimed the benefits of breastfeeding for the offspring of white masters while denying or limiting those health advantages to slave infants. On the other hand, wet nursing required slave mothers to transfer to white offspring the nurturing and affection they should have been able to allocate to their own children," writes historian Wilma A. Dunaway, in the book The African-American Family in Slavery and Emancipation, published by Cambridge University Press. And since breastfeeding reduces fertility, slave owners forced black women to stop breastfeeding early so that they could continue breeding, often to the health detriment of their infants, Dunaway writes.
wet nursing and slavery
Breastfeeding is for Poor People
But there's more to our story than breastfeeding interrupted at the hands of slave owners hundreds of years ago -- though many may argue that some vestiges of slavery still exist in the mindset of the black community. Aggressive marketing by the formula companies in the 1930s and 40s made formula-feeding the choice of the elite -- "the substance for sophisticates" -- white or black. And who doesn't want to be like the rich and famous? That marketing continues to this day, down to the formula company-sponsored bag of goodies you probably received on the way out of the hospital. Then there's something I call the National Geographic factor -- that is, most of the images we see of black women breastfeeding are semi-naked women in Africa whose lives seem so far away from the African-American lifestyle and experience.
"'Breastfeeding is for poor people,' my mom once said to me," explains Nicole, a 37-year-old mom from New Jersey, who breastfed two children for a year. "My mom is a very progressive woman, but this was the thinking of her generation. I couldn't believe it."
Breastfeeding Hurts and Takes Too Long
As children of that generation, many modern mothers don't have that breastfeeding legacy or support from their mothers, mothers-in-law, or extended family members. And due to the oversexualization of the breasts, some women have forgotten or are even uncomfortable with using the breast for its actual intended purpose. Go figure! Others worry that their man will complain (please tell him baby comes first). Myths such as "breastfeeding hurts" (truth: only if the baby is not latched properly) or "breastfeeding is too time-consuming" (truth: whipping out a breast is a lot quicker than sterilizing bottles, mixing, measuring, or heating up formula) still linger among black mothers.
Throw in the economic pressures that put many black women back at work soon after delivery, and there's a "why bother" mentality that makes breastfeeding seem more like a challenge and a chore. The results speak for themselves. According to national data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about 45% of African-American women breastfed their babies during the early postpartum period, compared to 66% of Hispanic mothers and 68% of white mothers who breastfed during that same period. Of African-American women who do choose to breastfeed, the duration is short, with many discontinuing in the first days after birth, their data shows.
"Before I nursed my son and daughter, none of the women in my family had ever breastfed before," says Kathi Barber, founder of the African-American Breastfeeding Alliance and author of The Black Woman's Guide to Breastfeeding. "But I decided change would start with me when I learned breastfeeding has health benefits for mothers and babies alike."
We Owe It To Ourselves and Our Babies
And while modern white mothers have reclaimed breastfeeding as hip and trendy, with help from outspoken and high-profile celebrity moms like Angelina Jolie, black celebrity mothers are still mostly mum on the topic. As a new generation of confident, empowered black mothers, we owe it to ourselves and our babies to give them breast milk -- the very best. According to the CDC, black babies are twice as likely as white infants to die before their first birthday. A 2001 study in Pediatrics concluded that an increase in African-American breastfeeding rates alone could reduce this disparity. To do so, every black mother needs to become our own celebrity spokesperson (hey, we're beautiful with full lips!) to speak out and speak up to encourage and support breastfeeding in our own sister circles. It begins with you.
Categories: News Feeds
Without Roots - Garvey
"A people without knowledge of its path is like a tree without roots." Marcus Mosiah Garvey This has been a Revolutionary Daily Thought
More...
More...
Categories: News Feeds
6/8 SF8 Hearing/Help Respond to Media Lies!
GET INVOLVED!
via: Free the SF 8!
================
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD FAR AND WIDE!
SF 8 PRELIMINARY HEARING STARTS MONDAY JUNE 8
8 AM RALLY TO DROP THE CHARGES
9 AM COURT HEARING
850 Bryant St. @ 7th., San Francisco
The SF 8 are Black community elders and activists arrested in January 2007 on charges related to the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer. The case against the SF8 is a frame up based on torture-induced "confessions" and fabricated evidence. The same case was thrown out of court 30 years ago but was revived after 9/11 with money from Homeland Security. After two and a half long years, the preliminary hearing is finally starting on June 8 and is expected to last for three months. The hearing will determine whether or not the SF8 will go to trial.
In an effort to bolster the very weak case against the SF8, the San Francisco Chronicle just published a sensationalistic article filled with racist innuendos and unsubstantiated implications. Without offering one shred of evidence, the article (John Koopman, 5/24) implies that the murder of a young white woman in 1971 is somehow linked to the SF8. We must demand that the Chronicle and other corporate media stop circulating such blatant misinformation!
