The Nubian Epistle

Bishop Eddie Long Addresses Sexual Exploitation Allegations

2010-09-26T17:46:00.014-05:00

Bishop Eddie Long, senior pastor of Atlanta’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, spoke in front his congregation Sunday for the first time since he was accused of sexual exploitation in law suits filed against him several days ago. During his sermon, he vowed to fight allegations from four male members of his church, who claim that Bishop Long coerced them into sexual relationships by bribing them with cars, clothing, electronics, jewelry, money, and trips.

“I’ve been accused, I’m under attack. I want you to know, as I said earlier, that I am not a perfect man. But this thing, I’m going to fight,” said Bishop Long. He went on to say, “And I want you to know one other thing. I feel like David against Goliath, but I’ve got five rocks and I haven’t thrown one yet.”

To go along with his denial of the sexual exploitation allegations, Bishop Long asked for worshipers to pray for him and vowed not let to the case be tried in the media. The plaintiffs in the case, Maurice Robinson, 20, Anthony Flagg, 21, Jamal Parris, 23 – as well as a fourth man, from a satellite church in Charlotte, North Carolina, who stepped forward on Friday – are seeking unspecified damages (read money). They are popping up faster than Tiger Woods' accusers.

Two of the young men claim they were members of the church's LongFellows Youth Academy, a program that mentored young men, when Bishop Long gave them gifts and took them on trips to seduce them. The lawsuits claim the pastor abused his “spiritual authority.” But federal and state authorities have said they will not investigate the allegations because all four men said they were 17 or 18 years old when the relationships with the bishop began. Georgia's age of consent is 16 years old.

Over the past 20 years, Bishop Eddie Long became one of the most powerful church leaders in the U.S. He led the church as it grew from a congregation of 150 to a 25,000-member powerhouse with a $50 million building and a membership that includes athletes, entertainers and politicians. One of his pastors is Bernice King, daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bishop Long told the congregation that his lawyers had advised him not to “try this case in the media.”I like to give the benefit of the doubt, but I have a problem when you don't flatly deny such allegations. The very first thing out of my mouth would be that this is a flat out lie.

Meet God's Gift

2010-07-06T22:15:00.002-05:00

The first thing that anyone asks when they meet this young man: is that your nickname or something. But his real name is God's Gift Achiuwa. The native Nigerian's father is a minister, so the first name he chose for his son is a reflection of the family's religious beliefs. God's Gift Achiuwa is a 6' 9” forward for the Erie Community College basketball team. Coach Nwora discovered him at an annual camp the coach runs in Nigeria and brought him back to Erie, Pennsylvania.

The bruising power forward is making sure he is known for more than just his name. He is averaged 13.1 points, 13.5 rebounds and two blocked shots per game as a freshman, earning third-team All-American and leading Erie to a 27-2 record.

He also excelled in the classroom, earning a 4.0 Grade Point Average in the fall semester and a 3.8 in the spring semester. Division One powerhouses such as Kansas, Pittsburgh, St. John's and Tennessee are among the schools that shown interest. He is a bit on the raw side, but the talent is there and playing in the U. S. has helped him. And Coach Nwora said he is still training like the season begins tomorrow. God's Gift Achiuwa doesn't have a nickname, though his teammates sometimes call him "Gift" for short. For a kid as gifted as Achiuwa on the court and in the classroom, it's a fitting name.

South Shore Drill Team Provides Different Avenue

2010-06-30T20:31:00.006-05:00

While news from Chicago report of dozens of shootings on the first weekend in April 2010, a group of teenage boys gather on a basketball court in a tough South Side neighborhood called the Pocket and picked up their rifles. This was the end of an especially bloody few days in Chicago as police crime scene tape hung from the South Side to the West Side. In 26 hours 41 people had been shot, 3 dead.

And so these boys pick up their rifles and began another four-hour practice session of a unique youth group, the South Shore Drill Team and Performing Arts Ensemble. The group was designed as an alternative to gang activity, high school drop outs, and teen pregnancy. The group offers young people an opportunity to develop self-esteem, self-discipline, goals for their future, and a chance to travel. The South Shore Drill Teams repertoire includes contemporary music, jazz, hip-hop, modern dance numbers and more.

Since 1980, the drill team has been providing boys and girls, ages 9 to 21, with a highly disciplined and choreographed alternative to the street. Team members use wooden mock rifles, hip-hop music and modern dance moves in their performances, which have taken them from Morocco to Walt Disney World to the annual back-to-school Bud Billiken Parade down Chicago’s Martin Luther King Drive.

In 2009, the team performed at 130 events in nine states. This past June 5, the team marked its 30th anniversary with a night of performances at the Chicago Theater. Although many on the drill team come from struggling families and from schools where sometimes up to half the students drop out before the 12th grade, 99.5 percent of the members graduate from high school and many go on to college, said Arthur Robertson, the former Chicago public school teacher who founded the team with only four boys, two of whom were his nephews. Now, its membership has grown to about 350. The team recently participated in the 33rd annual drill team and color guard world championships —the Winter Guard International — in Dayton, Ohio, where more than 300 teams from across the United States and four other countries were entered. The South Shore team won the championship in 1992.

Some parents of these boys allow them out of the house only to attend team practices and events. They want to keep them as safe as possible. The boys feel trapped in their rough neighborhoods; they can’t go outside and be regular children. Here you can be. Without groups like this, many of the boys would be headed down a path of fast-money dreams and jailhouse nightmares. Instead they now spend days learning how to twirl a mock rifle high into the air, do a back flip and catch the rifle without missing a step as they parade. For some, the drill team has saved their life.

Barry Bonds Wins Major Battle

2010-06-12T20:46:00.004-05:00

Baseball's all-time home run champion Barry Bonds won a big legal victory Friday when a federal appeals court ruled that evidence the government says would prove he lied about using steroids is inadmissible in court. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, in a divided opinion, said the government cannot use urine samples and other evidence in its perjury case against the former baseball star. Barry Bonds was indicted in federal court in December 2008 of making false statements to a grand jury, denying that he knowingly took steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.
The government alleges BALCO helped supply Barry Bonds with steroids and drug-masking substances. BALCO was accused of covertly marketing tetrahydrogestrinone -- known as "the Clear" -- a then-undetectable performance-enhancing steroid.

Steroids were allegedly commonly used from about 1995 to 2003 with the allegedly full knowledge of Major League Baseball's commissioner and owners. Steroid use was banned by MLB in 2003. Some owners allegedly even cut players who didn't use it! Use of steroids were not against MLB rules at that time. MLB only wrote rules forbidding steroid use after it became public knowledge that so many players were using it. If it's not against the rules, and owners push it, and other players that are having more success due to using, I don't think you can blame any player for trying to be competitive. The commissioner, owners, managers, coaches should share in the blame. So the crime is lying; and if we are going to prosecute everyone who lied we would have to fire every member of congress and every CEO of every major corporation in the U.S.

So it's all about public relations work to keep a good image. No lawyers are going after Mark Maguire. In fact he even has a job as hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals.

The saddest thing about the whole situation is that Bonds was arguably the best baseball player in the game before all this. Now, he will only be remembered for the steroid scandal.

I think it is a waste of time and money that the U.S. Department of Justice is worried about professional sports steroid use when major corporations are causing death and destruction because of unsafe operating practices.

Barry Bonds simply could not have gotten away with taking banned substances without the tacit approval of MLB. And MLB allegedly turned a blind eye to what players were allegedly doing because it reinvigorated ticket sales in a sport that had been losing public interest. Billions of dollars were at stake in TV negotiations, also. Mark McGwire's home-run blitz was said to have "saved baseball" and Bonds was simply carrying on that tradition. MLB is a huge commercial enterprise. When MLB turned a blind eye toward Barry Bonds' dramatic physical changes and unprecedented ability to hit the long ball, it knew exactly what it was doing.

Go #85

2010-05-31T21:33:00.006-05:00

Nine-year-old Ruben St. Hilaire, Jr., who lives with this mother in a homeless shelter in New York City, sent a letter to his favorite football player, Chad Ochocinco, formerly Chad Johnson, and received an autographed jersey from Ochocinco for his efforts. He then sent a second letter thanking #85. The letter read in part:

"...Mr. Johnson, you really make me happy. One of my goals in my future life is to be just like you when I grow up. I wonder who was your role model when you were little? I have three role model(s) in my life that's my mom, Mr. President Barack Obama and my favorite football player Mr. Chad Johnson. To me you are the best football player in the NFL. May God bless you and your family..."

Ruben's dream was to go to a football camp. Then at the annual gala fundraiser for the Children Mending Hearts organization in Hollywood, young master Hilaire was surprised when he received a certificate to attend Deion Sanders' camp. And unbeknownst to Ruben, his hero, Chad Ochocinco stepped onstage to present the certificate. An added bonus, was that it was Ruben's birthday and #85 led the crowd in singing “Happy Birthday”. (Well I was kind of hoping the surprise was that he game them a house – but I like to dream big).

It was a pretty amazing day for young Ruben, who said it was the happiest day of his life. Although it was a happy occasion, I hope someone helps him and his mom find a home.

Haiti's Connection to Louisiana

2010-05-29T01:34:00.004-05:00

Like everyone else, when the earthquake hit Haiti, I watched hours of news coverage. And like everyone else I saw the horrifying scenes caused one of the most devastating natural disasters of our time. And like most of us I had never been to Haiti nor did I know much about this small Black nation in the Caribbean. So I, like everyone else immediately got on my computer and began googling - reading about Haiti's history.

We were taught about the slaves in the U.S., but we were never taught that the people of this tiny nation had defeated Napoleon's mighty army in 1803. That was the same year the French decided to sell their only other colony in the Western Hemisphere - Louisiana. Had the slaves, led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, not overthrown the French Army in Haiti, would the French have sold Louisiana to the United States?

The Louisiana Purchase instantly doubled the size of the U.S. I was born and raised in Louisiana, so I am interested in anything pertaining to the state, and I am a history buff. But I never linked these two events. I am sure the average U.S. Citizen does not know that the Haitian revolution possibly played a large role in the history of the United States of America. The question is, had Toussaint L'Ouverture not lived, would America be the America it is today? If his army and the slaves had not defeated the French, would the French have wanted to sell their only other colony, which itself had thousands of slaves?

So, major events like this earthquake influence us to read about history and look at events a little more closely. It makes you wonder how politically and historically events in other places on earth contribute to our lives. Why is it that a country so close to some of the richest economies in the world could be in this position. It makes you wonder how, Haiti's own government and those of nearby countries have shown no accountability.

Yes the world responds during moments of emergencies, but Haiti was dirt poor long before the earthquake. But we must be helpful to our fellow humans more than when disaster happens. We Black folk must not limit ourselves to only what goes on in our hood, but open our eyes to events and the plight of other Black people all over this world. The reason I don't use the term African-American is that it limits our thinking to what happens in the U.S. We have to broaden our thought to thoughts not only to Black people in Cleveland, Dallas and other U.S cities, but also what is happening in Kingston, London, Capetown and everywhere else, including Port-Au-Prince. It is easy to forget about what is no longer on the front page or the main story on CNN. We have to be effective in keeping the light on problem everywhere.

Haiti is in a state of emergency and it was in an emergency long before January 12.

2010-04-23T22:00:00.030-05:00

Just returned from my first cruise - absolutely planning for others. We flew to South Florida on Friday, went aboard Carnival Ship "Liberty" Saturday afternoon and got underway a few minutes after 4 pm.

And after a day at sea we pulled into Cozemel, Mexico.

Next stop Grand Cayman Island.

We love Ocho Rios, Jamaica

And back to Miami.

Notre Dame's First Black Valedictorian

2010-04-21T15:41:00.005-05:00

In the 161 years the University of Notre Dame has been awarding degrees, never had there been a Black valedictorian. Until this year. Katie Washington, a biological sciences major from Gary, Indiana, has been named valedictorian of the 2010 University of Notre Dame graduating class and will present the valedictory address during Commencement exercises May 16 in Notre Dame stadium.

Ms. Washington, who earned a 4.0 grade point average, and has never brought home anything less than an A throughout her school career, has a minor in Catholic Social Teaching. She has conducted research on lung cancer and performed genetic studies for Global Health on the mosquito that carries dengue and yellow fever. She is the co-author of a research paper with David Severson, professor of biological sciences.

She is well-rounded and has polished her leadership skills through research and volunteer activities. She practically grew up in her father's doctor's office in Gary. Ms. Washington other activities includes directing the Voices of Faith Gospel Choir at Notre Dame, being a mentor/tutor for the Sister-to-Sister program at South Bend’s Washington High School, and serves as the student coordinator of the Center for Social Concerns’ “Lives in the Balance: Youth Violence and Society Seminar.” She graduated from Gary’s West Side High School and was valedictorian in 2006.

Upon graduation, Katie plans to continue her studies at Johns Hopkins University through a joint M.D./Ph.D program there and follow in her parents and siblings’ footsteps into medicine. Dad William is a doctor and mom, Jean is a nurse, brother Mark is completing his residency at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and sister Terry is a nurse. Another brother, Navy veteran Vincent, works for British Petroleum. (So the Huxtables do exist). Clearly she was focused on her mission in life and she has some good adult guidance in her life. She comes from a family of achievers. I would expect a child from a family of educated middle class folks to excel, regardless of race. Education was part of her home culture. Why bring this up? Because it shows how home culture influences our achievements. This is the story that we don’t normally see. This is not an unusual thing for Black Americans. it does happen all over the U.S. We, as a community, have other stories like Katie’s that need to be on BET, and TV One, etc..

Although she is not 100 percent sure of what kind of doctor she wants to be, she plans to train as a physician scientist with the intention of treating patients with disease. You have to serious grey matter to get into John Hopkins Medical Research Scientist program (that's what the MD/PhD program is called). This is serious sacrifice - over $300K in debt (even with grants) and in school until your late 30's. Not having a real income until around age 40, and be forced into a specialty or into research, more likely the former, since you'd be way overqualified and too far in debt to work as a primary care physician. There is only one word for this kind of person DRIVEN.

Katie demonstrates that if one is given an equal opportunity and makes the requisite sacrifices; great achievement and success will follow. "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity".

An Entire Senior Class On Their Way to Four-Year Colleges

2010-03-24T19:48:00.004-05:00

In the mist of news flashes of Black young men with their pants "saggin" and walking around as if they are in leg irons, I thought I would share this positive picture of positive picture of our future leaders.

Urban Prep Academy is a charter school in tough neighborhood in Chicago. Four years ago a fressman class set a goal to all go to college and now four years later that goal has been met. Yes, 100% of the Senior class has been accepted to four-year colleges or universities.

Yes, 100% of the senior class at Chicago's only public all-male, all-Black high school has been accepted to four-year colleges and universities. The 107 seniors have earned spots at 72 schools across the U.S. It's the first graduating class at Urban Prep since it opened its doors in 2006.

This kind of accomplishment requires goal setting, perseverance, focus, having a dream and following that dream. These are words not associated with Black youth in the main stream media. But if it can happen in Chicago, it can happen everywhere else.

The school enforces a strict uniform of black blazers, khaki pants and red ties -- with one exception. After a student receives the news he is accepted into college, he swaps his red tie for a red and gold one at an assembly. The last 13 students received their college ties recently to thunderous applause.

College in this and other similar neighbor was merely a concept--never a goal--for most of these young men growing up. Urban Prep, a charter school that enrolls using a lottery in one of Chicago's more troubled neighborhoods, faced difficult odds. Only 4 percent of this year's senior class read at grade level as freshmen, according to Tim King, the school's CEO. Every single person hired four years ago knew from the day one that this was the goal: Get our kids into college.

Before the students begin their freshman year, they take a field trip to Northwestern University. Every student is assigned a college counselor the day he steps foot in the school. Even the school's voicemail has a student declaring "I am college bound" before it asks callers to dial an extension.

Does Any of This Look Familiar?

2010-03-14T19:40:00.019-05:00

45 rpm spindles

S&H Green Stamps

Metal Ice cube trays

Drive in Movies

Studebakers

Washtub wringers

Reel-To-Reel tape recorders

15 cent hamburgers

5 cent packs of baseball cards

25 cents a gallon gas

Jiffy Pop popcorn

5 cent Cokes

Brownie camera

Flash bulbs

Timmy and Lassie (long before Black folks on TV)

TV Test patterns

The sad thing is that I remember all of these.

Serena Williams Opens Second School in Kenya

2010-03-08T21:11:00.003-06:00

Serena Williams, the world's #1 womens tennis player, made a whirlwind 3-day trip to Kenya in late February. The trip included the opening of the Serena Williams Wee Secondary School, the second such school in her name in that African nation. The school is located in the remote village of Wee, east of Nairobi. This is the second school she’s opened in Kenya with help from computer giant Hewlett Packard. Serena opened her first school in 2008. Oprah, you're lagging.

Just a couple months ago Serena was all over the news for her rant against a line judge in a tennis match and the media was calling for her head. But where is the main stream media when not only Serena Williams, but any athelete does anything positive?

The tiny village of Wee was a beehive of activity as Serena and her entourage arrived in aboard helicopters to preside over the grand opening. Hundreds of school children and their parents turned out to receive the celebrated star player which they only hear about in the media. The greatest moment of the event came when Serena was decorated as an Akamba woman amid song and dance.

Wee students, having heard of a popular joke that Serena’s roots are in Western Kenya due to her imposing physique, impressed the visitor with a rendition of popular songs from the region like mwana wa mama apepetanga (mama’s girl is a star dancer). The children sang: “Serena we like you, Serena we love you, Serena come dance with us,” and Serena acknowledged by waving back with a smile.

For hundreds of Wee residents, the presence of helicopters attracted their attention much more than did the tennis star as they gathered around the machines they only see flying above the hilly region.

Serena’s school has a special class for deaf students, the first of its kind in the region.

Serena also met with the Prime Minister and Vice President of Kenya and conducted a tennis clinic with the children. And being that Serena was recovering from the flu, her appearance was all the more impressive.

RNC Documents Reveal Use of Scare Tactics

2010-03-04T21:13:00.003-06:00

As the Bible says, what's done in the dark will come to light. Republican National Committee leaders are once again doing damage control after a document was found revealing their plans to use voters' fear in the coming campaign season. The problem started when an attendee at the RNC conference last month Florida left a 72-page document from its 2010 strategizing session in a hotel room.

The memo states that the best path to victory in 2010 is for Republican candidates to depict themselves as the best hope for resisting the "trending toward socialism" taking shape in a Democrat-dominated Washington. The presentation calls President Obama's administration "The Evil Empire," and includes the image of President Obama made over in the makeup Heath Ledger used in his performance as the Joker in the 2008 Batman movie "The Dark Knight."

The memo candidly states that the aim of such caricature is to amp up "fear" among the Republican conservative base. RNC leaders NOW say "the language and the imagery will not be used in any capacity in the future."