Idealist's slaying in '71 still haunts today
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:
Attend court during the preliminary hearing from June to September
Sign the open letter demanding that Attorney General Jerry Brown drop the charges against the SF8 - What You Can Do to Free the SF8
Write the SF Chronicle demanding that they retract Koopman's inflammatory article (letters@sfchronicle.com)
Invite a speaker from the SF 8 Defense Committee to your school or organization
Donate to support the work to free the SF8 - Donate to Free the SF8
Sign up to get regular information and updates about the SF8 case - Cdhrsupport Info Page
FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL 415-226-1120 OR GO TO Free the SF8 - Committee for the Defense of Human Rights
---------------------------------------------------
I sent a letter to the Chronicle yesterday regarding their terrible article. Although they may not publish any letters, I think it would be good for as many people as possible to send a quick message expressing outrage over their article. This could help get a meeting with them or support effort to get an op ed supportive of the 8 published. Letters can be sent to letters@sfchronicle.com or through their website comments section.
Below are letters from Stuart Hanlon & Michael Lyon which they sent and could help people frame their comments although I don't think each letter needs to be that detailed since the point is more to register our disgust.
Diana Block
*****************************************
From Stuart Hanlon, attorney for Herman Bell
I am one of the attorneys for the seven former Black Panthers charged with the 1971 murder of a S.F. police officer. Your article "Idealist Slaying Still Haunts Today," not only is misleading , but contains outright lies and is based on nothing but the speculation of your writer or others who know nothing about this case
We have received hundred of thousands of pages of evidence and there is no evidence whatsoever that links this young woman to the killing of Sgt Young, or her killing to those seven men facing charges, or the Black Panther Party or any other organization connected in any way to the case. Yet your article says she was likely involved and that the seven men facing charges are responsible for her death.
It is difficult to imagine any reason why you would print such an article filled with these false innuendos linking the sad and tragic death of this young woman with this group of men facing a trial for something that happened close to forty years ago other than a blatant attempt to bias the prospective jury pool against the seven men on trial. It is difficult enough to get a fair trial thirty-eight years after a crime, when evidence is destroyed, witnesses dead or senile, and all memories faded by time and age. Your article makes the possibility of a fair trial even more remote.
This case is being prosecuted by the Attorney General of California and investigated by the FBI and SF police department. They don't need any more help trying to falsely convict these men from a biased and misinformed writer and a paper that cares nothing about truth or justice.
************************************************** **
Editor,
Your sensationalist May 24 article, Idealists slaying in 71 still haunts today, shows just how baseless the States prosecution of the SF8 for the 1971 killing of a SF policeman is. This prosecution is based only on confessions tortured out of the defendants by New Orleans police in 1973, but the Chronicle shamelessly helps prosecute the case by insinuating that the SF8 also killed a young woman whom the Chronicle says cooperated in the policemans killing. The story says a woman was discovered murdered 37 years ago in Stanislaus County, but gives questionable evidence that she is missing Panther sympathizer Mary Alice Willey, and no evidence that the woman who entered the Ingleside Station to file a stolen purse police report before the killing was Willey, or even an accomplice at all. Its all spin. This entire SF8 case, with its missing murder weapon, its misplaced records on fingerprints which failed to implicate the SF8, and its DNA evidence which fails to implicate the SF8, is a plan to promote racist conspiracy theories, in hopes of stalling future movements against police brutality and burying the anti-racist struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. Drop the charges against the SF8 in their Preliminary Hearing on June 8th.
Michael Lyon
______________
_______________________________________________
Please support these brothers by sending a donation. Make checks payable to CDHR/Agape and mail to the address below or donate on line:
Donate to Free the SF8
Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR)
PO Box 90221
Pasadena, CA 91109
(415) 226-1120
FreetheSF8@riseup.net
Free the SF8 - Committee for the Defense of Human Rights
via: Free the SF 8!
================
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD FAR AND WIDE!
SF 8 PRELIMINARY HEARING STARTS MONDAY JUNE 8
8 AM RALLY TO DROP THE CHARGES
9 AM COURT HEARING
850 Bryant St. @ 7th., San Francisco
The SF 8 are Black community elders and activists arrested in January 2007 on charges related to the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer. The case against the SF8 is a frame up based on torture-induced "confessions" and fabricated evidence. The same case was thrown out of court 30 years ago but was revived after 9/11 with money from Homeland Security. After two and a half long years, the preliminary hearing is finally starting on June 8 and is expected to last for three months. The hearing will determine whether or not the SF8 will go to trial.
In an effort to bolster the very weak case against the SF8, the San Francisco Chronicle just published a sensationalistic article filled with racist innuendos and unsubstantiated implications. Without offering one shred of evidence, the article (John Koopman, 5/24) implies that the murder of a young white woman in 1971 is somehow linked to the SF8. We must demand that the Chronicle and other corporate media stop circulating such blatant misinformation!
Idealist's slaying in '71 still haunts today
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:
Attend court during the preliminary hearing from June to September
Sign the open letter demanding that Attorney General Jerry Brown drop the charges against the SF8 - What You Can Do to Free the SF8
Write the SF Chronicle demanding that they retract Koopman's inflammatory article (letters@sfchronicle.com)
Invite a speaker from the SF 8 Defense Committee to your school or organization
Donate to support the work to free the SF8 - Donate to Free the SF8
Sign up to get regular information and updates about the SF8 case - Cdhrsupport Info Page
FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL 415-226-1120 OR GO TO Free the SF8 - Committee for the Defense of Human Rights
---------------------------------------------------
I sent a letter to the Chronicle yesterday regarding their terrible article. Although they may not publish any letters, I think it would be good for as many people as possible to send a quick message expressing outrage over their article. This could help get a meeting with them or support effort to get an op ed supportive of the 8 published. Letters can be sent to letters@sfchronicle.com or through their website comments section.
Below are letters from Stuart Hanlon & Michael Lyon which they sent and could help people frame their comments although I don't think each letter needs to be that detailed since the point is more to register our disgust.
Diana Block
*****************************************
From Stuart Hanlon, attorney for Herman Bell
I am one of the attorneys for the seven former Black Panthers charged with the 1971 murder of a S.F. police officer. Your article "Idealist Slaying Still Haunts Today," not only is misleading , but contains outright lies and is based on nothing but the speculation of your writer or others who know nothing about this case
We have received hundred of thousands of pages of evidence and there is no evidence whatsoever that links this young woman to the killing of Sgt Young, or her killing to those seven men facing charges, or the Black Panther Party or any other organization connected in any way to the case. Yet your article says she was likely involved and that the seven men facing charges are responsible for her death.
It is difficult to imagine any reason why you would print such an article filled with these false innuendos linking the sad and tragic death of this young woman with this group of men facing a trial for something that happened close to forty years ago other than a blatant attempt to bias the prospective jury pool against the seven men on trial. It is difficult enough to get a fair trial thirty-eight years after a crime, when evidence is destroyed, witnesses dead or senile, and all memories faded by time and age. Your article makes the possibility of a fair trial even more remote.
This case is being prosecuted by the Attorney General of California and investigated by the FBI and SF police department. They don't need any more help trying to falsely convict these men from a biased and misinformed writer and a paper that cares nothing about truth or justice.
************************************************** **
Editor,
Your sensationalist May 24 article, Idealists slaying in 71 still haunts today, shows just how baseless the States prosecution of the SF8 for the 1971 killing of a SF policeman is. This prosecution is based only on confessions tortured out of the defendants by New Orleans police in 1973, but the Chronicle shamelessly helps prosecute the case by insinuating that the SF8 also killed a young woman whom the Chronicle says cooperated in the policemans killing. The story says a woman was discovered murdered 37 years ago in Stanislaus County, but gives questionable evidence that she is missing Panther sympathizer Mary Alice Willey, and no evidence that the woman who entered the Ingleside Station to file a stolen purse police report before the killing was Willey, or even an accomplice at all. Its all spin. This entire SF8 case, with its missing murder weapon, its misplaced records on fingerprints which failed to implicate the SF8, and its DNA evidence which fails to implicate the SF8, is a plan to promote racist conspiracy theories, in hopes of stalling future movements against police brutality and burying the anti-racist struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. Drop the charges against the SF8 in their Preliminary Hearing on June 8th.
Michael Lyon
______________
_______________________________________________
Please support these brothers by sending a donation. Make checks payable to CDHR/Agape and mail to the address below or donate on line:
Donate to Free the SF8
Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR)
PO Box 90221
Pasadena, CA 91109
(415) 226-1120
FreetheSF8@riseup.net
Free the SF8 - Committee for the Defense of Human Rights
Categories: News Feeds
Intellectual Colonization - Keto
"The world of Africans and descendants of Africans and the world of scholarship
about them is still the only one at the end of the Twentieth Century that
retains a 'colonial' signature whereby experts and authorities outside African
communities control knowledge creation and exceed experts inside those
communities. This does not apply to Europe, Asia or the Americas. This has led
to an unfortunate predilection among Africans to concede expert knowledge to
outsiders. African people have tended in the past to surrender the right to
academic self affirmation to others, thereby accepting conclusions of a
Eurocentric framework that have assigned a permanent peripheral role to the
Africa centered perspective in the world's growing knowledge industry. Indeed,
many of the 'authorities' who study and write about the African world and
exercise great influence over the outside world's perception of Africa and
Africans, the understanding of its value priorities, the vision of its future
and the capacity to define its very essence for insiders and outsiders alike,
often are not burdened with the knowledge of single African or African derived
language."
C. Tsehloane Keto
The Africa Centered Perspective of History
about them is still the only one at the end of the Twentieth Century that
retains a 'colonial' signature whereby experts and authorities outside African
communities control knowledge creation and exceed experts inside those
communities. This does not apply to Europe, Asia or the Americas. This has led
to an unfortunate predilection among Africans to concede expert knowledge to
outsiders. African people have tended in the past to surrender the right to
academic self affirmation to others, thereby accepting conclusions of a
Eurocentric framework that have assigned a permanent peripheral role to the
Africa centered perspective in the world's growing knowledge industry. Indeed,
many of the 'authorities' who study and write about the African world and
exercise great influence over the outside world's perception of Africa and
Africans, the understanding of its value priorities, the vision of its future
and the capacity to define its very essence for insiders and outsiders alike,
often are not burdened with the knowledge of single African or African derived
language."