The RNC will not admit to it, but evidence points to their founding and backing the "Tea Party Movement". Ever wonder why only Republicans are speakers at tea party" functions. The Obama-as-Joker image is a very familiar icon at Tea Party rallies.

It's time for Black folk to do what the actors in Spike Lee's Skool Dayz say "WAKE UP". While Black folks are still celebrating a year after Barack Obama became the first Black president of the U.S., his and your enemies began plotting, the day after the election, how to not only defeat him, but to embarrass and destroy him. And all the while, we, including the Congressional Black Caucas, NAACP, Urban League, churches, the twin reverends high five and dap.

Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong – The Snow Leopard

2010-02-20T20:05:00.003-06:00

Despite being called the Snow Leopard, Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong hails from a dry, savannah town in Ghana where the temperature rarely falls below 72F – and until five years ago he had never seen snow. But the Snow Leopard, is on the prowl for a medal in the 2010 Winter Olympic games. He has drawn a lot of interest as an African skiing in the Olympics. Kwame will participate in the Alpine Slalom race which is scheduled to take place on February 27. He will make history as the first Ghanian skiing in the Winter Olympics.

Quite the athlete, he also represented Ghana in the West African Student Games in tennis. Kwame took ski lessons when he got a job as a receptionist at a ski center. Kwame said that the only thing Africans have to overcome is the cold. I hear you brother.

Dedicated to encouraging Ghanian youth to ski, he founded the Ghanian Winter Olympic Association and is working on building an artificial ski slope in Akuapem Hills, Mamfe, Ghana.

As well as being a professional ski racer Kwame has achieved academic success completing a first degree in Geography and Tourism in Cape Coast University, Ghana. He then went on complete a Masters in Westminster University in Tourism Management. Born in Glasgow, Scotland where his father was completing a doctorate, he grew up in a dusty town an hour from Accra, Ghana where children dream of becoming soccer stars, not Olympic skiers. But, after moving to Britain and finding a job as a receptionist in the Xscape snow dome in Milton Keynes, he discovered he had a knack for hurtling down the artificial slope.

His tale of triumph over the odds has echoes of the Jamaican bobsleigh team, whose appearance at the Calgary Games in 1988 inspired the Hollywood film Cool Runnings.
Nkrumah-Acheampong is determined not to embarrass himself or his country in Vancouver. “I don’t just want to get down, but ski well and not come at the bottom of the table,” he said.

Still Large and In Charge

2010-02-19T20:35:00.006-06:00

PR Genius...fantastic job. Tiger Woods controlled his message without creating a circus around it. And, going back for more "counseling" some period of time while the pr's take the pulse of public perception. Brilliant. Tiger has a sickness. He is realizing it. He is dealing with it. He is probable cranking up his golf practices right now. In 5 years he will likely be a stronger model than before. And to finish top it off was the long emotional hug with his mother.

Tiger Woods delivered his "apology" before a handpicked audience that included family, close friends and members of the professional golf community, but most importantly, business partners.

Sitting in the front row: his mother Kultida, on her right, Amy Reynolds, of Nike, cried through the speech. Kathy Battaglia, of Tiger Woods Enterprises, sat on his mother's left.
Also in the front row: Rob McNamara (in a cream-colored blazer), PGA commissioner Timothy Finchem (in a red tie) and his close friend, and fellow Stanford University grad, golfer Notah Begay III (far left). And please, no other Black folk present...not "friends" Mike and Chuck.

Just how powerful is Tiger Woods - his 13 and a half minute apology was carried live on every major television network. Name me any other celebrity who can command such. One pro golfer was whining today that Tiger apology overshadowed this week's tournament - exactly - did you even know there was a tournament this week. The PGA can't wait for his return. It will be their largest rating ever.

He's human, he makes mistakes. I wish him AND his family all the best.

Captain America Angers "Tea Party" Folks

2010-02-12T08:56:00.008-06:00

The fictional superhero, Captain America, has been one of the most popular comic book heroes since his creation in 1941. But now that the Captain has turned his attention to what appears to be the "Tea Party" movement, he has upset "real Americans". Issue number 602 has Captain America and his Black sidekick The Falcon observe an anti-tax protest from a rooftop, while trying to infiltrate a White supremacists anti-government militia group, "the Watchdogs". It was fine when Captain America fought Nazis during World War II, or took on those who burned the American flag during the Vietnam era, but when he turns his attention toward "patriot Americans", he is "out of line".

The protestors depicted are all White and carry signs adorned with slogans very similar to those seen in "Tea Party" rallies. The Falcon mentions that the gathering appears to be "some kind of anti-tax protest" and notes that "this whole 'hate the government' vibe isn't limited to the Watchdogs." He then tells Captain America that he doesn't think their plan will work because "I don't exactly see a Black man from Harlem fitting in with a bunch of angry White folks." Captain America then explains that his plan to send The Falcon in among the group posing as an IRS agent, thinking that a Black government official will surely set off their anger.

It appears that certain protesters want Captain America to go back to the 60s, "when Captain America was a pro-America figure." Well I see the Captain really becoming a pro-American figure - mixing a little something for everything in the "melting pot" and not just the potatoes alone.

Super Bowl Champions, New Orleans Saints Put On A One of A Kind Parade

2010-02-10T22:00:00.006-06:00

A co-worker, the same one who for the whole week leading up to the Super Bowl would stop by my desk three or four times a day and ask me are you getting nervous yet, stopped by Tuesday, (and no I didn’t go to work Monday), and said I still believe the Aints won the Super Bowl. I immediately came back with, they didn’t – the Saints won the Super Bowl – the Aints haven’t existed in a long time. People seem to forget that the Saints were one game away from playing the same Colts in the Super Bowl in 2007. Then they had a half the team hurt and went 7-9, and last year’s 8-8 record could have easily been 13-3 as they lost 5 games by a total of 8 points and closed out the season winning 5 of the last 6. The Aints now play in places like Cleveland, Oakland, and his team Washington, D.C.

Forget Endymion, forget Bachhus, forget Zulu. The Super Bowl champs have set a new standard for superkrewes and their Mardi Gras parades.
Anyway, the Super Bowl Champions (I smile every time I say it) put on a parade that only could happen in New Orleans. Forget the Endymion parade, the Super Bowl champs have set a new standard for superkrewes. New Orleans went all out, deliriously welcoming back the team that brought home the hardware after 43 years. Saints fans were packed 15 deep along the streets of the Central Business District on Tuesday, braving temperatures cold enough that New Orleans officials had to enact the city’s freeze plan. But who really cared? As diehard Saints fans who had endured the ridicule for years partied throughout the night.

As the parade got set to roll, the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve band got the crowd primed with the unofficial Saints anthem, “Halftime (Stand Up and Get Crunk).” The second float featured quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees, his backup, Mark Brunell, and the men in charge of protecting them: the offensive line.

The floats were loaned by Krewes of some of the biggest parade organizations. The float with the runningbacks also featured beloved Saints former tailback Deuce McAllister, who led the team onto the field in the NFC championship game and then retired. The crowd responded as if it was third-and-one on an October afternoon in the Dome: “Deuce, Deuce, Deuce.”

Coach Sean Payton, on a float with his family, held the Lombardi Trophy high above the crowd, kissing it over and over and blowing kisses to the crowd. He also showed off some dance skills, rhythmically pumping the trophy in the air while bouncing up and down, as “Halftime” blared yet again. As his float stopped in front of Gallier Hall, where politicians and other dignitaries gathered, Mayor Ray Nagin toasted the coach — and his “gazubas” — and led the crowd in a “Who Dat” chant.

Coach Payton, in turn, promised: “We’ll see you again this time next year,” to thunderous cheers.

Tony Dungy: The Man in the Middle

2010-01-31T19:38:00.008-06:00

Tony Dungy navigates a world in which sport was once viewed as vital to building character but now is dominated by the dollar. Tony Dungy speaks deliberately and enthusiastically and maintains an unhurried demeanor: He speaks with the power of what is possible. 4½ years after spending time with a former NFL superstar, he still regrets what he sees as a major failure: He believes he could have saved the life Michael Vick once had, the one he'll never have again.

The Colts were in Japan for a preseason game against the Falcons. Coach Dungy, coach Jim Mora, quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Mike Vick were going to different events to promote the game, so they got to know each other more. Warrick Dunn had Vick that Dungy liked to fish. They agreed to get together and go fishing when they got back home. It never happened.

When the dogfighting stuff came out, Tony Dungy never stopped thinking about what might have happened with eight hours on a boat. He thinks maybe he could have been to redirect Vick from his ultimately destructive path. What type of individual honestly believes that, given a single afternoon casting a fishing line into the sea, he could have been the one to change the course of another person's history? Tony Dungy believes deeply in God and the gift that God has given – the ability and power to reach and rehabilitate by listening.

In his first year outside the NFL since the early 1980s, Dungy is a unique and powerful figure. He has developed a huge profile while emerging as a confidant of NFL owners, coaches and the commissioner. He is a connected insider, yet strives to maintain a special rapport and credibility with the disadvantaged. Unlike many of the league's ex-coaches, who use the broadcast booth as a paid couch until another position on the sideline opens, Dungy has used the platform to establish himself as a substantive voice. On one broadcast, Dungy offered criticism of the lack of Black Division 1 football coaches. At a time when deep labor issues are beginning to intensify, Dungy allowed himself to be positioned as a bridge between management and the players.

At a time when the sports culture influence has been reduced by extremes -- basketball coaches caught having sex in restaurants, golfers said to be having sex everywhere, lots of much money, lots of guns, too much temptation at the expense of accountability, decency, self-respect -- Tony Dungy often is viewed as the moral compass of American sports. With that comes power. For owners unsure of the latest troubled athlete in need of a second chance, Dungy can provide the Good Housekeeping seal or the killing third strike. He is uniquely positioned, the serious power broker, the voice upon which the powerful often depend to mediate the gap between themselves and their young, extremely wealthy employees. He does not, of course, provide redemption. Messengers do not have that power. It is a role he has never actively sought, but he has accepted the mission, and the rare and subtle combination of nationwide respect and moral authority have transformed Dungy into one of sport's most powerful figures, and he is at once aware that he must gauge whether those seeking his help are only using him to launder their soiled images or truly desire redemption.

Saints Go Marching In To The Big Show

2010-01-25T15:16:00.011-06:00

No longer the "aints", The Who Dats, National Conference Champions, are marching into the Superbowl for the first time ever.

Since the 1967 season, when I was 15 years old, true Saints fans have been waiting for this. Those of us who remember the first ever game when John Gilliam took the opening kickoff 94 yards for the first ever New Orleans Saints touchdown for the only Saints highlight of that loss to the Los Angeles Rams at Tulane University Stadium where home games were played until 1974 before moving to the Louisiana Superdome in 1975.

Their first season record was 3–11, which set an NFL record for most wins by an expansion team. However, things went down hill after that. The Saints didn't even have a season where they were .500 until 1979. One of the team's shining moments came on November 8, 1970, when Tom Dempsey kicked an NFL record-breaking 63-yard field goal to defeat the Detroit Lions by a score of 19-17 in the final seconds of the game.

The first successful years were from 1987–1992, when the team made the playoffs four times and had winning records in the non-playoff seasons. But it wasn't until the 2000 season that the Saints won their first playoff game, defeating the then-defending Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams.

2005 brought Hurricane Katrina which caused damage to the Superdome and the Saints became the road warriors for the entire season playing their home games between LSU's Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge and the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. But the Saints returned to the Dome in 2006 on fire, going all the way to the NFC Championship game before losing to the Chicago Bears.

The 2009 season was the team's best season. The Saints started the season going 13-0, the best start to a season in its franchise history. Saints also set the record for the longest undefeated season opening (13-0) by an NFC team since the AFL–NFL merger, eclipsing the previous record (12-0) held by the 1985 Chicago Bears. They went more than 10 years before they managed to finish a season with a .500 record, 20 years before a winning season, and over 40 years before reaching the Super Bowl. So when you see a Saint Fan being loud and bragging, remember we haven't been here before, so we don't know how to act like we've been here before. There is still room on the Saints bandwagon, but all the long time Saints Fan, who endured the years in the wilderness get to ride up front and I'm driving!!!

Curt Warner, Brett Farve,...Peyton Manning your next.

Basketball League for White Americans Only

2010-01-21T20:26:00.007-06:00

The All-American Basketball Alliance intends to start its inaugural season in June with teams in 12 cities. Only players that are natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league. Don "Moose" Lewis, the commissioner of the AABA, said the reasoning behind the league's roster restrictions is not racism. He stated that it will be a league for White players to play fundamental basketball. BORING!

He pointed out dissatisfaction with the way current professional sports are run. Dissatisfaction – try buying a ticket to the NBA All-Star weekend to be held in Dallas next month. The lowest price is $500. I don’t think you will get dissatisfied fans to fork over $500 for the nose bleed seats.

In a free country they should have the right to form any kind of league they want; just don’t expect people to come out and support it. And I’m not talking about 200 to 300 people in a private school gym – because they won’t be playing in any public schools. And get this - the Atlanta-based league, which will operate as a single-entity owning all of its teams, is looking for local contacts to pay $10,000 to become a "licensee" in one of 12 cities throughout the Southeast. What kind of crap are you going to get for $10,000? Mr. Lewis said he has already received threats from people opposed to the roster restrictions and several cities have told him to stay out of town.

The real irony here is that if he really had a problem with the NBA, he should acknowledge that it is owned by a majority of Whites and the rules are written and enforced by Whites. Lewis downplays NBA talent as 'street ball'. In the 1920's Jews dominated basketball on the streets of New York and the semi-pro barnstorming teams. Moose Lewis' words can be read throughout the first half of the 20th century when others referred to Jewish dominance of the game.

The idea of an all White basketball league isn't racist to me; it's the idea of creating an all white basketball league because as Mr. Lewis stated, all black players "play streetball" and will "flip you the bird" and grab their crotches while doing so. if this guy wants to create a league that plays "fundamental" boring basketball then so be it. But the ignorance behind it is the racist part. He also stated that "people of White, American-born citizens are in the minority now." I hate to tell him but the U.S. census begs to differ with him. Black Americans currently make up 12.8% of the population. Furthermore I would love for him to define "White". How are White players going to confirm their "Whiteness"? There are Blacks that look White, Latinos that look White and Whites that look Black. American is a melting pot and it seems to me this guy only wants the potatoes out of this pot. You think he would take an Irish potato?

So let Don "Moose" Lewis create this league that we all know will last for, I don't know, let’s say a week. Good White basketball players will not play because it just sounds, BORING, not challenging and an excuse for the talentless.

The more Moose get's turned down the Angrier, hateful, spiteful, detestably he will become, when all this boils over for him, from many failed attempts and denials from cities and threats (so he says) he is going to use this as wood for a fire to ignite a rally with and for the hate groups who love and feed on this kind of stuff. I wonder if they will have confederate uniforms, or if they will play in their robes without the hoods? We need team names: The Atlanta Supremacists, The Jackson Grand Wizards, The Charleston Real Americans, but certainly not The Birmingham Ballerz.

As a Black man I would like to start an all Black swim league where Blacks can splash around, which is what we like. I mean, do we want to go to a swimming pool and have to worry about swimming really well like White Americans with all their fancy strokes - breast stroke, back stroke, butterfly. We just want to do belly flops and hold onto the sides of the pool. I am looking for a pool not more than 4.5 feet deep to start the league.

I wouldn’t go to see any all white games because quite frankly, I like good basketball.

Is the Dream Alive in You?

2010-01-18T21:16:00.004-06:00

As "we" celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I see a growing disassociation with the slain civil rights leader among young people. I know it is a generation further removed from segregated schools and a society more in tuned to selective memory sound bites. Dr. King would have turned 81 Friday should be remembered everyday, is often forgotten on this day in some circles.

Dr. King left a great legacy behind but unfortunately too many people, young and old, these days don’t hold onto that legacy. The disconnect concerning King began years ago. Our generation spent so much time trivializing what he was really about that young people have no idea. We have lost sight of the fact that he died organizing poor people’s campaigns. It is ironic, almost poetic, that the Haiti crisis happened days before the celebration. If Dr. King were alive his energy would have gone not only to addressing the crisis caused by the earthquake but before the earthquake.

Those who remember King have allowed parades and banquets to replace marches and relief efforts. We have these wonderful parades and social events but do nothing when the event is over. Like other leaders whose image grows into idolatry, King has always been misremembered. For a lot of people King the Peacemaker in the sense of race relations is more comfortable than someone like Malcolm X. But you take a closer look there are similarities between the two that gets lost in the shuffle.

In the years leading up to his assassination in 1968, King focused much more intensely on economic dislocation, social democracy and the war in Vietnam. The “I Have a Dream" speech is a symbolic snapshot but it isn’t the whole person.

We have to remind our youth where they come from and how they got where they are today. On this Martin Luther King Day let us all keep our dream alive. Take a look at that person in the mirror and know that everything is possible.

Limbaugh and Robertson Remove All Doubt As to Their Stupidity

2010-01-16T19:59:00.003-06:00

I’ve heard of idiots, but radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and televangelist Pat Robertson have sealed their spots as being right at the top in that field with their comments in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti that has killed tens of thousands. Critics from all directions are denouncing their remarks as insensitive to the disaster and attempts to score political points from human tragedy. Even fellow conservatives have said that they are deeply insensitive.

Limbaugh said the earthquake has played into Obama’s hands, allowing the president to look “compassionate” and “humanitarian” while at the same time bolstering his standing in both the “light-skinned and dark-skinned Black community in this country.” Then added: “We've already donated to Haiti. It’s called the U.S. income tax.” His comments were, in part, a riff on Senator Harry Reid’s remark in a new book that President Obama was able to win the election because he is “light-skinned” and lacks a “Negro dialect.”

The president speaks for the country when he says we’re going to go in there. Whether you like a person or not you respect the position. He criticized President Obama for holding a news conference the day after the earthquake. As far as I can remember the U.S. has been the leader in helping when others have suffered and the president at the time has always held a press conference to pledge U.S. aid. The saying goes “it’s better to have people think you are stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Maybe the question is whether Limbaugh is upset because we are donating to a predominately Black country or whether he dislikes the thought of a Black man being in charge. With thousands of people dead already and as the suffering continues in Haiti, Limbaugh and his kind only care about one thing: destroying President Obama.

While Limbaugh received a sprinkling of support, nobody of note has stepped up to defend Pat Robertson’s claim that Haiti got hit by an earthquake because it is “cursed.” Speaking about the disaster during his program “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network, Robertson said that when Haiti was still a French colony its leaders “swore a pact to the devil” to get out from “under the heel of the French. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other.” “That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle on the one side is Haiti the other is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty.” Robertson has a long history of making controversial remarks on his program.