C. Tsehloane Keto
The Africa Centered Perspective of History
Categories: News Feeds
Topic Of The Week 23, June, 2009
Uhuru Warrior's which post should win this week's nomination contest?
Choose from the topics/threads listed throughout the forum, and vote for your favorite post now.
What is Topic Of The Week?
Topic of the Week is a contest that select posts on which we would like the community to commit to as a group and then comment/discuss on them during the course of the selected month. Any listed topic/thread is eligible for the Topic of the week selection.
What determines a Topic Of The Week?
Topic Of The Month is based on a simple nomination system. Throughout the selected forums, members with adequate permissions can nominate their favorite topic by clicking on the award nomination button below the post.
The topics with the most nominations during the course of the week are displayed on this thread using the poll feature. At the end of the weekly period, the first three topics with the most nominations are the award winners of the contest.
We will have a weekly topic chat surrounding the top 3 finalists hosted by Cadre/Militia Please Note: Only 9 topics per week can only be selected!
Choose from the topics/threads listed throughout the forum, and vote for your favorite post now.
What is Topic Of The Week?
Topic of the Week is a contest that select posts on which we would like the community to commit to as a group and then comment/discuss on them during the course of the selected month. Any listed topic/thread is eligible for the Topic of the week selection.
What determines a Topic Of The Week?
Topic Of The Month is based on a simple nomination system. Throughout the selected forums, members with adequate permissions can nominate their favorite topic by clicking on the award nomination button below the post.
The topics with the most nominations during the course of the week are displayed on this thread using the poll feature. At the end of the weekly period, the first three topics with the most nominations are the award winners of the contest.
We will have a weekly topic chat surrounding the top 3 finalists hosted by Cadre/Militia Please Note: Only 9 topics per week can only be selected!
Categories: News Feeds
Complicit then complicit now
By Ben Amunwa on May 22, 2009
London activists label Shell Guilty before the Shell AGM, May 19th
London activists label Shell Guilty before the Shell AGM, May 19th
The same week that Shell are on trial for complicity in brutal crackdowns against the Ogoni people, including the murder of non-violent activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian military has launched a large offensive against the people of the Niger Delta, in an attempt to crush armed insurgent groups. All the while, Shell, the largest oil company in the region, continue to flare gas at record levels, aggravating local communities and contributing to the latest round of an increasingly bloody conflict.
Brutal military attacks have rained down on the Western Delta from the air, sea and land since last Wednesday. Despite attempts by the military to cover up the massacres, the Ijaw National Congress, which represents the regions largest ethnic group, has said that the attacks have resulted in over a thousand deaths, because we dared to ask for our rights, in the mostly Ijaw communities of Gbaramatu, Okerenkoko, and Oporoza. According to Amnesty International they have received reports that indicate hundreds of civilians have already been killed. The military presence has made independent access to the communities difficult and claims impossible to verify. Continue reading Complicit then: complicit now?
Remember Saro Wiwa: remembering the past, shaping the future
London activists label Shell Guilty before the Shell AGM, May 19th
London activists label Shell Guilty before the Shell AGM, May 19th
The same week that Shell are on trial for complicity in brutal crackdowns against the Ogoni people, including the murder of non-violent activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian military has launched a large offensive against the people of the Niger Delta, in an attempt to crush armed insurgent groups. All the while, Shell, the largest oil company in the region, continue to flare gas at record levels, aggravating local communities and contributing to the latest round of an increasingly bloody conflict.
Brutal military attacks have rained down on the Western Delta from the air, sea and land since last Wednesday. Despite attempts by the military to cover up the massacres, the Ijaw National Congress, which represents the regions largest ethnic group, has said that the attacks have resulted in over a thousand deaths, because we dared to ask for our rights, in the mostly Ijaw communities of Gbaramatu, Okerenkoko, and Oporoza. According to Amnesty International they have received reports that indicate hundreds of civilians have already been killed. The military presence has made independent access to the communities difficult and claims impossible to verify. Continue reading Complicit then: complicit now?
Remember Saro Wiwa: remembering the past, shaping the future
Categories: News Feeds
Dr. Khallid's education?
Hotep! I am doing a research paper on Dr. Khallid for my college sociology class, and I'm looking for info about his educational background. I know that he studied at Dillard and got his bachelor's from Pepperdine, but that's all I've been able to find. Any help would be appreciated!! Black love.
Categories: News Feeds
This Memorial Day, let us not forget the Souljahz we lost
This thread is Dedicated to Those Never Forgotten, those who died unjustly, those who went home to Our Ancestors, the Prisoners of War imprisoned, those who fell victim to the chrome by rival gangs, 2Pac/Makaveli, the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, all Our people we lost
Categories: News Feeds
6/10 at A-Space for the SF8!
via: icffmaj@aol.com
===============
A Space, Wed June 10, 2009 7-9, Philly
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DROP THE CHARGES: FREE THE SAN FRANCISCO 8 is an event to discuss case
updates and watch the short movie, Legacy of Torture, and raise awareness
about who the San Francisco 8 are and the impact of repression on our
movements today. This is a showing as part of a video blitz in response to
the start of the pretrial of the case on June 8th.
------------------
Eight former Black community activists Black Panthers and others were
arrested January 23, 2007 in California, New York, and Florida on charges
related to the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer. Similar
charges were thrown out after it was revealed that police used torture to
extract confessions when some of these same men were arrested in New Orleans
in 1973. Free the SF 8!
===============
A Space, Wed June 10, 2009 7-9, Philly
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DROP THE CHARGES: FREE THE SAN FRANCISCO 8 is an event to discuss case
updates and watch the short movie, Legacy of Torture, and raise awareness
about who the San Francisco 8 are and the impact of repression on our
movements today. This is a showing as part of a video blitz in response to
the start of the pretrial of the case on June 8th.
------------------
Eight former Black community activists Black Panthers and others were
arrested January 23, 2007 in California, New York, and Florida on charges
related to the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer. Similar
charges were thrown out after it was revealed that police used torture to
extract confessions when some of these same men were arrested in New Orleans
in 1973. Free the SF 8!
Categories: News Feeds
Ex-Soldier Gets Life in Prison for Iraqi Slayings
Another example of why the appplication of the death penalty is corrupt to the BONE!
=====================
Ex-soldier gets life in prison for Iraqi slayings
By BRETT BARROUQUERE, Associated Press Writer Brett Barrouquere, Associated Press Writer 5/22/09
PADUCAH, Ky. An ex-soldier convicted of raping and killing an Iraqi teen and murdering her family has been sentenced to life in prison in a case that drew attention to the emotional and psychological strains on soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas, was spared the death penalty Thursday after jurors couldn't agree on a punishment for the brutal crime.
In March 2006, after an afternoon of card playing, sex talk and drinking Iraqi whiskey, Pfc. Green and three other soldiers went to the home of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape the girl before shooting her in the face. Her body was set on fire.
Federal jurors who convicted Green of rape and murder deliberated for more than 10 hours over two days on whether to give Green a death sentence or life in prison without parole. Since they could not unanimously agree on either, life in prison had to be the verdict.
"It's the better of two bad choices," said his father, John Green, who sighed as the verdict was read.
His son will be sentenced Sept. 4 by U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell.
In Baghdad, Iraqis said they were shocked and disappointed that Green was not sentenced to death.
"Has Iraqi blood and honor become so cheap, where a family can be murdered and a daughter raped and killed, and the verdict is life imprisonment?" said Tariq Dawood, 55.
Haidar Kadom, 31, a teacher there, called the sentence "a mockery of Iraqi rights."
"If an Iraqi did the same to an American female soldier, he would be regarded as a terrorist and would be sentenced to death," he said.
Green's attorneys never denied his involvement in the attack, instead focusing on building a case that he didn't deserve the death penalty. Former Marines and other soldiers Green served with testified that he faced an unusually stressful combat tour in Iraq's "Triangle of Death" with a unit that suffered heavy casualties and didn't receive sufficient leadership.
Jurors declined to comment as they were escorted out of the courthouse. A civilian jury decided Green's case because he was out of the Army before he was charged.
According to the jury verdict forms, several panelists said the stress Green was under from combat and other areas of his life was a mitigating factor against a death sentence. Just as many cited the Army knowledge that he was having homicidal thoughts.
Other factors included his bad home life, not being tried in a military court like the rest of the defendants and that he was influenced by his superiors during the attack. Two other soldiers convicted in the attack outranked Green and testified against him.
The issue of combat stress resulting from long and traumatic deployments came to the forefront again just as Green's trial was entering the sentencing phase in Kentucky. Thousands of miles away in Iraq, an Army sergeant on his third tour of duty allegedly entered a military mental health clinic May 11 and opened fire on his comrades, killing five, including a doctor who helped soldiers deal with stress.
Green had been deployed for about six months when he attacked the family. About three months before that, enemy attacks over 12 days killed two command sergeants, a lieutenant and a specialist in his unit.
The defense case also focused on the lack of military leadership in the unit and the Army's failure to recognize that Green could act on homicidal thoughts of killing Iraqi civilians that he expressed after several fellow soldiers had been killed.
Green was seen by Army mental health professionals, but a nurse practitioner sent him back to his unit with pills to help him sleep after he showed no signs of planning to act on those feelings, she testified.
The trial was held in western Kentucky because Green was a member of the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford said in a statement that prosecutors have "the utmost respect" for the jury's sentencing decision.
One of Green's attorneys, Darren Wolff of Louisville, said his client twice offered to plead guilty, but the U.S. Justice Department refused amid international pressure for a conviction.
"Mr. Green will spend the rest of his life in jail and the events of March 12, 2006, have forever changed the lives of many," Wolff said. "It is a tragic case on so many levels."
Green's brother, Doug Green, 26, said the jury reached the appropriate decision.
"I do think it gives him a chance to have some semblance of a life," he said. "We're grateful for that."
But Qais Aboud Ali Khutri al-Janabi, the head of a prominent Sunni clan in Mahmoudiya where the girl and her family were killed, said justice had not been done.
"We demand this trial be held again and a death penalty issued," he said.