In reality Haiti is in the situation it is in because of poor leadership of past dictators. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and just like any third world country, there is no middle ground; you are either very rich or very poor, with most falling into the latter category.

Speedskater Shani Davis Aiming for 5 Gold Medals

2010-01-04T19:39:00.006-06:00

World-record holder Shani Davis has once again decided not to skate on the U.S. team pursuit but he does plan to race all five individual events at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Attempting to compete in all five events will be awfully tough, but even coming close could cement him -- already the world-record holder at 1,000 and 1,500 meters -- as one of the greatest all-around skaters his sport has ever seen. Most skaters specialize in either the sprints, middle or long distances.

His decision is sure to stir debate, however. Shani had said earlier last month that he planned to skate the team pursuit in Vancouver after feuding with other U.S. skaters over his decision to skip the event at the 2006 Games. The U.S. U.S. team surely would be a top medal threat with him in the team pursuit lineup. Without him, they finished sixth at the 2006 Games.

When he won gold in Torino, he became the first Black man to win gold in the Winter Games. Shani Davis grew up to be 6-foot-2 (a disadvantage in a sport where being short is a great advantage) and lean and while the other children in his Chicago neighborhood played basketball he was speeding around ice rinks.

Shani (I wonder where that name came from), decided when he was very young, that if he was going to do a sport, he wanted to be different. He succeeded. He has become the best speedskater in the world in a predominantly White sport.

Teammates Give Vick Courage Award

2009-12-28T20:56:00.003-06:00

Related NewsWelcome back: Vick still rules in Atlanta

Just yesterday Michael Vick was a disgraced star and the most hated man in the world to dog lovers everywhere. But it seems that his peers appreciate his tough journey back to the NFL. His Philadelphia Eagles teammates unanimouly voted and gave him the Ed Block Courage Award, after he returned to the league after spending 18 months in a federal prison for his role in a dogfighting ring.

The three-time Pro Bowl quarterback in six seasons with the Atlanta Falcons has not played much with the Eagles. He has two touchdowns rushing and one passing in 12 games. The Eagles were criticized by animal rights activists for signing Michael Vick less than a month after he was released from prison. And some fans threatened to give up their tickets. But he received a warm reception in his first game with the Eagles and has been a model citizen off the field.

The Ed Block Award honors players who exemplify commitment to the principles of sportsmanship and courage. Eagles star quarterback Donovan McNabb called the award "well-deserved." Each of the 32 NFL teams selects a recipient.

Michael Vick has spent time working with the Humane Society of the United States, speaking to school and community groups about the mistakes he made in getting involved in dogfighting.

"Congratulations to him for turning his life around and bettering himself as a human being," coach Andy Reid said. "He's obviously very well-respected by his teammates."

Tiger Woods Saga Continued

2009-12-27T20:46:00.005-06:00

Raise your hands if you are tired of hearing about the Tiger Woods saga. I tried really hard to stay out of it. But after I heard the rumor that Tiger offered his wife millions of dollars to stay in their marriage, I had to chime in.

The first thing that comes to mind is that White women have a temper too. The thought crossed my mind that Tiger, like most Black men with White wives or girlfriends, figured that they could do anything they wanted and get over. Now it turns out that White women have their own weapons for dealing with cheating men. Black women are partial to a pot of hot grits or frying pans. It seems that White women have introduced the golf club as a weapon of choice. The hockey stick can't be far behind.

But seriously, studies have shown that women initiate domestic violence as often as men, that women use weapons more than men, and that 38 percent of injured victims are men. Maybe Chris Brown wasn't entirely the bad guy after all.

Resorting to violence has never been a viable option for me. Hitting women is not acceptable. And judges, the media, and the majority of the rest of the world agrees with me. Just walk away men.

And women, getting hit by men is unacceptable, but hitting men is unacceptable as well. If Tiger's wife really beat him with a golf club we should be as outraged as we were when we heard about Chris Brown and so should the news media.

Women if you angry, no mad enough at a man to hit a man, please realize that usually when you hit a person, they’re inclined to hit you back out of retaliation or reflex.

We really don't know what happened, but just maybe some charges should be filed against Mrs. Tiger since he showed signs of abuse, she should have to pay a fine, endure court proceedings and maybe that may make her rethink requesting $500 million dollars, he needs to be compensated for humiliation, and definitely his stupidity.

Huge Rising Star

2009-12-21T21:13:00.008-06:00

Marvadene Anderson, the world's tallest teenage girl, has become a basketball star at Rutgers; not Rutgers University, Rutgers Prep. This up-and-coming New Jersey high school basketball player is only 16 and stands 6-foot-11, and is still growing.

The Jamaican-born hoopster is taller than legendary ballplayers like Michael Jordan (6-6) and LeBron James (6-8). She was the highest-scoring "netball" player (a sport similar to basketball) in her native Jamaica.

That on-court basketball prowess earned her a scholarship to Rutgers Prep and for the last two months she's been hitting the hardwood to learn the rules of basketball.
"Everyone has come up to me and asked if I play college basketball. I tell them I'm only a sophomore in high school."

Marvadene Anderson, whose family remained in Jamaica, got her nickname "Bubbles" because of her good humor. The biggest problem "Bubbles" seems to have is adjusting to the cold weather and finding clothes and shoes to fit her 210-pound frame and size-12 feet.

Back home in Jamaica she was teased a lot. They called her "baby giant because her older sister, Kimberly is 6-foot-4. They also called them "the twin towers". But she said the rudest thing anybody ever said about her height was that she would not be able to find a husband.

Rutgers Prep coach Mary Coyle-Klinger and her sister, former WNBA coach Pat Coyle, have been working with their new star. Anderson picked up six points in her first game on December 10. She is going to be a star. She's only been playing two months and it's amazing how well she has adapted.

Opinions of Black Women: Black and White

2009-12-13T19:29:00.006-06:00

I was sent this via email and thought I would share. Thumbs up to this Black man.
Enjoy.

"It seems that an article was written to Sister 2 Sister magazine by a Caucasian woman who requested a response from Black men. She got what she asked for (and more)!!!

Dear Jamie:

I'm sorry but I would like to challenge some of your Black male readers. I am a White female who is engaged to a Black male-good-looking, educated and loving. I just don't understand a lot of Black female attitudes about our relationship.

My man decided he wanted me because the pickings amongst Black women were slim to none. As he said they were either too fat, too loud, too mean, too argumentative, too needy, too materialistic or carrying too much excess baggage... If Black women are so up in arms about us being with their men, why don't they look at themselves and make some changes.

I am tired of the dirty looks I get and snide remarks when we're out in public. I would like to hear from some Black men about why we are so appealing and coveted by them.

Bryant Gumbel left his wife of 26 years for one of us Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen, the model Tyson Beckford, Montell Williams, Quincy Jones, James Earl Jones, Harry Belafonte, Sydney Poitier, Kofi Anan, Cuba Gooding Jr., Don Cornelius, Berry Gordy, Billy Blanks, Larry Fishburne, Wesley Snipes...

Don't be mad with us White women because so many of your men want us. Get your acts together and learn from us and we may lead you to treat your men better. If I'm wrong, Black men, let me know.

Disgusted White Girl, Somewhere in VA"

RESPONSE

Dear Jamie:

I would like to respond to the letter written by A Disgusted White Girl.

Let me start by saying that I am a 28-year old Black man. I graduated from one of the most prestigious universities in Atlanta, Georgia with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business Management. I have a good job at a major corporation and have recently purchased a house. So, I consider myself to be among the ranks of successful Black men.

I will not use my precious time to slander White people. I just want to set the record straight of why Black men date White women. Back in the day, one of the biggest reasons why Black men dated White women was because they were considered easy. The Black girls in my neighborhood were raised in the church. They were very strict about when they lost their virginity and who they lost it to. Because of our impatience to wait, brothers would look for someone who would give it up easy without too much hassle. So, we turned to the White girls.

Nowadays, in my opinion, a lot of brothers date White women because they are docile and easy to control. A lot of black men, because of insecurities, fears, and overall weaknesses, have become intimidated by the strength of our Black women. We are afraid that our woman will be more successful than us, make more money than us, drive nicer cars and own bigger houses. Because of this fear, many Black men look for a more docile woman. Someone we can control.

I have talked to numerous Black men and they continuously comment on how easy it is to control and walk over their White women. I just want to set the record straight. I want A Disgusted White Girl to know that not all successful Black men date White women.

Brothers like Ahmad Rashad, Denzel Washington, Morris Chestnut, Will Smith, Blair Underwood, Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, Samuel L. Jackson, and Chris Rock all married strong black women." Lets not forget Barack Obama. "And, to flip the script, there are numerous White men, in and out of the spot light, who openly or secretly desire Black women over White women. Ted Danson, Robert DeNiro, and David Bowie to name a few.

Stop thinking that because you are White that you are some type of goddess. Remember, when Black Queens like Hatsepshut and Nitorcris were ruling Dynasties and armies of men in Africa, you were over in the caves of Europe eating raw meat and beating each other over the head with clubs... It was the black woman that taught you how to cook and season your food. It was the Black woman that taught you how to raise your children. It was Black women who were breast feeding and raising your babies during slavery. It is the Black woman that had to endure watching their fathers, husbands, and children beaten, killed, and thrown in jail. And, through all this, Still They Rise!

It is because of the Black woman's strength, elegance, power, love and beauty that I could never date anyone except my Black Queen. It is not just the outer beauty that captivates and draws me to them. It is not the fact that they come in all shapes, sizes, colors and shades that I love them. Their inner beauty is what I find most appealing about Black women. Their strong spirit, loving and nurturing souls, their integrity, their ability to overcome great obstacles, their willingness to stand for what they believe in, and their determination to succeed and reach their highest potential while enduring great pain and suffering is why I have fallen in love with Black women.

I honestly believe that your anger is geared more toward jealousy and envy more so than snotty looks. If this were not so, then why do you continuously go to tanning salons to darken your skin? If you are so proud to be White, then why don't you just be happy with your skin? Why do you continue to inject your lips, hips, and butts with unnatural and dangerous substances so you can look fuller and more voluptuous? I think that your anger is really a result of you wanting to have what the Black woman has.

BOTTOM LINE: If I were looking for a docile woman, someone I can walk over and control, I would give you a call. But, unfortunately, I am looking for a Virtuous Woman. Someone that can be a good wife and mother to my children. Someone who can be my best friend and understands my struggles. I am looking for a soul mate. I am looking for a sister and; unfortunately, you do not and CANNOT fit the bill.

No offense taken, none given.

Signed, Black Royalty"

2009 Sportsman of the Year

2009-11-30T19:16:00.005-06:00

In what has already been a great year for New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, it got better still as he was named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year award. He was chosen as the magazine's 56th honoree as the December 7 issue will hit newsstands on Wednesday. Jeter also is the first Yankee to be named SI's Sportsman.

Jeter's selection caps another outstanding season for the 35-year-old team captain and future Hall of Famer. In 2009 he batted .334 while leading the Yankees to their fifth World Series title in his 14 full seasons, and their record 27th in franchise history. On September 11 he passed Lou Gehrig's franchise mark for base hits, which now stands at 2,747. Derek Jeter led the American League by reaching base 289 times, finished second in the league in hits (212), third in batting average and on-base percentage (.406), fourth in runs (107) and eighth in stolen bases (30). He was named an All-Star for the 10th time, including the sixth time as a starter. He won his fourth American League Silver Slugger as the best hitting shortstop in the league and his fourth Gold Glove as the league's top defensive shortstop.

He lived up to his reputation as a clutch player, batting .344 with a .432 on-base percentage, three home runs and six RBIs. He batted .407 in the World Series to lead the Yankees to a six-game victory over the defending world champion Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Jeter was named the American League recipient of the Hank Aaron Award, given to the best hitter in each league, and the winner of the Roberto Clemente Award, given to the player who best displays skill on the field while giving back to the community off it.

It was that combination of on and off-field achievement that helped make Jeter this year's winner. Derek Jeter has always presented himself with class. His Turn 2 Foundation is one of the most efficient, effective foundations of its kind; and he's extremely generous with not just his money but with his time.

Jeter is the first baseball player to win the award solo since Cal Ripken Jr. in 1995. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were co-winners in 1998, as were Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling in 2001. The Boston Red Sox won as a team in 2004. The Sportsman of the Year award has been given annually since Sport's Illustrated began publishing in 1954. The first winner was track star Roger Bannister, and subsequent honorees include Arnold Palmer (1960), Muhammad Ali (1974), Wayne Gretzky (1982), Michael Jordan (1991), Tiger Woods (1996 and 2000, the only two-time recipient), Lance Armstrong (2002) and Tom Brady (2005). Last year's winner was record-setting Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps.

Obama's Host First State Dinner

2009-11-25T16:56:00.007-06:00

President Barack Obama hosted the first state dinner of his administration last night and it was an evening of regal pageantry and symbolic politics in a tent on the White House South Lawn with a view of the Washington Monument. The president raised his glass toward his guest of honor, visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and toasted, "To the future that beckons all of us, let us answer its call. And let our two great nations realize all the triumphs and achievements that await us."

Dating back to 1874, state dinners are the most treasured and formal honor a U.S. president can offer a foreign dignitary, and the most coveted invitation in Washington. Traditionally, a new administration's first invitation goes to the leader of neighboring Canada or Mexico, though recent presidents also haven't followed that precedent. The dinner showed President Obama's intention to signal strong ties with India, the world's largest democracy, and go his own way in navigating the pomp and tradition of White House customs.

The event planned by First Lady Michelle Obama emphasized eco-friendly themes such as White House-grown herbs and lettuce served to guests and harvested magnolia branches -- from species native to both India and the United States -- in arrangements adorning the tent. The dinner was attended by more than 300 guests wearing tuxedos and gowns who were wined, dined and entertained. The guest list included political allies, a few opponents, celebrities and members of the Indian diplomatic community.

In a toast that followed the president's, Prime Minister Singh praised his host's leadership and prompted applause by citing the charm of the U.S. first lady. President Obama's election is "an inspiration to all those who cherish the values of diversity, democracy and equal opportunity," Singh said, adding that India "warmly applauded" the Nobel Peace Prize awarded President Obama for his calming effect and his leadership.

President Obama wore a black tuxedo, and the first lady wore a elegant strapless cream gown with silver accents gown by Indian-American designer Naeem Khan. Entertainment was by jazz vocalist Kurt Elling, Grammy and Academy Award-winner Jennifer Hudson, the National Symphony Orchestra directed by award-winning composer Marvin Hamlisch, Academy Award-winning Indian musician and composer A.R. Rahman, and The President's Own United States Marine Band.

Disney Goes Black

2009-11-24T21:40:00.009-06:00

In the 72 years since Walt Disney's animated version of Snow White captivated audiences as "the fairest of them all," there have only been eight Disney princesses. These movies, toys, dresses and figurines, the Disney princesses have become global icons of childhood. Sleeping Beauty awakened by a kiss, Cinderella's clock striking midnight, Belle waltzing in the Beast's castle, Ariel with Prince Eric in the moonlit lagoon. These have become heroines that parents the world over feel safe to let their young girls mimic. And while Disney has brought us non-White princesses before -- Mulan and Pocahontas -- the newest princesses is a first. Tiana is the first Disney princess in more than a decade, and the first ever to be Black. Tiana is a beautiful Black princess from New Orleans. Princess Tiana is also the first modern Disney princess.

Thge message of Tiana is that Black girls can be as elegant as Snow White herself. It is another milestone in U.S. national imagery. Tiana's appearance this holiday season, comes on the heels of Michelle Obama becoming the first lady, the Obama girls in the White House, and the first line of Barbie dolls modeled on Black women, will crown an extraordinaryt year of visibility for Black American women. Considering Disney's influence and marketing to young girls, Princess Tiana might become the symbol of a culture-changing standard of feminine beauty. And given the popularity of Disney princesses at the company's theme parks, Web sites and videos, you're looking at 30 or 40 years of repetition.

Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose voices Tiana. Other voices includes Oprah Winfrey and Terrence Howard. The Princess and the Frog opens in New York and Los Angeles November 25 and everywhere else on December 11. Tiana's doll and toy set were unveiled last month, and the Disney promotional machine is already humming.

Black Astronauts Conquering Space, the Final Frontier

2009-11-22T18:22:00.005-06:00

Orthopedic surgeon Robert Satcher put his skills to work in space, repairing a robotic arm on NASA’s International Space Station, thereby becoming the highest recorded orthopedic surgery ever. And by the way Mr. Satcher is the first orthopedic surgeon in space. He was selected by NASA in 2004 for the space program and completed astronaut candidate training in 2006. The mission specialist is one of six crew members on a mission to the International Space Station.

Before joining NASA, Robert Satcher was a professor at The Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. He also held an appointment as an attending physician in orthopaedic surgery at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, specializing in Musculoskeletal Oncology; and an adjunct appointment in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Northeastern University School of Engineering. He also completed numerous medical missions for outreach care to underserved areas in Nicaraugua, Venezuala, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Gabon.

Dr. Satcher has been active in numerous community organizations including Big Brother for Youth at Risk Counseling Program, Department of Corrections, San Francisco, California; Tutor for Black Student's Union Tutorial Program, MIT; National Society of Black Engineers; Supervising Adult for Cub Scout Camp for Boys, Nashville, Tennessee; Proctor for Freshman Dormitory at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Lay Episcopal Minister (primary responsibility is visiting sick and shut in members of church) at St. Edmund’s Episcopal Church, Chicago, Illinois and at St. James Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas.

Joining Satcher on this trip is fellow mission specialist Leland Melvin, who is an expert in fiber optics and aerospace structures and materials, especially in the development of launch vehicles for space. He has won eight NASA Outstanding Performance Awards, two NASA Superior Accomplishment Awards and the key to the City of Lynchburg. An avid sports enthusiastic and college athlete, Melvin was an NCAA Division I Academic All-American and is a University of Richmond Athletic Hall of Fame Inductee. He was chosen by the Detroit Lions in the 11th round of the 1986 NFL college draft, and he also participated in the Toronto Argonauts and Dallas Cowboys football training camps.

Mr. Melvin, who joined the astronaut training in August 1998, has served the Astronaut Office Space Station Operations Branch, the Education Department at NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C, and the Robotics Branch of the Astronaut Office. As co-manager of NASA's Educator Astronaut Program, Melvin traveled across the country, educating thousands of students and teachers about space exploration and encouraging them to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

On the Eve of Greatness? Sports Prodigies

2009-11-16T10:33:00.002-06:00

Confidence is one of the "big three" characteristics, along with composure and concentration, that young athletes need when competing at sports' highest levels. But there are "no perfect predictors" for what makes a phenom. Dakota Simms seems on track for greatness and is hoping the NBA changes its age requirement so he can go directly to the NBA from high school. His jump shot is masterful; a basketball fan might consider it art. He elevates through his legs, toes pointed downward and back straight, and strokes the ball toward the hoop, following through as if he were painting a wall with his fingertips.