___
Associated Press Writers Kristin M. Hall in Paducah and Hamid Ahmed in Baghdad contributed to this report.
=====================
Ex-soldier gets life in prison for Iraqi slayings
By BRETT BARROUQUERE, Associated Press Writer Brett Barrouquere, Associated Press Writer 5/22/09
PADUCAH, Ky. An ex-soldier convicted of raping and killing an Iraqi teen and murdering her family has been sentenced to life in prison in a case that drew attention to the emotional and psychological strains on soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas, was spared the death penalty Thursday after jurors couldn't agree on a punishment for the brutal crime.
In March 2006, after an afternoon of card playing, sex talk and drinking Iraqi whiskey, Pfc. Green and three other soldiers went to the home of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Green shot and killed the teen's mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape the girl before shooting her in the face. Her body was set on fire.
Federal jurors who convicted Green of rape and murder deliberated for more than 10 hours over two days on whether to give Green a death sentence or life in prison without parole. Since they could not unanimously agree on either, life in prison had to be the verdict.
"It's the better of two bad choices," said his father, John Green, who sighed as the verdict was read.
His son will be sentenced Sept. 4 by U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell.
In Baghdad, Iraqis said they were shocked and disappointed that Green was not sentenced to death.
"Has Iraqi blood and honor become so cheap, where a family can be murdered and a daughter raped and killed, and the verdict is life imprisonment?" said Tariq Dawood, 55.
Haidar Kadom, 31, a teacher there, called the sentence "a mockery of Iraqi rights."
"If an Iraqi did the same to an American female soldier, he would be regarded as a terrorist and would be sentenced to death," he said.
Green's attorneys never denied his involvement in the attack, instead focusing on building a case that he didn't deserve the death penalty. Former Marines and other soldiers Green served with testified that he faced an unusually stressful combat tour in Iraq's "Triangle of Death" with a unit that suffered heavy casualties and didn't receive sufficient leadership.
Jurors declined to comment as they were escorted out of the courthouse. A civilian jury decided Green's case because he was out of the Army before he was charged.
According to the jury verdict forms, several panelists said the stress Green was under from combat and other areas of his life was a mitigating factor against a death sentence. Just as many cited the Army knowledge that he was having homicidal thoughts.
Other factors included his bad home life, not being tried in a military court like the rest of the defendants and that he was influenced by his superiors during the attack. Two other soldiers convicted in the attack outranked Green and testified against him.
The issue of combat stress resulting from long and traumatic deployments came to the forefront again just as Green's trial was entering the sentencing phase in Kentucky. Thousands of miles away in Iraq, an Army sergeant on his third tour of duty allegedly entered a military mental health clinic May 11 and opened fire on his comrades, killing five, including a doctor who helped soldiers deal with stress.
Green had been deployed for about six months when he attacked the family. About three months before that, enemy attacks over 12 days killed two command sergeants, a lieutenant and a specialist in his unit.
The defense case also focused on the lack of military leadership in the unit and the Army's failure to recognize that Green could act on homicidal thoughts of killing Iraqi civilians that he expressed after several fellow soldiers had been killed.
Green was seen by Army mental health professionals, but a nurse practitioner sent him back to his unit with pills to help him sleep after he showed no signs of planning to act on those feelings, she testified.
The trial was held in western Kentucky because Green was a member of the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford said in a statement that prosecutors have "the utmost respect" for the jury's sentencing decision.
One of Green's attorneys, Darren Wolff of Louisville, said his client twice offered to plead guilty, but the U.S. Justice Department refused amid international pressure for a conviction.
"Mr. Green will spend the rest of his life in jail and the events of March 12, 2006, have forever changed the lives of many," Wolff said. "It is a tragic case on so many levels."
Green's brother, Doug Green, 26, said the jury reached the appropriate decision.
"I do think it gives him a chance to have some semblance of a life," he said. "We're grateful for that."
But Qais Aboud Ali Khutri al-Janabi, the head of a prominent Sunni clan in Mahmoudiya where the girl and her family were killed, said justice had not been done.
"We demand this trial be held again and a death penalty issued," he said.
___
Associated Press Writers Kristin M. Hall in Paducah and Hamid Ahmed in Baghdad contributed to this report.
Categories: News Feeds
It's Now or Never for DEBBIE PEAGLER
PLEASE PASS THE WORD -- GET INVOLVED!!
Via: Free Debbie Peagler on Facebook
===============================
IT'S NOW OR NEVER!
Dear Friends,
Debbie's Parole Board Hearing has been set for MAY 28, 2009. THAT IS ONLY 10 DAYS AWAY. The time to act is now. Please forward the petition on to as many contacts as possible (especially California voters!). We must break 1000 signatures. We must keep climbing to the new 2500 signature goal.
We currently have 875, so let's keep it up. Debbie has spent over 13 million minutes behind bars as she and her attorneys have tirelessly fought for her freedom. Her time is tragically coming to an end as she simultaneously wages this next fight against cancer. There are now 365 members of this group. If each of us could take just a MINUTE to pass this along, we can exponentially grow this voice loud enough to be heard by Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Parole Board.
Let's give Debbie the loudest voice possible on her hearing date, and let's help make this happen!!!