Dakota practices the jumper and other elements of his game every day, staying at the gym until he makes at least 200 three-point shots with an NBA regulation ball. And Dakota is only 9. Some guys in the NBA who don't have form like that, "If he stays focused like he is right now, he'll write his own ticket," said ex-Atlanta Hawk and NBA Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins after he and the youngster met at Philips Arena's practice court for a friendly three-point shooting contest from the NBA arc.

Darryl Dawkins, like many teen sports prodigies, wasn't afraid to join the professional ranks as a youngster. He was emboldened by his size and imagination. A big man -- 6-10 in 1975 when the Philadelphia 76ers drafted him out of high school -- Dawkins wasn't in awe of the stars of the era. Dawkins, by all accounts, was expected to write his own ticket as well, but he was sidetracked by the temptations that often accompany fame and fortune. After the 18-year-old signed a seven-year contract for about $1 million -- a sum for which most of today's NBA players wouldn't sweep the gym floor -- he quickly immersed himself in "soft drugs" and women. His backboard-shattering dunks would earn him the moniker "Chocolate Thunder," but he also garnered a reputation for his playful demeanor and trash talking. He spun tales of his fictional "Planet Lovetron" and anointed his dunks with colorful names like "Turbo Sexophonic Delight" and "Spine Chiller Supreme."

Darryl Dawkins was a hit with fans, but dogged by injuries, he never statistically lived up to their towering expectations during his 14 seasons. He has no regrets, he said, because he entered the NBA to lift his family out of poverty. Now as head basketball coach at Lehigh Carbon Community College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, he tells his hoopsters to do as he says, not as he did. "You can be whatever you want to be. Nurse, doctor, lawyer, teacher -- we need all those, and those are going pro, too. You can be a doctor a lot longer than you can play ball," he tells his charges today.

The fate of a teen pro athlete hinges on a host of variables, and only one is sheer skill. Also important are breathing, coordination, communication, openness to feedback, built-in motivation, an understanding of hydration and nutrition, musculoskeletal development and the ability to recover from the rigors of exercise. Work ethic is important, too. While there are hundreds of examples of teens having average or workmanlike careers, there are also monumental busts and booms. At one end of the gamut, you have football's Todd Marinovich and tennis' Anna Kournikova, young athletes whose hype overshadowed their actual accomplishments. On the other end, you have Sydney Crosby and Lebron James, guys whose ages were never evident when they took the ice and court as teens.

Hoping to follow the leads of ballers like Leron James, Dakota Simms practices up to 14 hours a week, but outside his Herculean work ethic, Dakota is a typical kid. Terence Simms, his coach/father, and Kobe Bryant are his favorite basketball players. Cheeseburgers and hamburgers are his two favorite foods, in that order, and he enjoys writing stories and playing video games when he's not on the court. But talk to him about basketball and you'll hear some things atypical of 9-year-olds. "If you miss some shots, you've got to get your head right," said Dakota. "You've got to fix it. Nobody else is going to do it for you."

It's imperative that young athletes have focus, drive and the ability to reset their minds when they're off the playing field, but often overlooked is something that should be at the root of all sports. If fun isn't the key element at this point, that's what typically leads to burnout or change of sport. Having fun certainly helped Jonathan Spector. A member of the U.S. national soccer team who plays for England's Premiership squad West Ham United, Spector said it was hard to be homesick when he was doing something he loved. He moved to England in 2003 after Manchester United offered him a contract at age 17. "It's one of the best clubs in the world, and I was pursuing things I wanted to do so it was kind of hard to feel sorry for yourself," he said.

Spector had to acclimate quickly. Without his friends and family nearby, he faced new competition, different styles of play, constant travel and, of course, the pressure of 40,000 spectators watching. He said he thrives on pressure. Rachele Fico is not easily rattled, either. A softball pitcher with a rise ball her father described as "murder," Fico began receiving letters of interest as soon as she took the mound in high school. Pitches clocked at 64 mph catch recruiters' attention, and Fico was throwing curveballs at 68 her junior year. Louisiana State University signed Fico last year, before she even tossed a pitch her senior season (she later shattered the national high school record for career perfect games).
Ralph Fico said his daughter owes her success to her unflappable bearing and to her diligence -- she has thrown about 30,000 pitches a year since she was 9.

Athletes who hone these coping attributes at an early age are better able to deal with fear and pressure at higher levels as adults. Making great athletes is good, but making great people is much better. A pro sports career is only going to be so long. You are going to be around for a much longer time as people. Ultimately, teams want the best person out of the deal.

Josh Cribbs Walks with Late Coach's Son on Senior Night

2009-11-15T19:01:00.002-06:00

In another bad year for the Cleveland Browns, wide receiver/returner Josh Cribbs has proved to be one of the only bright spots. Recently he showed he's equally good off the field as well. The Pro Bowler traveled to Berea, Ohio for senior night to walk onto the field with the son of one of his former college coaches.

Michael Drake, a senior receiver at Stow High School, lost his father, Mike, in 2005 to lymphoma. He had assumed he'd be accompanied by his mother and sister for senior night introductions and was stunned when he saw Cribbs arrive minutes before the game. Cribbs offered him advice before his final game.

Michael's late father recruited Josh to play at Kent State and served as a father figure to the Washington, D.C. native during his time at Kent. Mike Drake was the offensive coordinator at Kent State during Cribbs's freshman and sophomore seasons. Josh Cribbs played quarterback in college and credits Drake for helping him develop the fundamentals that he still uses today. So, when the idea of returning for senior night was mentioned to Cribbs this summer, he didn't hesitate.

It says a lot about the character of Josh Cribbs. He apparently didn't feel the need to talk about it publicly and neither did the media. It seems they only talk about negative incidents with athletes. Similarly, Drake's mother is quoted as saying that Cribbs took great pains to underplay his presence at the game for fear of taking away the spotlight from Michael and the other seniors. This shows a humility that everyone, including professional football players, could stand to emulate.

I will be cheering for Josh Cribbs, if not the Cleveland Browns, from this point on.

Viola Vaughn and 10,000 Girls

2009-11-14T20:10:00.002-06:00

Viola Vaughn’s 26-year-old daughter’s sudden death left her to care for five grandchildren. The Detroit native had worked in Africa for most of her life and considered it home, so she and her husband returned there to raise their grandchildren.

Soon after their move to rural Kaolack, Senegal, in 2000, Vaughn's husband -- jazz musician Sam Sanders -- died of black lung. Amid her grief, she found comfort in her grandchildren, ages 4 to 12, and filled her days home-schooling them. Her success soon garnered attention from the locals.

There was a little girl that her granddaughter played with and kept coming around wanting to be taught with Ms. Vaughn grandchildren. She went to see this child's mother, and her mother said she had already failed school once, that she couldn't pass because she wasn't smart enough. Well she was smart enough to come to someone who could help. Within two weeks, Vaughn had 20 girls in her house who were failing school and asking her to teach them. She learned that the regional pass rate for girls was low because it was rooted in the economic need of young girls to work at home. They begin missing classes, then failing exams, often ultimately failing or dropping out of school. So in 2001, Vaughn turned her grandchildren's bedrooms into classrooms and began supplementing girls' education.

Viola Vaughn found each girl a girl younger than she and and taught them how to teach each other. In two years, the group of girls had grown to 80 -- and they were succeeding in school. With a grant, Vaughn was able to hire teachers, and the program continued to expand despite her attempt to set a limit of 100 girls. The girls wanted to take it to 10,000. To keep their "10,000 Girls" education program going, the girls asked Vaughn to teach them to bake. They began selling cookies and juice and were able to buy books and supplies. Soon they got their older sisters, aunts and cousins -- who had already failed out of the school system -- involved in baking and selling goods. The entrepreneurial element of the program was born.

Today, in addition to a pastry shop and catering business, "10,000 Girls" runs a sewing workshop and the girls export their handmade dolls and household linens overseas. Half of the funds from these projects go back to the girls; the remainder supports the education program. More than 1,500 girls are involved in the program in six locations; about 1,000 are waiting to join. They have girls who were told they'd never get through high school who are attend universities now. They hope that if they get 10,000 girls out there, 1,000 girls will come back to Kaolack and work, which would revolutionize the region.

All these girls needed was someone to show them how valued they are. Our education system is failing not only because of a bad education system, or bad teachers but also due to bad parents. Until we, the parents, start treating teachers with respect and teachers start treating our children with respect, no amount of changes or money will fix our education problem. Education is the base of development anywhere, so maybe Ms. Vaughn could return to her hometown of Detroit and other U.S. cities, where the school system is deteriorating year after year, to educate the educators on this type of peer-support teaching structure.

It’s good to read about people being empowered, and taking that empowerment to the next level by passing on to other people. This is exactly how it should be done -- people helping each other, giving what they can. If everyone did this, helping just a little bit in their own circles, as their own time and resources allow, then no one person has to save the world alone. The answer is in the passion and commitment shown by Viola, and the enthusiasm of the children and their family members. Where is that passion, commitment and enthusiasm in the U.S.? The only passion people seem to feel is for consuming material goods and watching tv. We need to get off our butts, people, and make things happen!

Now, can we bring her home, and put her in charge of the National Education system?

Hootie Is Country Music's New Artist of the Year

2009-11-12T23:04:00.004-06:00

Last night Darius Rucker became the first Black singer to win New Artist of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards, joining the legendary Charley Pride as the only Blacks to win a major individual award. He took the stage to wild cheers from the crowd. Charley Pride won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist in 1971-72. Rucker’s first country album, "Learn to Live," sold more than 1 million copies.

Darius Rucker is best known for his role as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the band Hootie & the Blowfish since its formation in 1986. Along with his work in Hootie & the Blowfish. Rucker has recorded two solo albums. The first, Back to Then, was released in 2002 on Hidden Beach Recordings. Then Learn to Live followed in 2008 on Capitol Records Nashville. Its first three singles — "Don't Think I Don't Think About It", "It Won't Be Like This for Long" and "Alright" — have all reached Number One on the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart.

As the frontman, Rucker began to be called simply "Hootie" in the media and brought additional attention as the sole Black member of a rock band with otherwise White members. Musically, he was sometimes criticized or spoofed for not being "black enough". He also received death threats for singing the Hootie song "Drowning," a protest song against the flying of the Confederate flag above his native South Carolina statehouse.

In 2001, he made his solo R&B debut album, The Return of Mongo Slade, for Atlantic Records. Because of contractual changes, it was never released by the label. Hidden Beach Recordings, an independent label, acquired the masters from Atlantic and released the album as Back to Then in July 2002. The album included work from the production team of Jill Scott (A Touch of Jazz) and she made an appearance on the track "Hold On."

Darius Rucker made his debut in the famous Grand Ole Opry in July 2008. "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" reached Top 20 on the country charts in July 2008, making him the first Black singer to reach Top 20 on the country charts since Charley Pride in 1988. The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, Black artist to chart a number one country hit since Pride's "Night Games" in 1988.

Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009, and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009. Its lead single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It", gave Rucker his first chart-topping country hit and was certified gold. The album's next single, "It Won't Be Like This for Long", spent three weeks at the top of the country charts in mid 2009. Its follow-up, "Alright", became Rucker's third straight number one hit, making him the first country music singer to have his or her first three singles reach number one since Wynonna Judd did in 1992. The album's fourth single, "History in the Making," was released in September. When Rucker found that "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" went to number one, he cried.

Darius Rucker is close friends with golfer Tiger Woods; they met in a bar when Woods was 18. Rucker sang at the golfer's wedding and at his father's funeral.

Alabama Town Celebrates Obama Holiday

2009-11-11T18:33:00.003-06:00

Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner Jr. (left) and Rep. Bobby Singleton await Obama Day golf tournament.

The Perry County courthouse sign read "Closed for the Obama Holiday." The rural county recently proclaimed an official holiday celebrating the election of the nation's first Black president, Barack Obama. It's one of Alabama's poorest counties, but sparred little during five days of festivities.

County employees, as well as city workers in Marion and Uniontown, will got a paid holiday Monday as government offices close, culminating a series of events including an old-fashioned civil rights rally and march, a golf tournament, a weekend carnival and a parade Monday through Marion.

Perry County is located in the heart of the economically depressed Black Belt region named for its rich soil. The county has a population of only a little over 11,000 residents, and an unemployment rate of more than 18 percent, one of the highest in the state.

County Commissioner Brett Harrison, who cast the lone "no" vote when the commission voted 4-1 to set up the holiday, questions adding a paid day off in such a poor county. He said the county already had 14 paid holidays and it didn't seem like the right time for such an ambitious event in the middle of a recession.

The Obama holiday was proposed by Commissioner Albert Turner Jr., whose father was one of the marchers beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" voting rights march in Selma. Many of the marchers were from Marion and were upset about the shooting death of Jimmie Lee Jackson during an earlier demonstration in the town. Perry County wanted to let the nation know the role the county played in protests that led to passage of the Voting Rights Act. Commissioner Turner said, "It's not that we're celebrating Obama. We're celebrating America living up to it's creed that all men are created equal."

Activities included a jamboree at Marion Military Institute, where high school students from public and private schools in three counties had a chance to meet with representatives of colleges from across the Southeast and were given instructions on how to apply for college.

The host of the golf tournament, state Senator Bobby Singleton said he hopes publicity surrounding the holiday will help lure new industry and jobs to the region.

Cowboys in Queens

2009-11-04T11:37:00.004-06:00

You probably wouldn't expect young men from the streets of Brooklyn to escape their “wild west” environments by riding horses and hanging out with cowboys at a rugged 25-acre ranch in nearby Queens. But that is exactly what is happening at Cedar Lane Stables. The Federation of Black Cowboys, founded in 1994, has called Cedar Lane home since 1998.

A white post-and-rail fence separates the property and its three dozen horses from the commuter traffic at the intersection of Linden Boulevard and Conduit Avenue. A red, wooden sign at the stable's entrance advertises "reins & things" at Debbie's Western Boutique. And a wide wooden bridge takes you to the riding ring and stables, many of which have been converted from metal shipping containers.

Twenty year old Paris "Rabbit" Parrish has ridden with the Black cowboys since he was 8 years old. He remembers when he and his mother were driving on Linden Boulevard and first saw Jessie Lee "Captain" Wise, one of the federation's 11 founders, riding his horse. And yelled mama, look, it’s a cowboy; so they pulled over, and talked to him, and Captain told young Paris to come on down to the stable. And Rabbit has been riding ever since.

Fifteen year old D’vonte “Boney D” Jemmott’s mother has been taking him to Cedar Lane Stables since he was a toddler. Like Rabbit, Boney D lives in a neighborhood that is filled with gangs, narcotics and violence. Both are confident that would be in jail or with a gang without the guidance of the local cowboys. Keeping youngsters away from gangs, guns and drugs is a top federation priority. Federation president Stencil “Doctor D” Stokes says they they see the Bloods. They see the Crips. All they see is violence. They can come here at night without worrying about getting shot. The kids love it, Texas in Queens. This is like an oasis in the middle of the city, says cowgirl Heather Bradley, whom the children call "Ma."

The federation has mentored a child who went on to become a veterinarian and another who is a New York mounted police officer, but Doctor D doesn't have unrealistic expectations of the children, because the primary goal is to keep them safe. Education is a staple at the stables, according to Warren "Black Red" Small, who said that taking care of a horse is a lot like taking care of yourself. Youngsters aren't allowed to ride until they first learn how to groom the animals, clean their hooves, saddle and bridle them and, yes, clean their stalls.

The federation also teaches children about "the forgotten Black West" because it's important that kids know the role Blacks played in taming the Wild West. Cowboys such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy too often dominate popular cowboy lore, but they were not the first. The federation teaches youngsters about Bill Pickett, who invented steer wrestling, and the aggressive "Stagecoach" Mary Fields, whose nickname was derived from her reliability in delivering mail across a wild and rugged Montana frontier.

History, for all people, is a necessary part of their evolution and their growing process. The group's first female inductee, Kesha "Babygirl" Morse, said "also necessary is working with kids to find a balance for them between the macho man stuff and being a gentleman." Thousands of kids have come through the stables via various school programs and community functions since 1998. And many have come back for mentoring.

Like any nonprofit, the federation survives off donations. Major corporations have donated to the cause, and co-founder Jessie Lee Wise has tapped his own excavating business to help with upkeep and construction at the stables. But times are hard, said Eric "Little Red" Jackson, and the cowboys could sorely use a sponsor to continue their work. Several stables are in disrepair, and the federation's future museum is presently a dilapidated trailer containing photos, animal hides and memorabilia and artifacts. In Southern California there is a similar program -"The Compton Jr. Posse". Here’s to groups like the Federation of Black Cowboys and their continued success. Keep up the good work y'all....

Notable Black Cowboys
William "Bill" Pickett (1870-1932) -- Credited with inventing steer wrestling, a popular rodeo event. Legend has it that Pickett, inspired by the bulldogs used to herd the steer, rode alongside a bull, leapt off his horse, grabbed it by the horns and bit the animal on the side of the mouth, bringing it to the ground.

"Stagecoach" Mary Fields (1832-1914) – AKA Mary Fields and Black Mary. Her skill at hitching a team of horses to a stagecoach earned her the honor of being the first Black woman to deliver the U.S. mail. A poem attributed to her says she was 6-feet tall, weighed 200 pounds, smoked a "big, black cigar" and carried a pistol. Mary got her nickname at the turn of the 20th Century. She earned this nickname by working for “Wells Fargo” delivering the U. S. Mail through adverse conditions that would have discouraged the most hardened frontiersmen of her time. She never missed a day for 8 years, carrying the U. S. Mail and other important documents that helped settle the wild open territory of central west Montana. She could knock out any man with one punch. Despite Mary's hardness, she had another side of her, a kindness so strong, even today, the town of Cascade, Montana, and other surrounding communities celebrate her birthday. http://www.stagecoachmary.net

Bass Reeves (1838-1910) -- First Black deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi River. He patrolled the lawless Indian Territory and was hired because of his knowledge of tribal languages and his acumen for disguise. He is credited with arresting more than 3,000 outlaws.

Nat Love (1854-1921) -- Also called "Deadwood Dick," Love was born a slave in Tennessee. He made his mark as a cowboy in Dodge City, Kansas, and in his autobiography talks of fighting native Americans, roping mustangs and sharing drinks with Billy the Kid.

And of course there were the Buffalo Soldiers (9th and 10th Cavalry). The 7th Cavalry got their butts in a sling again after the Little Big Horn Massacre, fourteen years later, the day after the Wounded Knee Massacre. If it wasn't for the 9th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers, there would have been a second massacre of the 7th Cavalry. Read, and visit site/great military history, http://www.rescueatpineridge.com

REAL MEN CRY TOO

2009-10-25T16:34:00.004-05:00

Men are taught to be strong hold their tears. We have been taught to be strong and show no emotions, but the Word of God said that Jesus cried.

Meet the New Black Barbie

2009-10-24T00:50:00.004-05:00

Meet Beyoncé-style Barbie from Mattel's new So In Style line of dolls. Barbie fans are giving the toy maker credit for trying to create a doll that fairly depicts today's Black woman. The new line of darker-skinned Barbie friends are a vast improvement over Mattel's notorious "Colored Francie" of the 1960s, but they're still not quite Michelle Obama.

Stacy McBride-Irby, creator of the new Barbie, poses with the dolls.

Make no mistake, Mattel hopes to profit from the surge of interest in Black dolls. The Black Barbies with their neon wardrobes from the 1980s have become a favorite in Canada. Designed by Stacey McBride-Irby, Grace, Kara and Trichelle were created to fill a void for young Black girls who for so long have been playing with dolls that don't look like them. These dolls differ from the original Barbie and her family and friends. The new black Barbies released by Mattel have fuller lips, curlier hair and other features that the company says more accurately represent Black American women, but you can't make everyone happy. Some have cheered the new dolls. Others jeered them, saying they're not Black enough. Others disagree with critics who say the dolls should have had more natural black hairstyles, such as afros or braids. It's hard to encompass all Black people in three dolls.

The dolls have "Beyoncé-looking" long hair that can be curled and styled. And focus groups persuaded McBride-Irby to curl Trichelle's hair. But she wanted to create dolls little girls would play with. Next season, Ms. McBride-Irby will deliver an even darker-skinned Barbie pal named Sandra to increase the "diversity." This is not the first time Mattel has released an ethnic doll that drew criticism. In 1997, Mattel collaborated with cookie maker Nabisco to create Oreo Fun Barbie. The Black version of the doll, which sported an Oreo-shaped purse, was criticized by some who noted that "Oreo" is a derogatory term in the Black community. You know someone who is perceived as Black on the outside and White on the inside. Barbie has had a Black friend, Christie, since 1968. The first collector Black Barbies turned up in the 1980s, looking identical to the White-skinned originals. Barbie acquired three Black friends briefly in the early 1990s, the "Shani" dolls that supposedly looked more "ethnic."

Actress Nia Long, who appears in comedian Chris Rock's new documentary, "Good Hair," recently said, "Historically, the Afrocentric features have not been celebrated. This makes us question the integrity of our beauty standard for ourselves."

The new "little sisters" are designed to inspire Black teens to mentor younger girls, either their own sisters or in the community. Each doll also matches an academic side. Kara, for example, is into "math and music."

I say it's about time...Why should White girls get to keep all the Body Dysmorphic Disorder for themselves! Black girls want to hate their bodies too! If Barbie were life size at her current proportions, she would be unable to stand upright, due to her unrealistic assets. So while it's great that they are making Barbie multicultural, and easier to associate with, it would be great if there were actually a doll that celebrated realistic human figures. Instead of telling little girls they have to be thin and white to be pretty, they just have to be thin.

For those who say that the new Barbie are unrealistic and not Black enough, I say, Of course the Black Barbie is unrealistic. It's a BARBIE! Your little girl is never going to look like Barbie, whether she is Black, White, Brown, Yellow or Red. They are a fantasy and almost every girl loves Barbie.

Indeed, I think it's a wonderful idea that little Black girls can have dolls that "look more like them". However, it's not like the White Barbie dolls are accurate representations of the White (or ANY) female anatomy nor do they capture all the different hair types or styles White women have.

Whether Black or White, the Barbie doll is a very poor representation of the female body and that may have more impact on little girls than the hair type, texture or even facial features. So if you're going to complain about the doll why not start with universal "issues", such as the unrealistic body? Besides, many of these complaints are coming from women with “good hair”, you know, weaves and relaxed hair. All women come in different shades, shapes, and varieties too. If there is such a call for a 'Blacker' Barbie, another company will probably make it. The thing about Barbie is that she represents a type of beauty than most living women do not, Black, Brown, Red, White or Yellow.

DEATH OF A BLACK WOMAN

2009-10-19T19:34:00.009-05:00

While struggling with the reality of being a human instead of a myth, the strong Black woman passed away.
Medical sources say she died of natural causes, but those who knew her know.

She died from being silent when she should have been screaming, smiling when she should have been raging, from being sick and not wanting anyone to know because her pain might inconvenience them.
She died from an overdose of other people clinging to her when she didn't even have energy for herself.

She died from loving men who didn't love themselves and could only offer her a crippled reflection.
She died from raising children alone.

She died from the lies her grandmother told her mother and her mother told her about life, men & racism.

She died from being sexually abused as a child and having to take that truth everywhere she went every day of her life, exchanging the humiliation for guilt and back again.

She died from asphyxiation, coughing up blood from secrets she kept trying to burn away instead of allowing herself the kind of nervous breakdown she was entitled to, but only White girls could afford.

She died from being responsible, because she was the last rung on the ladder and there was no one under her she could dump on.

The strong black woman is dead.

She died from being a mother at 15 and a grandmother at 30 and an ancestor at 45.

She died from being dragged down and sat upon by un-evolved women posing as sisters and friends.

She died from tolerating Mr. Pitiful, just to have a man around the house.

She died from sacrificing herself for everybody and everything when what she really wanted to do was be a singer, a dancer, or some magnificent other.

She died from lies of omission because she didn't want to bring the Black man down.

She died from tributes from her counterparts who should have been matching her efforts instead of showering her with dead words and empty songs.

She died from myths that would not allow her to show weakness without being chastised by the lazy and hazy.

She died from hiding her real feelings until they became hard and bitter enough to invade her womb and breasts like angry tumors.

She died from always lifting something from heavy boxes to refrigerators all by herself.

The strong Black woman is dead.

She died from never being enough of what men wanted, or being too much for the men she wanted.

She died from being too Black and died again for not being Black enough.

She died from being misinformed about her mind, her body & the extent of her royal capabilities.

She died from knees pressed too close together because respect was never part of the foreplay that was being shoved at her.

She died from loneliness in birthing rooms and aloneness in abortion centers.

She died in bathrooms with her veins busting open with self-hatred and neglect.

And sometimes when she refused to die, when she just refused to give in she was killed by the lethal images of blond hair, blue eyes and flat butts.

Sometimes, she was stomped to death by racism & sexism, executed by hi-tech ignorance while she carried the family in her belly, the community on her head, and the race on her back!

Is the strong Black woman is dead?
No she is not, not if she's reading this!

Pass this on to all the strong Black women (and men) so that they will love, respect, and admire "The Strong Black Woman"!

Band Aid to New Orleans Youth

2009-10-11T22:49:00.006-05:00

Derrick Tabb has found a way to transform New Orleans youth from troublemakers to music players. He doesn't look the part of a typical band teacher, but every weekday evening in the French Quarter, he beats out the rhythm on his music stand as students play their chosen instruments. In doing so, he gives them an alternative to New Orleans' rough streets. He is competing with the drug dealers and gang bangers. His program, The Roots of Music, offers free tutoring, instruments and music education to more than 100 students.

Students credit Derrick Tabb with changing their lives. Many who were failing in school and heading down the wrong road now have plans to make music their careers and some even want to teach it themselves some day.

Derrick Tabb can relate. During a rebellious phase in junior high, his band teacher became his mentor and helped him get back on track. He is a professional drummer with the Rebirth Brass Band, one of the New Orleans’ most popular acts. The 34-year-old Tabb, a New Orleans native, strives to keep young people on the straight and narrow in the city with the nation's highest murder rate, according to FBI statistics.

He believes that many young people wind up in trouble because they have nothing else to do. The type of music support systems that helped him years ago has been struggling since Hurricane Katrina. Musicians scattered after the storm and budget cuts ended many school music programs.

Mr. Tabb chose to target 9 to 14-year-olds with his program because that's just the most vulnerable time of your life. He feels that if he catches them now, he can hold onto them for at least four or five years and guide them toward a positive path.

Students meet from 4-7 p.m. every weekday, year-round. They work with tutors on schoolwork, practice their music and eat a hot meal before heading home. Through funding from donations and sponsors, the group is able to provide bus transportation, instruments and food for free. He calls it his "no excuse" policy -- "you don't have any excuse why you're not here." With a 90 percent attendance rate, his formula is working.

Mr. Tabb attributes the success in part to the nature of music. "You're constantly learning something new," he said. "That's what keeps the kids coming back every day."

Since getting underway last year, The Roots of Music has already exceeded his expectations. The band marched in five Mardi Gras parades this season. The program also helped students improve their academic performances, with 85 percent having raised their grades in at least one class; some D and F students have become A students. And there are more than 400 children on the waiting list.

No previous musical experience is necessary -- many students don't even know the names of the instruments when they start -- but youngsters learn fast and it’s fun. But the program isn't only about fun. They also learn discipline and how hard work pays off. He insists on good behavior and keeps kids in order with threats of sit-ups, pushups or tasks like picking up grains of rice -- but these measures aren't just punishment. Discipline aside, Derrick Tabb wants young people to realize that music can help them build a better future.

Want to get involved? Check out The Roots of Music and see how to help.

http://www.therootsofmusic.com/

Bill Cosby: Still Bill, Still Correct

2009-10-10T16:51:00.002-05:00

Sent to me in an email:

Bill Cosby has a great way of distilling things. Looks like he's done it again!

I HAVE DECIDED TO BECOME A WRITE-IN CANDIDATE. HERE IS MY PLATFORM:

(1) 'Press 1 for English' is immediately banned. English is the official language. Speak it or wait at the border until you can.

(2) We will immediately go into a two year isolationist posture to straighten out the country's attitude. NO imports, no exports. We will use the Wal-Mart policy, 'If we ain't got it, you don't need it.'

(3) When imports are allowed, there will be a 100% import tax on it.

(4) All retired military personnel will be required to man one of our many observation towers on the southern border (six month tour). They will be under strict orders not to fire on SOUTHBOUND aliens.

(5) Social security will immediately return to its original state. If you didn't put nuttin in, you ain't gettin nuttin out. Neither the president nor any other politician will be able to touch it.

(6) Welfare - Checks will be handed out on Fridays at the end of the 40 hour school week and the successful completion of urinalysis and a passing grade.

(7) Professional Athletes--Steroids. The FIRST time you check positive you're banned for life.

(8) Crime - We will adopt the Turkish method, the first time you steal, you lose your right hand. There are no more life sentences. If convicted of murder, you will be put to death by the same method you chose for your victim; gun, knife, strangulation, etc.

(9) One export will be allowed, Wheat. The world needs to eat. A bushel of wheat will be the exact price of a barrel of oil.

(10) All foreign aid using American taxpayer money will immediately cease, and the saved money will pay off the national debt and ultimately lower taxes. When disasters occur around the world, we'll ask the American people if they want to donate to a disaster fund, and each citizen can make the decision whether it's a worthy cause.

(11) The Pledge of Allegiance will be said every day at school and every day in Congress.

(12) The National Anthem will be played at all appropriate ceremonies, sporting events, outings, etc.

Sorry if I stepped on anyone's toes

GOD BLESS AMERICA

Bill Cosby

Surprise! Saints' Defense the Story

2009-10-05T08:48:00.001-05:00

I know, I know, but I just couldn’t resist. WHO DAT!

No, I’m not surprised the New Orleans Saints won, but the stunner is that they won with DEFENSE. The New York Jets entered Sunday as the defensive powerhouse, not the offensive minded Saints. It is the personality of Rex Ryan's aggressive Jets defense to play the bully in games, knocking people off the ball and back on their heels with superior physicality. This time the bully was the Saints, and the Jets were the team getting pushed around. I thought last week’s display of defense by the Saints was a fluke, but it looks like the new reality is that the New Orleans Saints can win games with its defense just as easily as it can with its high-powered offense. Looks like these Saints aren't lopsided, or lacking in physicality, any more. Defense is no longer a dirty word in New Orleans.

The game was billed as the Jets attacking defense versus the Saints attacking offense. But it turns out that the Saints had four sacks and harassed Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez into four turnovers -- three interceptions and a fumble lost in his own end zone like. The Saints defense actually out-scored both the entire Jets team and the New Orleans offense 14-10, with Saints safety Darren Sharper setting a team-record with a 99-yard interception return for his team's first touchdown in the second quarter, and backup defensive tackle Remi Ayodele recovering a Sanchez fumble in the end zone to make it 17-0. The Jets rallied to make a game of it in the second half with the next 10 points, New Orleans wound up picking off Sanchez twice more in the final two quarters (Sharper again and cornerback Randall Gay), and added a game-clinching 74-yard, 11-play touchdown drive on offense in the middle of the fourth quarter.

Saints defenders afterward said first-year New Orleans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams spent all week stressing to his team that the game against New York would be a 60-minute fight, and nothing short of out-hitting the contact-loving Jets would get the job done. Clearly these aren't your father's Saints. For the second week in a row, New Orleans won a game on the backs of its defense, following up last week's impressive 27-7 victory at Buffalo, when quarterback Drew Brees threw for less than 200 yards for the first time in 23 games. Brees has started a new streak for himself, because against the Jets he was 20 of 32 for 190 yards, with no touchdowns for a second week in a row. (Not good for me – he is my fantasy league quarterback – but just win baby).

As much credit as Coach Williams deserves for the new-look Saints defense, nobody epitomizes its on-field production as much as 13-year veteran safety Darren Sharper, who signed a one-year deal with New Orleans during free agency. Sharper's two picks against the Jets give him a league-leading five in four games -- New Orleans also paces the NFL with 10 interceptions and 13 takeaways -- and he has already posted two of the longest three interception returns in team history. His 97-yard pick-six at Philadelphia closed out a New Orleans rout in Week 2. His 10th career touchdown on interception return put him second behind the NFL's career leader, Rod Woodson (12).

This is the kind of game the Saints never won in the past unless their offense put up its usual 34 points or so. But those days are rapidly becoming a memory. But in two weeks, after they take their Week 5 bye, the Saints have another glamour matchup at the Superdome to gear up for. The Giants, who will likely be 5-0 after a home game against The Oakland Raiders next week, are the next team that will test the validity of New Orleans' new-found strength. The Giants will come to New Orleans with a full head of steam. Maybe so, but full head of steam or not, nobody's pushing these Saints around any more. The tough-talking Jets tried it on Sunday, and the Saints -- have learned to push back.

A New York, New York doubleheader of domination, anyone? WHO DAT!!!

Child Rape Survivor Helps Other Virgin Myth Victims

2009-10-02T14:01:00.012-05:00

Hope was 14 years old when her uncle raped her. He trapped her to the ground and covered her mouth with his hand, then threatened to kill her if she ever told anybody. So, she kept quiet. A few months later people around the villages started saying that that she looked pregnant. Hope was not only pregnant, but her uncle had infected her with HIV. Like many young girls in Zimbabwe, Hope was the victim of a widely held belief that if a man with HIV or AIDS rapes a virgin he will be cured of his disease. This so-called virgin myth, perpetuated by Zimbabwe's traditional “healers”, has led to the rape of hundreds of girls, according to UNICEF. Some of these victims are too young to walk, much less protect themselves.

Betty Makoni has fought for nearly a decade to protect her country's young girls from sexual abuse. And she's witnessed some of the worst cases of the myth in action. The youngest girl she ever came across was a day-old baby who was raped. Through her Girl Child Network (GCN), Makoni has helped rescue 35,000 girls from abuse -- including now 18-year-old Hope. Ten girls per day report rape cases, which means that if unchecked, at least 3,600 girls per year may be contracting HIV and AIDS."

Ms. Makoni's own tragic experiences fuel her fierce determination. She was raped when she was 6 years old. Her attacker was a local shopkeeper. Her mother would not allow her to report the abuse. "She said, 'Shh, we don't say that in public,' " Makoni remembered. Betty Makoni had no shoulder to cry on. Three years later, she witnessed her father murder her mother. In that moment, Makoni said she realized the potentially deadly consequence of a woman's silence. She told herself that no girl or woman will suffer the same again.

Believing an education would provide her the best opportunity and means to speak out, Betty Makoni earned two university degrees and became a teacher. While teaching, she noticed that girls were dropping out of school at an alarming rate. She approached her students with an idea. “Let's have our own space where we talk and find solutions," Makoni said. Girl Child Network was born. By the end of the first year, there were 100 GCN clubs throughout Zimbabwe where girls could find support. Ms. Makoni said she was not surprised: "Every woman and girl identified with the issues that we were raising," she said.

In 2000, she quit her teaching job to volunteer with GCN full time. The following year she successfully procured a piece of land and opened the organization's first empowerment village, designed to provide a haven for girls who have been abused. Girls are either rescued or referred to the village by social services, the police and the community. The healing begins as soon as a girl arrives. In the first 72 hours, a girl is provided with emergency medication, reinstatement in school, as well as counseling.

It is important to her that the girls are in charge of their own healing. "It gives them the confidence to transform from victims to leaders," she explained. The process helps the girls work through the times when many thought their life had come to an end. Today, GCN has grown to 700 girls' clubs and three empowerment villages across Zimbabwe. An estimated 300,000 girls have received assistance.

But for Betty Makoni, speaking out came with a high personal cost. In 2008, she was forced to flee her native country. She left Zimbabwe because her life was in danger as a result of her project being interpreted politically. Today, she lives with her family in the United Kingdom. She still serves as executive director of her organization and shows no signs of slowing down. GCN has partnered with the DOVE project, a group based in Essex, England, that deals with domestic violence. "We are now bringing the girls from a local community to the international scene," she said. Her efforts in Zimbabwe are highlighted in the film documentary, Tapestries of Hope.

It's disappointing to know that grown men are foolish enough to believe in such nonsense and will take to raping infants and toddlers in a ridiculous attempt to save themselves. Yes, if these men, and I use the term loosely, were educated they would know better than to believe that raping a child cures AIDS. But even if they DO believe that, it still doesn't explain why they are evil enough to go through with raping a child. This is absolutely horrific and depressing! I can't fathom anyone perpetrating such atrocities towards other people, especially newborn babies! Lack of education or not, ignorance is no excuse for such depravity! There needs to be justice and everyone involved in such horrific and unimaginable crimes SHOULD FACE “REAL” JUSTICE.

In Tanzania, Albinos fear for their lives because some "traditional healer" says using their body parts for ritual sacrifice will bring them lots of money. We are talking about another human being hunted down like an animal to be killed and sacrificed. Just recently in Nigeria, there was a case of the wife of some newspaper owner who beheaded a young boy as sacrifice in order to cure her ailing children. And stuff like this isn't just Africans - the Germans in WWII camps used to put virgins in bed with frozen corpses in the hope that they would thaw out and come back to life.

While this is terribly sad, we need to recognize that it happens everywhere, including the U.S. Maybe not for the same reasons, i.e. the virgin myth, but child molestations happen in the U.S. daily. 1 in 3 girls is molested before her 18th birthday and 1 in 5-6 boys, across the United States.