In addition to sending to as many contacts (particularly but not limited to Californians) as you can, letters written to the actual Parole Board can have a huge impact, as the Board of Parole Hearings is required to read each and every letter into the record at parole hearings. Sample text is available, but yours will be more effective if it varies a little from the boilerplate letter. Please personalize it as much as possible. See for details:
Send A Letter
Thank you so much for making a difference. Let's act now.
P.S. Many of us have had loved ones also go through a relentless struggle against cancer, and know how much love, support, and strength it takes. I cannot even imagine what that must be like from where Debbie sits behind bars, especially given the stress of this upcoming hearing. Below is her address so that you may send her a card or note of encouragement!
Deborah Peagler, W19341
D14-05-02L
CCWF PO Box 1508
Chowchilla, CA 93610-1508
Via: Free Debbie Peagler on Facebook
===============================
IT'S NOW OR NEVER!
Dear Friends,
Debbie's Parole Board Hearing has been set for MAY 28, 2009. THAT IS ONLY 10 DAYS AWAY. The time to act is now. Please forward the petition on to as many contacts as possible (especially California voters!). We must break 1000 signatures. We must keep climbing to the new 2500 signature goal.
We currently have 875, so let's keep it up. Debbie has spent over 13 million minutes behind bars as she and her attorneys have tirelessly fought for her freedom. Her time is tragically coming to an end as she simultaneously wages this next fight against cancer. There are now 365 members of this group. If each of us could take just a MINUTE to pass this along, we can exponentially grow this voice loud enough to be heard by Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Parole Board.
Let's give Debbie the loudest voice possible on her hearing date, and let's help make this happen!!!
In addition to sending to as many contacts (particularly but not limited to Californians) as you can, letters written to the actual Parole Board can have a huge impact, as the Board of Parole Hearings is required to read each and every letter into the record at parole hearings. Sample text is available, but yours will be more effective if it varies a little from the boilerplate letter. Please personalize it as much as possible. See for details:
Send A Letter
Thank you so much for making a difference. Let's act now.
P.S. Many of us have had loved ones also go through a relentless struggle against cancer, and know how much love, support, and strength it takes. I cannot even imagine what that must be like from where Debbie sits behind bars, especially given the stress of this upcoming hearing. Below is her address so that you may send her a card or note of encouragement!
Deborah Peagler, W19341
D14-05-02L
CCWF PO Box 1508
Chowchilla, CA 93610-1508
Categories: News Feeds
NYT 5/23 Bob Herbert on Troy Davis
PLEASE VISIT Troy Davis : Finality over Fairness
AND GET INVOLVED NOW!
============================
May 23, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST, New York Times
In the Absence of Proof
By BOB HERBERT
The options are running out for Troy Davis, a man who has been condemned to death for killing a police officer in Georgia, but whose guilt is seriously in question.
Its bad enough that we still execute people in the United States. Its absolutely chilling that were willing to do it when were not even sure weve got the right person in our clutches.
Mr. Davis came within an hour of execution last fall. His relatives and his attorney, Jason Ewart, had come to the state prison to say goodbye. Mr. Davis had eaten his last meal, and Mr. Ewart was ready to witness his execution.
The mind-numbing tension was broken with a last-minute stay from the Supreme Court. The case then made its way to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, which ruled 2-to-1 last month against Mr. Daviss petition for a hearing to examine new evidence pointing to his innocence.
The countdown to the ghoulish ritual of execution resumed.
Mr. Davis was convicted of shooting a police officer to death in the parking lot of a Burger King in Savannah, Ga., in 1989. The officer, Mark Allen MacPhail, was murdered as he went to the aid of a homeless man who was being pistol-whipped.
Im opposed to the death penalty, but I would have a very hard time finding even the faintest glimmer of sympathy for the person who murdered that officer. The problem with taking Mr. Daviss life in response to the murder of Officer MacPhail is the steadily growing mass of evidence that Mr. Davis was not the man who committed the murder.
Nine witnesses testified against Mr. Davis at his trial in 1991, but seven of the nine have since changed their stories. One of those seven, Dorothy Ferrell, said she was on parole when she testified and was afraid that shed be sent back to prison if she didnt agree to cooperate with the authorities by fingering Mr. Davis.
I told the detective that Troy Davis was the shooter, she said in an affidavit, even though the truth was that I didnt know who shot the officer.
Another witness, Darrell Collins, who was a teenager at the time of the murder, said the police had scared him into falsely testifying by threatening to charge him as an accessory to the crime. He said he was told that he would go to prison and might never get out if he refused to help make the case against Mr. Davis.
This week Mr. Daviss lawyers, led by Mr. Ewart of the Arnold & Porter law firm in Washington, filed a last-ditch, long-shot petition with the Supreme Court, asking it to intervene and allow Mr. Daviss claims of innocence to be fully examined.
An extraordinary group of 27 former judges and prosecutors joined in an amicus brief in support of the petition. Among those who signed on were William Sessions, the former director of the F.B.I.; Larry Thompson, a U.S. attorney general from 2001-2003; the former Congressman Bob Barr, who was the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986-1990; and Rudolph Gerber, who was an Arizona trial and court of appeals judge from 1979-2001.