Want to get involved? Check out the Girl Child Network and Promise Place to see how to help.
http://www.promiseplace.net
http://www.girlchildnetworkworldwide.org

The Best College Quarterback You’ve Never Heard Of

2009-10-01T10:22:00.003-05:00

He is a college football player so talented and productive it's almost impossible to believe he's most college football fans have never heard of him. But Texas A&M junior quarterback Jerrod Johnson has outperformed the nation’s most elite quarterbacks. He has become one of the most mature and grounded athletes in big-time sports. He runs like Ohio State’s Terrelle Pryor, leads like Texas’ Colt McCoy, throws like Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford, has the tough-mindedness and character like Florida’s Tim Tebow. But television cameras have not televised one of his monstrous games. The director has not demanded that cameras capture every facial expression and emotion of Jerrod Johnson's mother, girlfriend or neighbors. Stick Jerrod Johnson in Tim Tebow's uniform, and after the numbers he is putting up the Heisman race would be over. But his coming out party figures to come this Saturday, when the 3-0 Aggies take on Arkansas at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium.

Jerrod Johnson doesn't drink, and never has tried anything stronger than Advil when it comes to drugs. His name is often misspelled or mispronounced. It's Jerrod, as in ja-ROD. He is wrongly compared to Vince Young or JaMarcus Russell, mostly because he is a big quarterback and Black. He is more polished as a passer, a smooth runner and often the smartest player on the field. (Don’t say it).

He made an early impression on the Aggies program over the summer as he entered his first full season as the starting quarterback. He woke up at 5 a.m. everyday for boot camp-type workouts. He telephoned incoming freshman and encouraged them to meet for 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 practices with veterans. He held meetings with every offensive player, meticulously using a laser pointer to go over individual assignments on every play in the Aggies playbook.

Jerrod Johnson has put a once-great football program that finished 4-8 a year ago on his shoulders. He leads the nation's No. 1 offense, and through leadership and on-field production, he is carrying the Aggies back to respectability. He stands 6-foot-6 and weighs 245 pounds. He is a powerful runner with a deceptive and long stride. He can throw the ball 70 yards, with ease. At the Peyton Manning camp over the summer, he beat McCoy, Bradford, Greg McElroy and a couple dozen other Division I quarterbacks in a passing skills competition.

Comparisons? He averages twice as many passing yards (320.3 to 160.7) as Tebow. He has three times more rushing yards (196 to 61), more rushing touchdowns (4 to 1) and a higher passer rating (167.0 to 150.9) than McCoy. He's thrown more touchdown passes (9), with a higher completion percentage (67.5), than Ryan Mallett, Jacory Harris and Terrelle Pryor. He averages more total offense per game (385.6) than Taylor Potts, Jimmy Clausen and Todd Reesing. His passer rating is higher than Case Keenum's, Zac Robinson's and Max Hall's. He accounts for more points per game (26.0) than any other player in America. He ranks in the top nationally in every passing category, as well as in total offense.

And in just three games in 2009, he has accounted for 1,157 yards, rushed for four touchdowns, passed for nine and thrown zero interceptions. He has started just 13 games in his collegiate career, but is on pace to obliterate long-standing Aggies records. Already, he has posted four of the school's top nine single-game total offense performances. He has four of the top six all-time single-game passing marks. He already has established the single-season record for touchdowns (24) and is on pace to become the all-time completions percentage leader.

Growing up in the Houston suburb of -- appropriately -- Humble, Texas, he was considered a pro prospect in baseball and basketball. As a sophomore in high school, Jerrod Johnson clocked 90-mph on the radar gun with his fastball. As a junior in high school, he earned a basketball scholarship to Texas A&M. But there's more to Jerrod than numbers and skills.

He is the son of a high school teacher and high school administrator. Pam and Larry Johnson's faith and compassion ran so deep they took in nearly two dozen foster children to raise with their own, Jerrod and his brother, Marquis, a former Prairie View A&M end now coaching strength and conditioning at Eastern Michigan. When Jerrod was 3, the state took custody of the child of one of Pam's friend. Pam's heart broke at the thought of the child not having a home. Larry and Pam went through foster parent training and raised the child until the state found a permanent home. From then on, the Johnsons gave foster children everything they could -- holiday parties, gifts, vacations, a church home, a family's love. They accepted kids of every age, so long as they were boys. Some of the children were infants. Some were young teens. Some were children of crack and heroine addicts. Some suffered from severe developmental and health issues. Some simply were abandoned. Some were Black, some were White, some were Brown. It never mattered.

Dad took on extra jobs to help pay for all the expenses of raising his boys and foster kids. A former Texas A&M safety and wide receiver, Larry Johnson became one of the Humble area's most beloved coaches and administrators. When Jerrod played elite summer-league basketball from 2002 to 2005, helping a Houston hoops team reach the AAU Elite Eight three consecutive years and the Final Four once, Larry Johnson was a volunteer assistant coach. The travel team featured such future Division I players as Jerrod, Arizona point guard Nic Wise, Nevada-Las Vegas forward Darris Santee, TCU guard Jason Ebie, Texas Tech forward Mike Singletary, Bucknell wing Stephen Tyree and Rice footballer Pierre Beasley.

Although the college football world is about to become impressed with what Jerrod Johnson has become. The one person he most wishes could be at Cowboys Stadium to watch the next step in this marvelous season, however, will not be there. In December 2007 while the Aggies were preparing for the Alamo Bowl and just months before starting his first game at quarterback, Jerrod received a call from his brother. He said he needed to come home because Larry was in the hospital. It was only after Jerrod arrived that he realized his father had suffered a massive stroke. Two days later, Larry died with his sons and wife by his side. At Larry's funeral, Jerrod spoke in detail of the lessons his father taught him. Marquis did an impeccable, humorous impersonation of how his boisterous, affable father would implore kids to always do the right thing. After the service, hundreds of former players and students greeted the family and shared stories of how "Mr. Johnson" affected their lives. A year later, the basketball court at Humble High was renamed Larry Johnson Court.

Larry Johnson never got to see his son start a college football game. But whenever Pam does, and every time someone else does, what they see is exactly what Larry Johnson wanted: a kid who treats everyone around him the same, no matter where they're from, what they look like or what's happened in the past. It's how he became one of the best college football stories you never knew.

Mayweather Dominates Marquez in Return to Boxing - Record 40-0

2009-09-20T00:10:00.003-05:00

Floyd Mayweather Jr. returned to the boxing ring after a 21-month absence and is still pound for pound the best boxer in the world. It was a unanimous decision. He was bigger, faster, smarter and overpowered Manuel Marquez, maintaining his perfect record in his return from a 21-month ring absence.

Floyd Mayweather knocked down Marquez in the second round and then peppered him with countless damaging shots to remain unbeaten at 40-0, with 25 Knock Outs.

Juan Marquez (50-5-1) moved up two weight classes to be Floyd’s comeback opponent. At Friday’s weigh-in, he was four pounds lighter than Mayweather, who paid a $600,000 penalty for missing the bout weight of 144 pounds.

Mayweather often appeared to be toying with Marquez, who is considered among the world’s top fighters. Marquez struggled just to get close enough to throw good combinations. Marquez had a bloody nose by the bout’s midway point, and Mayweather landed several hard shots late in the sixth round. Whenever Marquez appeared to land a combination, Mayweather backed away with a grin.

Just 18 months ago, Marquez lost a narrow decision to Manny Pacquiao—another mighty mite who is likely Floyd Mayweather’s opponent. Floyd returned for another eight-figure payday that should set up an even larger pay day with a bout with Pacquiao.

Hidden Power in the Capitol

2009-09-18T23:20:00.006-05:00

Walk softly and carry a big stick (in this case a big whip). A headline grabber? Not exactly. Busy? Every day. Congressman Jim Clyburn is at the center of the Democrats' most pressing concerns on Capitol Hill. As the majority whip, the No. 3 Democratic position in the House of Representatives, he's in charge of keeping the party together on votes. For the past year or so, Representative Clyburn has been and for at least the next year will continue a very popular-and powerful-man. So what exactly is a party whip? A whip in the U.S. House of Representatives manages their party's legislative program on the House floor. The Whip keeps track of all legislation and ensures that all party members are present when important measures are to be voted upon. The role of the Whip can be traced back to the Parliament of the United Kingdom which adopted the term Whip from the fox-hunting position, ‘whipper-in,’ or the person who kept the fox hounds focused on their mission. In Congress, the Whip’s job is to count votes and ‘whip’ up support for legislation and keep members focused on the mission.

The 15-year veteran of the House is the highest-ranking Black person in Congress. He traces his political to lessons learned in a where his father went to divinity school but made only $10 a week from the Church of God and instead supported his family as a contractor; his mother graduated from college when he was 13 and then just hung the diploma in her beauty shop. He was always interested in politics. Congressman Clyburn stated made plans at age 12 to go to college and work in Washington, D.C. He became the first Black congressman from South Carolina since 1897.

As a student at South Carolina State College (now University) in 1960, he organized the state's first sit-in at an Orangeburg drugstore with six friends; later, he would join a civil rights group led by future Congressman John Lewis, now Clyburn's right-hand man. Congressman Clyburn was a community organizer, a teacher, an employment counselor, and a failed candidate for state representative before beginning a 20-year career in state government, most prominently as human affairs commissioner.

Although a soft-spoken man, when he latches onto an issue, he'll make his voice heard. Right now, his passions are turning the rural areas around South Carolina's Interstate 95 corridor into a center for biofuels and improving the state's health and education programs, (other South Carolina politicians should take note – try to help one of the poorest states instead of…that’s another blog – coming very soon). He's also focused on smoothing assistance for Katrina victims, and the people of his district.

He was unanimously elected chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and took charge of the party's faith working group in the House. He was also elected chairman of the Democratic caucus. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer are the public faces of the House Democrats, but it's Jim Clyburn who handles the nuts and bolts of holding the party together on votes.

Young Tennis Sisters II

2009-09-13T21:04:00.005-05:00

Two young Black sisters from southern California and budding tennis stars; sounds familiar. No they are not the William sisters. They are Elizabeth and Mary Profit, but they share many of the athletic qualities that have made Venus and Serena the most dominant sisters in tennis history.

Elizabeth is 13 years old and holds a top ten ranking among 14-year-olds. She is already defeating top-ranked players in the 18-year-old division. Her sister Mary, at 11, is also a top-ranked player and dominating her age group. Mary won her first tournament at the age of 6.

Both girls started playing tennis as infants by hitting balls of socks across their living room. Their mother, Yvonne Profit, recognized their talent and saw it as an opportunity to develop sportsmanship and character and just maybe an opportunity for them earn athletic scholarships at top national universities. So far, they have exceeded her expectations. The Profit sisters grew up in a single-parent household and developed an exemplary work ethic to compensate for a lack of resources. Mom Yvonne, who earned a degree at the University of Michigan, decided to give up her full-time job and move her daughters into an RV to compensate for the expenses of traveling for tournaments. The girls view living in an RV as an inconvenience rather than a hardship. In a sport that more often tends to develop players from affluent backgrounds, Elizabeth and Mary have already beaten overwhelming odds and endured the kind of adversity that too often ends in defeat.

The Profit sisters may be on a path toward a professional tennis career, but Elizabeth's story off the court is just as compelling. She has juvenile diabetes and has been living with the disease since the age of 2, when her body stopped producing insulin. Elizabeth learned how to test her blood sugar levels before the age of 3 and two years later, she began administering insulin injections on her own. She does not use her diabetes as an excuse. Younger sister Mary knows that diabetes can be debilitating and a matter of life and death, so she constantly watches over her older sister.

For the past ten years the Profits have been unable to obtain private health insurance on the open market because diabetes is considered a pre-existing medical condition. Elizabeth used to rely on a large insulin pump to make it through the day, but now she wears a small patch that releases insulin. Despite the inconvenience of checking her blood sugar level a dozen times a day, Elizabeth has not let diabetes deter her from achieving her goals. At 17 she plans to be playing in at least the quarter-finals of the U.S. Open and eventually winning grand slams and obtaining the No. 1 ranking.

Next year Elizabeth plans turning pro and enter the women's professional tour, at the same age that Serena and Venus Williams turned pro.

Breaking the Color Barrier in the Great American Outdoors

2009-09-02T13:14:00.002-05:00

The United States has beautiful national parks, with untouched vistas of the Badlands, Yellowstone and Yosemite to name a few. But amid the breathtaking views, there is one a glaring omission. Under the pristine blue skies, there are hardly any people of color. Why are there so few Black people visiting the national parks? Why aren't Black folks enjoying the parks they helped create - the public lands that belong to them as well?

Why are there no stories on national parks or the environment in Ebony, Jet or Essence? Parks are an unknown quantity to most people of color. President Obama and his family recently took in some of this great beauty at the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park.

Ken Burns promotes the idea that national parks are “as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence” in his latest television documentary series “The National Parks: America's Best Idea," which begins airing on PBS on September 27. The most special places in the nation should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone." The documentary shows the beginning of the park system and the contributions of people of color.

There are people like Shelton Johnson, raised in Detroit, Michigan, and a stranger to national parks until he became a park ranger at Yosemite. There he tells his mostly white visitors the tale of the Black cavalry regiment, known as the Buffalo Soldiers, who protected the land and toiled to build trails and roads. When he first arrived at Yosemite 15 years ago, Johnson had no idea Black soldiers had a share of the park's history until he saw a black-and-white photo of men who looked like him. These were the faces of Americans who helped build the park. Yet less than 1 percent of the visitors to Yosemite are Black.
Historically, Blacks have shied away from the outdoors. Ethnic minorities are conspicuously absent in activities such as camping, hiking, skiing, cycling and rock climbing.

Part of it was based in poverty. A lack of money and transportation held minorities back from road trips and ski vacations. But fewer socioeconomic barriers exist today, but a cultural wall still prevents minority participation. A 400-year-old legacy of slavery was reinforced by the post-Civil War and Great Depression migration of Black Americans to urban areas. Jim Crow laws restricted their movements, while acts of violence were often perpetrated against Blacks in remote wooded areas. Blacks found safety in their own homes, behind locked doors. Asians and Latinos also live with a history of forced labor outside. Historically they might avoid certain areas because of perceived discrimination. Outdoor spaces are not places of refuge for minority communities.

Minorities within the national parks work force vastly underrepresented. By midcentury, minorities are expected to become the majority in the U.S, but 5.5 percent of the current park system staffing is Hispanic, while 9 percent is black and 1.8 percent is Asian. About 80 percent of the park service work force is White. In a report issued in May, the park service acknowledged it needs to make diversity in both its work force and its visitors a priority.

There's a beautiful world out there that belongs to all Americans. I’m hoping that Black and Brown soon will see green.

Black Men Can’t Coach?

2009-09-01T22:58:00.003-05:00

Indiana State University is one of the few football programs to have a Black coach and Black coordinators. ISU head football coach Trent Miles has a simple philosophy when he hires assistant coaches for his staff; hire the best people possible. ISU is the only non-Historically Black College and University (HBCU) football program in the Football Championship Subdivision to have a Black head coach and Black offensive and defensive coordinators. And is one of only two Division I programs overall to have that distinction. Troy Walters is offensive coordinator and Shannon Jackson is defensive coordinator.

While the three men their skin color, they all acknowledged Black representation in football coaching ranks is important and has been a hot-button issue for a long time. The percentage of Black coaches is too far below the percentage of Black athletes in the sport. Excluding the HBCU schools, there are 224 Division I schools that offer scholarships in football. Among those schools, there are 10 Black head coaches, comprising only 4.4 percent. That's far below the more than 50 percent Black participation level in football.

Only six non-HBCU FCS schools currently have black head coaches and only three, including Miles, are at schools that offer scholarships. One of them -- Richmond's Mike London -- coached his team to the FCS championship in 2008. Mid-American Conference champion Buffalo is coached by Turner Gill with offensive coordinator Danny Barrett and defensive coordinator Fred Reed.

It's a crying shame that there's 119 (FCS) schools and there's so few minority head coaches. There are quality people out there who are only used as position coaches or looked upon as recruiters. And when an opportunity does come up, it's usually not with a program that's desirable for anyone to take. It's a difficult decision to take a job where one might ultimately fail and damage a career versus not taking a job at all and keeping one's career limited. With very few exceptions, usually the Black coaches are getting jobs on the lower end that need to be rebuilt. You're usually not getting jobs that are ready-made. A good example is Tyrone Willingham; it's generally forgotten that he was brought in to fix Notre Dame and to fix Washington. What happens is you put in the ground work in a tough situation and either the university runs of out patience and fires the coach, or, the coach runs out of patience and move on.

Miami's Randy Shannon is the only Black head coach currently in charge of a program that has made a BCS bowl appearance since the system came into place in the 1990s. Richmond’s Mike London is the only FCS coach in charge of a recent playoff program. Miles took over the ultimate rebuilding project at ISU, a program that is 1-50 since mid-2004.

In Coach Miles' case, he was a former ISU player and a Terre Haute native, and rebuilding the Sycamores appealed to him. Miles had peers question why he'd want to put himself in a position where the losing ways of a program that could drag him down professionally. Coach Trent Miles has coached at eight different Division I universities and was an assistant coach on the staff of Coach Tyrone Willingham at Stanford, Notre Dame and Washington.

Farewell to the Lion of the Senate

2009-08-29T12:36:00.002-05:00

The renowned Kennedy family, fellow senators and former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, attended the funeral service for Senator Edward “Teddy” M. Kennedy in Boston today, with President Barack Obama delivering the eulogy today. Friends, family and colleagues had paid tribute to Senator Kennedy on Friday evening with a three-hour wake and celebration of his life.
Ted Kennedy, the patriarch of America's leading political family for more than 40 years, died at the age of 77 on Tuesday, 15 months after being diagnosed with brain cancer. He had represented Massachusetts in the Senate since 1962, leaving his stamp on nearly every important law passed in the last half-century. Some people born with a famous name live off of it. Others enrich theirs. Ted enriched his; as well as enriched the lives of countless others.

When I look at Senator Ted Kennedy, I see a great redemption story. His political career began as the little brother of his more famous older brothers former Senator and President John F. Kennedy and former Senator, Attorney General and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. His own presidential aspirations were hobbled by the controversy around a 1969 auto accident that left a young woman dead and a 1980 primary challenge to then-President Jimmy Carter that ended in defeat. But while the White House eluded his grasp, he played major roles in passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act. He went on to become one of the great legislators of our time, authoring or co-authoring over 1000 U.S. Laws. And he never gave up despite all the family and personal tradegy.

Senator Ted Kennedy was an outspoken liberal standard-bearer during a conservative-dominated era from the 1980s to the early 2000s. His endorsement and support of then presidential candidate Barack Obama played a major role in the election of President Obama. He died as President Obama is pushing for a wide-ranging overhaul of the U.S. health insurance system, a fight the dying senator called "the cause of my life".

Senator Kennedy was famous for his close friendships with colleagues across the Senate aisle even as his name was hissed in Republican campaign materials. Long-time Republican senators Orrin Hatch and John McCain were both adversaries and friends.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening at Arlington National Cemetery, 95 feet south of the grave of Senator Robert Kennedy, which is in turn just steps away from President John F. Kennedy's burial site.

Helping Tomorrow's Leaders

2009-08-28T14:04:00.002-05:00

John Rice is the founder of Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), a nonprofit mentoring program aimed at providing minority business students with guidance and advice. In 2002, Mr. Rice and his board realized the need was greater than their original intentions.

And so they took a dive into the major challenges minorities face getting into business schools. These students are under represented in major MBA programs, largely because they are struggling to demonstrate qualifications. Minorities are not graduating at the same rate as nonminority populations.

With that information, John Rice decided to build a set of programs to address the critical transition points; the college to workforce, early career jobs, back to schools and from business schools back to the work force.

MLT is not a scholarship program, but a support system that includes coaching, mentoring, seminars and networking to help its fellows develop “hard skills” such as problem-solving and communication, and “soft skills” such as navigating the business world and avoiding pitfalls that can lead to failure.

This is an excerpt of their "about us" page from their website.

MLT builds leaders who have the commitment, capital and relationships necessary to drive business profitability and significant social change.

MLT equips underrepresented minorities with the hard and soft skills, career roadmap, coaching, mentoring, and door-opening relationships required to become high-impact business and community leaders. Virtually every senior leader would say that they would not be where they are today without some or all of those key ingredients, yet they are not taught in even the best classrooms and instead are delivered through informal channels to which minorities have limited access. MLT democratizes access to these ingredients, filling a major gap in our education system and significantly broadening the pipeline of senior minority leaders who can catalyze change in our communities.

To know more about John Rice and the Management Leadership for Tomorrow or MLT, you may visit http://www.ml4t.org for more information.

Oprah Disagrees with the Bible

2009-08-23T18:42:00.003-05:00

Let me begin by stating that I have been an Oprah Winfrey fan for years. Her show is full of information; her topics are interesting; she is intelligent. But it has come to my attention that she doesn’t actually believe in the Word of God. I know this happened over a year ago and I also I understand that it is not a Christ-like program. (I use Christ-like instead of Christian because these days everyone is claiming to be a Christian while exhibiting a lifestyle contrary to that fact). But if the discussion goes there then you are obligated to either change topics or state your belief. Oprah chose to state her belief.

I am not in front of you so you can’t throw shoes at me (smile). Like I said, I have been a fan for years. But if she, you, my mom, or anyone else speaks contrary to God’s Word – the Bible, I will not only disagree with you, but I will endeavor to correct you. In the clip Ms Winfrey interviews and showcases several “New Age” luminaries. But when a woman in the audience asks Oprah, “What about Jesus?,” Oprah insists Jesus “can't possibly be the only way” to God... And the sparks fly!

Although raised Baptist, Oprah Winfrey's faith has undergone a significant transformation towards “New Age” spirituality. She has said on air that she has prayed to Jesus, but why pray to someone who is not able to answer your prayers? If you don’t believe Jesus is the only way to get to heaven then you can pray to some other way for answers. The Bible says that THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO GOD EXCEPT JESUS CHRIST. Oprah in essence denies the Biblical Gospel of Jesus Christ by teaching tens-of-millions of her viewers that there are many paths to God.
The Bible says that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Who’s report will you believe? As for me and my house, we will believe and serve the Lord Jesus.

And A Child Shall Lead: A Letter to BET

2009-08-22T20:14:00.003-05:00

Sorry my bloggings have been so few lately - my computer has been under attack the past few week. I have been giving it TLC to no avail.

Anyway, I recently received an email with this letter addressed to Debra Lee of BET. It is from a 15-year-old Black teenager from Cincinnati, Ohio. We continue to see Black teenagers in the media portrayed in negative ways. I found this letter so refreshing that I thought you might like it too.

Ms. Janitra Patrcik: Dear BET, Why Do You Hate Us?

Dear Debra Lee,

I’m Janita Patrick, a 15-year-old African-American female from Cincinnati. Recently, I watched the 2009 BET Awards and felt the strongest urge to reach out to the program. My family is of the typical middle-class variety; both parents and four brothers. See, I’m a junior in high school (got skipped), so naturally EVERYBODY in my age group watches BET. I’m used to seeing the sagging pants, tattoos, lack of emphasis on reading and respecting women that makes up your videos. People in my class live this out every day, while teachers tell us that we’re acting just like the people in your shows.

In your shows. That struck me as odd, because I would think that with your show being the primary outlet for Black entertainers and musicians, and considering the context of Blacks in this country, there’s a social responsibility factor to consider. I would never blame BET alone for the way a great deal of my classmates act and talk and dress. Everybody makes their own choices. However, if anybody is aware the power of television on impressionable minds, it’s the people running the television operations. If you are not aware, then perhaps you shouldn’t be running the operations.

Guess who watches your network the most? Not those who are intelligent enough to discern foolishness from substance, but those who are barely teenagers, impressionable and believing. It’s awfully cruel to plant seeds of ignorance in fertile minds. You know it’s really bad when the co-founder of BET, Sheila Johnson, said that she “really doesn’t watch it” anymore.

I am constantly fighting against the images and messages put forth on your program. What made you think that it’s okay to bring my classmates on stage to dance behind Lil Wayne and Drake to a song talking about boffing “every girl in the world”? Why does reality train wrecks have to [be] thrown in our faces? Are you aware of the achievement gap going in inner-city African-American communities? A report from America’s Promise Alliance, a non-profit group started by Colin Powell, recently stated that 47 percent of high school students in the nation’s top 50 cities don’t graduate. (Fifty-four percent of males of color in Ingham County graduated from high school, compared to 74 percent of white males). This isn’t because of BET per se, but I don’t see any episodes on your show doing anything to counteract this disturbing trend. In fact, your show is a part of this cycle of media depicting us at our worst.

My older brother told me something about profit being the number one goal for every business. I’m not sure I understand what that means, but I do know that your shows have to be entertaining enough to generate viewers, which is how you make your money. But surely our culture is rich enough to entertain without anything extra to “boost” ratings; why the over-the-top foolery? I listen to classmates talk about Baldwin Hills like it’s the Manhattan Project. It doesn’t take much effort to produce a throng of degenerative reality shows, nor does it take much to eliminate socially conscious shows off the air. MTV isn’t much better, but since when does two wrongs ever make a right? It’s one thing for White television shows to depict us in a particular way, but for Black television shows to do it is baffling.

Why do you hate us?
All of the values that my parents seek to instill in me and my brothers seem to be contradicted by a more powerful force from the media, and your show is at the forefront. Your network is the only network that features rap videos and shows exclusively to children of my color. I know that you have no control over the music that the artists put out, but you do have influence as to how you air these videos. I’m sure if a stand was taken to use the talent in your organization to actually crank out thought-provoking entertaining shows and videos, then artists will follow suit. Being that they need you as much as you need them.

There was one awkward segment in the BET Awards when Jamie Foxx singled out three black doctors-turned-authors, but the introduction was so powerless that many of the viewers had no idea who they were. Had they been introduced as Sampson Davis, Rameck Hunt and George Jenkins, three brothers who overcame major obstacles to become a success without the use of lyrics that berate women, the sell of substances that destroy communities or through raps about loose gunplay, then maybe my classmates would have come to school talking about more than Beyonce, T-Pain’s BIG A## CHAIN and Soulja Boy Tell Em’s hopping out the bed.

But they weren’t introduced like that. It seemed like a throwaway obligatory tribute to appease some irritated fans. It missed the mark. Big time. Ask Michelle Obama if she watches BET or encourages Sasha and Malia to do so. Ask President Obama. It’s a reason he is the leader of the free world, and it isn’t because of Buffoonery Exists Today.

You’d be surprised how smart young Black children can be with the absence of Blacks Embarrassing Themselves. If your goal is to deter engaged, forward-thinking articulate Black minds, then consider your goal fulfilled. It’s hard-pressed to think that your shows are working to promote cultural betterment. However, it’s quite easy to conclude that the destruction of Black children through the glorification of immoral behavior and rushed production is by design. Poison is being swallowed by every viewer who adores your network, and the worse thing is, these viewers - my classmates - are not even aware what they’re swallowing.

There is nothing edifying for Black women on your show. I don’t judge people who do throng to your programs though; I mean, if a jet crashes right in front of me, I’ll watch it too. That’s why I don’t flip by your channel…I don’t even want to be sucked in.

I have aspirations of acquiring a law degree and possibly entering the public sphere, so I can counteract conditions in my community perpetuated by the images on your channel. So I should thank you, because in a weird sense, your shoddy programming is the wind behind my back. And it is my hope that I can accomplish my dreams despite BET’s pictorial messages, because Lord knows it won’t be because of them.

Sincerely,

Janita Patrick

Wow, What A Week in Sports

2009-08-18T22:24:00.004-05:00

Not only have the Jamaicans replaced the Americans, both men and women, as the dominate force in the sprints of the track world but Usain Bolt shattered the 100 meter record at the Track and Field World Championships. It remains to be seen how far ahead of the rest of the field he will be in the 200 meters this week. The person who probably would have come in second, Tyson Gay, has pulled out of the race due to a “pulled groin muscle”. That is usually the case of the second place finisher in major sprinter. It all seems unlikely to me since his second place finish was the third fastest 100 meter in history.

It seems that Tiger Woods is human after all. He was beaten at the PGA Championship Sunday. This was the first time ever that Tiger has lost when leading the final round of a major golf championship. He was beaten by South Korean Y. E. Yang, who became the first Asian to win a major PGA championship.

Michael Vick rejoined the National Football League when he was signed by the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Oakland Raiders head coach broke the jaw of one of his assistants. A star NHL player robbed a cab driver for 20 cents. I’m happy to see idiots are not limited to the NFL and NBA. And Bret Favre is back. He signed with the Minnesota Vikings after all the retirement crap for another year. Probably just didn’t want to go through another training camp.

Michael Vick Signs with Eagles

2009-08-13T21:04:00.003-05:00

Michael Vick is back in the NFL after signing a two-year deal with the Philadelphia Eagles. The former Atlanta Falcons quarterback was convicted in August 2007 of conspiracy and running a dogfighting operation, and served 18 months of a 23-month sentence in federal prison. He was once the NFL's highest-paid player, but has not played since 2006.

Michael Vick’s suspension was lifted on July 27, allowing him to sign with a team, practice and play in the last two preseason games. Once the season begins, Vick can participate in all team activities except games. The NFL commissioner said he would consider Vick for full reinstatement by Week 6 (Oct. 18-19) at the latest, but I believe Michael Vick will play in the fourth week of the season.

The Eagles is a surprise landing point for Vick. They were among 26 clubs that said there was no interest in Vick, but that may have changed when their backup quarterback strained a knee ligament earlier this week. The Eagles are led by star quarterback Donovan McNabb. When news of Michael Vick's signing circulated in the press box during the first half of the Eagles' preseason opener against New England, even the team's public relations staff seemed surprised.

Michael Vick arrived in Philadelphia Tuesday morning and remained there Wednesday evening. The Eagles will hold a news conference on Friday morning to announce his signing. The first year of the deal is for $1.6 million with an option for the second year at $5.2 million.

The Eagles travel to meet Vick's former team, the Atlanta Falcons, in Week 13 on Dec. 6. Wouldn't it be kinda fun to see him break off a long run or pass for a touchdown against them. Hummm...

Health Reform Critics (Restless Natives)

2009-08-12T21:19:00.002-05:00

Every day it seems there is a fresh chorus of yelling from opponents of health care reform. It seems that middle-age White Americans have a problem with change from a system that excludes millions of other Americans, while insurance companies are becoming as wealthy as the oil companies. Now before you call me a racist, I say, I’m like a referee – I call them like I see them; just look at every news broadcast, newspaper, or news magazine.

Critics lobbed a barrage of verbal jabs at the Congressmen holding town hall meetings across the U.S. Health care opponents say the overhaul that “could” cost billions of dollars is unwise at a time when the economy is in recession. Some have even handed Senators copies of the Constitution. Now that is funny when the Constitution says that ALL Americans are provided with security and the pursuit of happiness – there is no security if you don’t have medical insurance; there is no happiness when your child is sick and you don’t have medical insurance.

The town hall meetings have at times turned into shouting and pushing matches between supporters and critics. Many of the opponents have believed the “talking heads” hype that President Obama wants to turn the U.S. into a socialist country; believing that the new health play will allow illegal aliens and welfare recipients will get free medical insurance. When in reality both receive free health care already when they visit emergency rooms free of charge. I myself have the benefited of free health care as a military veteran.

Maybe there are some righteous complaints, but to the average Joe it looks like a bunch of middle-aged White Americans believing the scare tactics of the “talking heads”. They were talking the same stuff during the presidential campaign – I guess if you say something long enough…well anyway it looks like people are either running scared, greedy, or just plain bigots.

Senate Confirms Sonia Sotomayor for Supreme Court

2009-08-07T08:03:00.002-05:00

Judge Sonia Sotomayor has risen from the housing projects of the Bronx to the top of the legal profession. She made history Thursday when she was confirmed by the U. S. Senate to become the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. She was easily confirmed in a 68-31 vote.

Judge Sotomayor, a federal appeals court judge, will be the 111th person to sit on the high court and the third female justice. She will be sworn in at the Supreme Court on Saturday. President Obama, who selected Sotomayor on May 26, said he was "deeply gratified" by the Senate vote. He called it a wonderful day for America.

Judge Sotomayor's confirmation capped an extraordinary rise from humble beginnings. Her parents came to New York from Puerto Rico during World War II. Her father worked in a factory and didn't speak English.
She was born in the Bronx and grew up in a public housing project, not far from the stadium of her favorite team, the New York Yankees. Her father died when she was 9, leaving her mother to raise her and her younger brother. Her mother, whom Ms. Sotomayor has described as her biggest inspiration, worked six days a week to care for her and her brother, and instilled in them the value of an education. Judge Sotomayor later graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University and went on to attend Yale Law School, where she was editor of the Yale Law Journal.

She worked at nearly every level of the judicial system over a three-decade career before being chosen by President Obama to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. Accepting the nomination, Sotomayor thanked Obama for "the most humbling honor of my life." Sotomayor presided over about 450 cases while on the district court. Before her judicial appointments, she was a partner at a private law firm and spent time as an assistant district attorney prosecuting violent crimes.

After the selection, Sotomayor was touted by her supporters as a justice with bipartisan favor and historic appeal. She has served as a judge on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 1998. She was named a district judge by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 and was elevated to her current seat by President Clinton.

High School Teammates and True Friends

2009-08-03T12:42:00.004-05:00

When Leroy Sutton was 11 years old, he and his brother were walking to school along the railroad tracks near their East Akron, Ohio home. Leroy got to close to an approaching freight train, his backpack got caught on one of the passing cars and he pulled beneath the wheels. It was Dec. 7, 2001, the day that shaped Leroy's body, and his life.

The paramedics arrived within minutes and saved Leroy's life, but the doctors could not save his entire body. At Children's Hospital in Akron, his left leg was amputated below the knee, his right leg below the hip. He knew what had happened, but didn't understand what he'd lost until a day later, when he lifted the sheets, and looked down.

Leroy left the hospital a month and a half later. And after he had endured long, difficult hours of rehabilitation, he accepted that a wheelchair would be part of his life but was determined to make it a small part. He built his arm muscles up so that he could move around. That ability to move -- to lift and flip and twist his body -- led him to a place few expected, and into a friendship few could have foreseen.

In January 2008, midway through his junior year in high school, Leroy transferred to Lincoln-West High in Cleveland. By the time he was a senior, he was a familiar sight (his wheelchair flying down the hallways, his laughter booming off the lockers). When he decided to join the wrestling team, just as he'd done at his previous school, the coaches welcomed him. They knew his story and were eager to tap his strength. At Leroy's first practice, his first partner was the only other wrestler on the team powerful enough to handle him. Dartanyon Crockett was Lincoln's best and strongest talent. He was 5-foot-10 with muscles bunched like walnuts, and already a winner in multiple weight classes. But when Leroy hopped off his chair and onto the wrestling mat, the competition was more than Dartanyon expected.

Hour after hour, month after month, practices connected them in ways that went beyond the gym. They went everywhere together: between classes, on team bus rides, at each other's houses -- both dialed in to a wavelength few others could hear. They spontaneously broke into songs only they knew. They performed imaginary superhero moves they invented. They laughed at jokes and words only they understood. Yet, their simplest connection was the one everyone saw and no one anticipated. Not even Leroy and Dartanyon know exactly when, or how, it first happened.

"One day I'm coming out of my office," said Kyro Taylor, the school's power lifting coach. "I look over to the corner of the gym where the mats were at, and right up the steps I see Dartanyon with something on his back, and the closer I get, I'm like, 'Is that Leroy?' And it was Leroy on his back. Dartanyon's carrying him."
Dartanyon lifted Leroy onto his back and carried him to and from every match, on and off every bus, into and out of every gym, all season long. At more than 170 pounds, Leroy was not a light load. Dartanyon never cared, and the carrying never stopped. Dartanyon lifted Leroy onto his back for the playing of every national anthem, and carried him down the bleachers before each match. Yet as inseparable as they were, they also shared something greater than their sport. That's because the teammate who carried Leroy on his back all season long knows about challenges himself. Dartanyon Crockett knows, because he's legally blind.

Born with Leber's disease, a condition that causes acute visual loss, Dartanyon, has been severely nearsighted his entire life. He can barely make out the facial features of a person sitting 5 feet away. As a boy, his father watched him bump into the same table corners and fumble for the same objects over and over again, uncertain what was wrong. He received the diagnosis just after his son started elementary school. But his father never let him feel sorry for himself. And as he grew older, he not only accepted the condition but also adjusted so well to his inability to see that those around him often were unaware of anything until he told them.

Still, there are signs. At times, his eyes dart back and forth as if ricocheting between objects. Boarding the city bus for the ride to school, he asks the driver to tell him when his stop is near, unwilling to trust his glimpses of the passing landscape. In class, often he places text just inches from his face to read. On the wrestling mat, although his moves are quick and bold, he sees little more than rough shapes lunging toward him. Yet his own view of his limits remains focused and clear.

Other trials in his life could have broken him long ago. After his mother died when he was 8, he moved in with his father, Harris, who struggled to take care of himself in the midst of an addiction to drugs and alcohol. There were times when Dartanyon scavenged the house for food, but found none. For most of his time in high school, he had no steady place to call home. Through it all -- being evicted from their apartment in Lakewood, the nights Dartanyon covered his father with a blanket after he'd passed out -- Dartanyon stayed in school, stayed on the mat and supported his dad's effort to stay clean. Harris now has been sober, while working two full-time jobs, for more than a year. That Dartanyon would pick someone else up was no surprise. He learned to carry a father before he ever carried a friend.