The counsel of record for the amicus brief is the Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree. The brief asserts that the Supreme Court should intervene because Mr. Davis can make an extraordinary showing through new, never reviewed evidence that strongly points to his innocence, and thus his execution would violate the Constitution.
The very idea of executing someone who may in fact be innocent should also violate the nations conscience. Mr. Davis is incarcerated. Hes no threat to anyone. Wheres the harm in seeking out the truth and trying to see that justice is really done?
And if the truth cant be properly sorted out, we should be unwilling to let a human life be taken on mere surmise.
There was no physical evidence against Mr. Davis, and no murder weapon was ever found. At least three witnesses who testified against him at his trial (and a number of others who were not part of the trial) have since said that a man named Sylvester Redd Coles admitted to killing the police officer.
Mr. Coles, who was at the scene, and who, according to witnesses, later ditched a gun of the same caliber as the murder weapon, is one of the two witnesses who have not recanted. The other is a man who initially told investigators that he could not identify the killer. Nearly two years later, at the trial, he testified that the killer was Mr. Davis.
Officer MacPhails murder was a horrendous crime that cries out for justice. Killing Mr. Davis, rather than remedying that tragedy, would only compound it.
AND GET INVOLVED NOW!
============================
May 23, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST, New York Times
In the Absence of Proof
By BOB HERBERT
The options are running out for Troy Davis, a man who has been condemned to death for killing a police officer in Georgia, but whose guilt is seriously in question.
Its bad enough that we still execute people in the United States. Its absolutely chilling that were willing to do it when were not even sure weve got the right person in our clutches.
Mr. Davis came within an hour of execution last fall. His relatives and his attorney, Jason Ewart, had come to the state prison to say goodbye. Mr. Davis had eaten his last meal, and Mr. Ewart was ready to witness his execution.
The mind-numbing tension was broken with a last-minute stay from the Supreme Court. The case then made its way to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, which ruled 2-to-1 last month against Mr. Daviss petition for a hearing to examine new evidence pointing to his innocence.
The countdown to the ghoulish ritual of execution resumed.
Mr. Davis was convicted of shooting a police officer to death in the parking lot of a Burger King in Savannah, Ga., in 1989. The officer, Mark Allen MacPhail, was murdered as he went to the aid of a homeless man who was being pistol-whipped.
Im opposed to the death penalty, but I would have a very hard time finding even the faintest glimmer of sympathy for the person who murdered that officer. The problem with taking Mr. Daviss life in response to the murder of Officer MacPhail is the steadily growing mass of evidence that Mr. Davis was not the man who committed the murder.
Nine witnesses testified against Mr. Davis at his trial in 1991, but seven of the nine have since changed their stories. One of those seven, Dorothy Ferrell, said she was on parole when she testified and was afraid that shed be sent back to prison if she didnt agree to cooperate with the authorities by fingering Mr. Davis.
I told the detective that Troy Davis was the shooter, she said in an affidavit, even though the truth was that I didnt know who shot the officer.
Another witness, Darrell Collins, who was a teenager at the time of the murder, said the police had scared him into falsely testifying by threatening to charge him as an accessory to the crime. He said he was told that he would go to prison and might never get out if he refused to help make the case against Mr. Davis.
This week Mr. Daviss lawyers, led by Mr. Ewart of the Arnold & Porter law firm in Washington, filed a last-ditch, long-shot petition with the Supreme Court, asking it to intervene and allow Mr. Daviss claims of innocence to be fully examined.
An extraordinary group of 27 former judges and prosecutors joined in an amicus brief in support of the petition. Among those who signed on were William Sessions, the former director of the F.B.I.; Larry Thompson, a U.S. attorney general from 2001-2003; the former Congressman Bob Barr, who was the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986-1990; and Rudolph Gerber, who was an Arizona trial and court of appeals judge from 1979-2001.
The counsel of record for the amicus brief is the Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree. The brief asserts that the Supreme Court should intervene because Mr. Davis can make an extraordinary showing through new, never reviewed evidence that strongly points to his innocence, and thus his execution would violate the Constitution.
The very idea of executing someone who may in fact be innocent should also violate the nations conscience. Mr. Davis is incarcerated. Hes no threat to anyone. Wheres the harm in seeking out the truth and trying to see that justice is really done?
And if the truth cant be properly sorted out, we should be unwilling to let a human life be taken on mere surmise.
There was no physical evidence against Mr. Davis, and no murder weapon was ever found. At least three witnesses who testified against him at his trial (and a number of others who were not part of the trial) have since said that a man named Sylvester Redd Coles admitted to killing the police officer.
Mr. Coles, who was at the scene, and who, according to witnesses, later ditched a gun of the same caliber as the murder weapon, is one of the two witnesses who have not recanted. The other is a man who initially told investigators that he could not identify the killer. Nearly two years later, at the trial, he testified that the killer was Mr. Davis.
Officer MacPhails murder was a horrendous crime that cries out for justice. Killing Mr. Davis, rather than remedying that tragedy, would only compound it.
Categories: News Feeds