Dartanyon and Leroy move down the hallway after class.
"I am Darth Cripple," Leroy says.
"I am Blind Vader," Dartanyon replies, and they turn a corner; their laughter is all that's left behind.
They joke. They jab. They are the least flattering of critics and the loudest of supporters. They mock each other and themselves, every chance they get, in ways others never would dare.

"Leroy, touch your toes."
Leroy reaches his arms out in front of him in mock effort, and says, "They're at home."
And then, the boys laugh.
"Leroy, don't forget your shoes. …"
Others look down, duped. Leroy just smiles.
"You just can't see them. …"

Dartanyon sings.
"I can see clearly now, the rain is gone."
Leroy listens, then corrects him: "But you can't see."
"So? I can still sing."
And they pick up the song together, twice as loud.

The one place they don't laugh is in competition. Entering gyms all season, one atop the other, each cared as much about the other's match as his own, with as much invested in the other's outcome. Every time Dartanyon wrestled, Leroy sat on the edge of the mat, serving as unofficial coach and chief encourager.
Competing at 189 pounds in Ohio, one of the most wrestling-rich states in the country, Dartanyon relied more on strength than technique, preferring to overwhelm foes than to outpoint them. Nearly always the aggressor, he rarely waited for another's move, for a simple reason. He might never see it. He went 26-3 in his senior season, securing the league championship in his weight class.

As for Leroy, who's unable to generate the leverage essential in wrestling, leverage gained by using the lower body that he doesn't possess, the matches were tougher, and the wins more difficult. He expected nothing less than 100 percent from his opponents, and if he sensed any pity, he reacted with anger. Leroy would bounce on his hands and often flip his way onto the mat before matches. Then he would scream out. Then he would slap his hands down as hard as he could, making a thunderous echo, his smile dead, his arms wired. If some stared when Leroy entered the gym atop Dartanyon, even more stared as he competed.

Wrestling in multiple weight classes this season, Leroy won nine matches, the majority by pinning his opponents. But in every match, regardless of the outcome, he left a message. He never said it, but his coaches understood.
"Watching him wrestle," Robinson said, "has taught me how to stand in areas of my life that I wouldn't have wanted to."

It was the final night of the school year, graduation night. The people inside the theater building of Cuyahoga Community College were there for a celebration more than a ceremony, to pay tribute to an accomplishment that meant more here than in most schools in America. The majority of students at Lincoln-West High School never earn a diploma. This year, the school had a graduation rate of roughly 40 percent. (That’s another story for another time).

On that early June night, the graduates gathered on a stage, their gowns flowing and their tassels poised to swing, each ready to mark a point in a journey. Leroy had dreamed of this night for a long time. "My goal," he said in May, "is to actually walk across the stage." No one on the stage that night understood that goal more than Dartanyon. That's why, when Leroy's name was called, Dartanyon stood, too, right beside him. What would you do for a friend, one you carried on your back all year long? You'd put him down, and walk beside him, which was exactly what Dartanyon did. He helped Leroy stand -- upon new prosthetic legs he was fitted for just weeks earlier -- then moved alongside him as Leroy crossed the stage, step for step, eye to eye.

When Leroy stopped, put out his hand and grasped his diploma, the audience rose and delivered a standing ovation. After the photos were taken, and the music stopped, and the tears dried, the two sat in the theater, side by side. Two high school wrestlers, one blind and one with no legs, discover the meaning of true friendship. Dartanyon and Leroy walked across the stage and received diplomas at graduation. Dartanyon is enrolled at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland for the fall. Leroy plans to attend Collins College in Tempe, Arizona., to pursue a career in video game design. Two friends, sharing one moment, and there they lingered, smiling, in silence.

Henderson, Rice earn Hall passes

2009-07-29T13:17:00.002-05:00

The doors to Cooperstown swung open on Sunday for Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice as they were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Rickey Henderson was in his first year of eligibility and Jim Rice in his 15th and final year. Henderson was the all-time leader in two categories - 1,406 stolen bases and 2,295 runs scored. He also holds the record for unintentional walks and leadoff home runs. Considered to be the greatest leadoff hitter ever, Rickey Henderson was elected with 94.8 percent of the votes cast by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Jim Rice, a career-long member of the Boston Red Sox, was in his final year of eligibility. He received seven votes over the 75 percent threshold to garner 76.4 percent. Last year, he fell just 16 votes short. His percentage last year was the highest ever for a player not elected.

Henderson and Rice are the first left fielders elected to the Hall of Fame in 20 years. They bring the number of players in the Hall to 202.

Rickey Henderson established himself as baseball's supreme leadoff hitter by banging out 3,055 hits in a 25-season career that spanned four decades (1979-2003). He played for the Oakland Athletics (four times), New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays, San Diego Padres (twice), California Angels, New York Mets, Seattle Mariners, Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers.

A career .279 hitter with a .401 on-base average and 297 home runs, Henderson won World Series rings with the 1989 A's and '93 Blue Jays, was the American League’s MVP in 1990 and set the bar so high with the single-season stolen base record of 130 in 1982 that no player since has come within 20 bags of equaling it. His 81 home runs leading off games are the most in Major League history.

A .298 career hitter with 382 home runs, 2,452 hits and 1,451 RBIs in 16 seasons, Rice had four seasons of more than 200 hits, led the American League in home runs three times, RBIs twice, hits once, slugging percentage twice, was the AL Most Valuable Player in 1978 and was an eight-time All-Star.

Michael Vick Reinstated to NFL - Almost

2009-07-28T13:20:00.001-05:00

Almost two years after he pleaded guilty to a federal charge of bankrolling a dog fighting operation at a house he owned in Virginia, Michael Vick has been reinstated to the National Football League. According to an NFL statement, Michael Vick will be considered for full reinstatement and to play in regular-season games by Week 6. He can participate in practices, workouts and meetings and may play in his club's final two preseason games under the conditions of his reinstatement, the league said.

Michael Vick, in his own statement, thanked the league's commissioner and former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy, who has served as his mentor. Dungy has agreed to continue working with Vick as an adviser and mentor, the NFL statement said.
Vick said, "I fully understand that playing football in the NFL is a privilege, not a right, and I am truly thankful for the opportunity I have been given."

The former Atlanta Falcons player is a free agent and has not been signed by any team yet. The league suspended Vick indefinitely in August 2007 after his guilty plea. Although he was released from federal custody July 20, he must serve three years of probation, the league said.

According to the NFL commissioner, this step-by-step approach is not meant to be further punishment and should not be viewed as such. Instead, it is intended to maximize the prospect that he can successfully resume his career and his life. Michael Vick will also on programs aimed at preventing youths from getting involved in dog fighting and on programs to assist young people who have been involved.

Don’t you just love the self-righteous people that complain that Vick is a felon and therefore should not be allowed to earn a living? I thought that was the American Way – to forgive after a person pays for their mistakes. It doesn't mean what he did wasn't wrong, we all know it was, but nothing can change the past.

We support politicians who have done worse, we support movie stars who die from overdose, support stars you have molested young children, yet we are "disgusted" by a man who has the opportunity to lead others from making the mistakes he has made. Every step he takes will be followed by the over-zealous media hoping to catch him making a mistake. I believe he will use this platform to teach people that it is possible to actually feel remorse for the mistakes made in life.

I thought that once you have paid your debt to society, you should be given another chance. Otherwise, we might as well execute anyone who commits a crime. To what extent do people of color have to continue paying their debt? Michael Vick was incarcerated, paid fines and lawyer’s fees. Again, when is enough - enough when people of color have paid their debt to society?

I don’t see any animal lovers picketing the rodeo, horse racing or the circus. Look into the detail of these animal cruelties main stays of U.S. society. Or better yet look into the places most of your lovable little dogs originate.

Mike Vick has paid dearly for his crime and I truly believe he deserves a second chance to rehabilitate himself. He is going to be working with the Humane Society. God allows us to make mistakes, but he still forgives us. I don't condone what he did, but that is what repentance is all about.

From the Heat to the Hospital

2009-07-27T21:03:00.001-05:00

After dancing her way through school, former Miami Heat cheerleader Fabienne Achille has traded in her pom-poms for a stethoscope. Doctor Achille turned in her hot pants for scrubs and now delivers babies as a Florida obstetrician.

The pretty 28-year-old paid her way through pre-med school at University of Miami by cheering on the likes of Alonzo Mourning, then turned her attention to the grueling medical curriculum at University of South Florida. The ballgame glamor made her undergrad days memorable, but it wasn't exactly easy. Fabienne Achille, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, said, “It was a lot of hard work especially being pre-med. But it was definitely a very very enjoyable memorable time in my life.”

The obstetrician is now finishing her residency, delivering babies at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami -- the facility where she was born. Jackson Memorial is a hospital that deals with many minorities, including Haitians. Recently, Doctor Achille got to help one of Haiti's most deserving patients, in a well-publicized case that touched the hearts of millions. It was Achille who, with her mother and twin sister, helped arrange for Marlie Casseus, a 14-year-old girl suffering from a dangerous facial tumor, to come to Jackson from Port-Au-Prince for life-saving surgery.

Doctor Achille has one more year to do in her residency, then she hopes to perform a medical mission to Haiti, where she can reach out to the uninsured in her community. In the meantime, she is especially interested in helping patients without medical insurance.

Eventually, she plans to go into private practice. If time permits, she may also take in more Miami Heat basketball games -- but from the stands, not the floor.

No Honor in Red Sox Anniversary

2009-07-22T09:00:00.002-05:00

The following are excerpts from an article at ESPN.com by Howard Bryant which I thought was very interesting.

On July 21, 1959, the Boston Red Sox manager sent in Elijah "Pumpsie" Green in to run for another player. That game 50 years ago yesterday, allowed Green to become the first African-American to play for the Red Sox. Boston was the last team in the major leagues to field a black player, 12 years after Jackie Robinson. During past anniversaries -- the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut in 1947, for example -- the Red Sox have flown Green and his wife to Boston, chartered them a limousine and feted them as important elements of the team's and city's history. Green has been honored as a pioneer, as a critical first, and he has thrown out the ceremonial first pitch at Fenway Park to the cheers of a newer, younger Red Sox Nation. As the decades pile up and institutional memory fades due to death and time, the story of the integration of the Red Sox could very well be transformed into a moment of triumph, worthy of commemoration.

What’s milestone is there to celebrate? That the Red Sox put off integrating for as long as possible? To celebrate that occasion is to do something corporations -- and do not forget that baseball is a corporation -- do very well: They are experts at scrubbing history, at massaging a negative into a positive. Through no fault of his own, Pumpsie Green represents a moment in Red Sox and Boston history that should be acknowledged soberly and apologetically out of respect for him, but not as a celebration.

Unlike Jackie Robinson, neither Green nor the Red Sox exhibited any special courage that July day in 1959. In fact, the sequence of events that led to Green’s playing that day was decidedly antiheroic. A year earlier, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination sent a letter to club executives asking them to explain how the Red Sox did not employ a single African-American in any capacity -- centerfielder or secretary, groundskeeper or accountant, usher or janitor. Even Boston's hockey team, the Bruins, integrated before the Red Sox.

In the mid-1950s Hall of Fame outfielder Billy Williams thought he was headed for Boston. As Williams recalls it, the Red Sox were interested … until they weren't. "Yaz and I were the two best left-handed hitters going," Williams told me this past spring. "We used to joke about it. Imagine what that Wall would've looked like with the two of us hitting one after the other."

There is the sad case of Lorenzo "Piper" Davis, who in 1950 became the first Black player in the history of the Boston organization. Davis was 26, played for the team's Scranton affiliate, led the team in average, home runs, RBIs and stolen bases, and then was unceremoniously cut from the team and sent home to Birmingham, Alabama, without train fare.

In 1949, the Red Sox scouted Willie Mays. Mays recalled hearing that after a few days of inclement weather in Birmingham, the scout, Larry Woodall, told fellow scouts, "I'm not going to waste my time waiting on a bunch of n-----s." Willie Mays once told me. "To be honest, I really thought I was going to Boston. But for that [Tom] Yawkey. Everyone knew he was a racist. He didn't want me."

And of course, there was the original sin: Jackie Robinson's humiliating 1945 tryout with Boston that ended with Robinson and the Red Sox -- manager Joe Cronin, in particular -- as lifelong enemies. The Red Sox were not serious about signing Robinson; by the time he retired following the 1956 season, the Sox still hadn't integrated.

This is the real truth about July 21, 1959. It cannot be changed. When your organization is less interested in Willie Mays than a spell of bad weather, you get Pumpsie Green. When you have the jump on Billy Williams and he gets away, you get Pumpsie Green. When your top baseball man patronizes Jackie Robinson, you get Pumpsie Green. When you're one of the richest teams in the game and fail to capitalize for more than a decade on a pool of the most talented, available and economically desirable ballplayers in the history of the game, you get Pumpsie Green. When the state's corporate watchdog sues your organization not once but twice for discriminatory hiring practices, you get Pumpsie Green.

Not long after he arrived in Boston, in a phone conversation, Jackie Robinson told Green that Green's road would be equally -- if not more -- difficult than Robinson's, for the simple reason that the Dodgers had wanted Robinson to succeed while the Red Sox desperately avoided integration until completely surrounded by the forces of change.

The dynamic of Red Sox have dramatically changed. Boston -- whether in sports or in everyday life – still has trouble overcoming the images of its intolerance. Race has become a much less bitter subject. In terms of black players, the Red Sox are far less diverse than even 10 years ago. The hostilities have calmed, but the patterns have not. Former centerfielder Coco Crisp is the only full-time, everyday African American player they have employed since 2002, but the team is more universally regarded, by all races than ever.

This is not a date of something that 50 years later can or should be retrofitted for a different time -- a better time, certainly -- to satisfy a newer, softer narrative.

Howard Bryant is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He is the author of "Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston" and "Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball."

'For Colored Girls' Has Lasting Power

2009-07-21T13:46:00.007-05:00

Ntozake Shange

Cast of "For Colored Girls"

Ntozake Shange, (pronounced En-toe-ZAHK-kay SHONG-gay), author of the famed play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf," was inspired to write the play by a rainbow while driving down Highway 1 in Northern California. At the time Ms Shange was in her mid-20s and had reportedly tried to commit suicide four times. The rainbow gave her inspiration by becoming the colors – the voices – of the unnamed femaile characters in the work. Her grandmother gave her the inspiration for the words "For Colored Girls", as she always told Ntozke that she was such a pretty little colored girl.

"For Colored Girls" was a sensation upon its debut in 1975 and remains a mainstay of theatrical companies across the country -- as well as a popular book for high school students. Ntozake Shange, now 60, calls the work a "choreopoem". It consists of 20 poems, some based on Shange's own experience, plus occasional music, dance and song. The characters are associated with the rainbow and known as "lady in green," "lady in blue," "lady in yellow," and other colors of the spectrum. Currently it is in Atlanta and directed by Jasmine Guy and staring Nicole Ari Parker and Robin Givens among others.

The current edition features a seventh color -- brown -- added to yellow, purple, red, green, blue and orange. Each is also associated with a city across the country: "I'm outside Detroit," one says; "I'm outside Baltimore," says another. In fact, "For Colored Girls" is amazingly flexible. Each actor can appear in different cities. Each story has no specific setting. This makes topics all-inclusive. The topics of "For Colored Girls" are raw and honest. They include losing virginity, needing love, having an abortion, even pressing charges against a rapist who was not a stranger. Ms Shange said her intent was to free the female body and to unearth unspeakable secrets as well as to have nostalgia about wonderful things.

Critics loved the work's originality. It won an Obie Award for best off-Broadway play and also earned Tony, Grammy and Emmy nominations. More than 30 years later, Ms. Shange said she hopes women draw positive emotions from the show and her other works, which includes seven novels, four children's books and several other plays and poems. "I like women in general, women of color in particular, to feel pride and dignity and joy and fullness that we're capable of," she said.

There are no male characters in "For Colored Girls," but men take away something from it, too. “When most men see the play they realize they they know so little about us,” she said. Ms. Shange said that what she looks forward to is men drawing from her work the strength, virility and the comedy of the women they are surrounded by.

Ntozake Shange was born Paulette Williams in Trenton, New Jersey to an upper middle class family. Her father, Paul T. Williams, was an Air Force surgeon and her mother, Eloise Williams, was an educator and a psychiatric social worker. Shange's family had a strong interest in the arts and encouraged her artistic education. Among the guests at their home were Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, and W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1971 she changed her name. "Ntozake" means "She who comes with her own things" and "Shange" means "she who walks with lions" in Xhosa.

"For Colored Girls" still has staying power. It's headed to Broadway and is under contract for a film next season. The production was filmed for a 1982 episode of "American Playhouse" on PBS; the version included several members of the original New York cast, including Shange. The voices in "For Colored Girls" remain vivid, like the colors of the rainbow. Be sure to check it out if you get a chance, but for sure pick up the book.

Thousands Turn Out for Steve McNair's Funeral

2009-07-15T23:31:00.004-05:00

Steve “Air” McNair was laid to rest in front a couple hundred of his family and friends this past Saturday, but nearly 5,000 turned out to say goodbye at his the funeral services held at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg earlier in the day. Pall bearers included former Tennessee Titan and Baltimore Raven teammates. Speakers included Titans coach Jeff Fisher and quarterback Vince Young and Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis.

"Steve was like a hero to me, and heroes are not supposed to die,'' Vince Young said before stopping to rub his eyes as he talked about the man he knew from football camps as a teenager and called "Pops''. Other NFL men who competed with and against McNair or coached him on the field also attended, including Eddie George and The high school football team McNair's son plays on wore their jerseys in honor of the man they often saw smiling from the sidelines. Steve McNair’s good friend, Brett Favre, who had a home near McNair's in Hattiesburg, sat behind the McNair family. Doug Williams, the first Black quarterback to win the Super Bowl, also was on hand.

It was one of the largest funerals in the recent history of Mississippi, McNair's home state. The hearse carrying McNair's casket was escorted the 30 miles down Highway 49 by nine police officers on motorcycles and several vehicles carried family members. Steve McNair's family rented buses to carry in people from his hometown of Mount Olive. After the two-hour service, the procession headed back down the road for the private burial at Griffith Cemetery, about 20 miles from Mount Olive.

The three-time Pro Bowl quarterback will be remembered for being an incredibly hard worker, a dedicated teammate and a true NFL leader. He was selected third overall by the Houston Oilers in the 1995 NFL Draft. As a prolific quarterback at Alcorn State, he shattered Division I-AA records, won the Walter Payton Award, and finished third in Heisman Trophy voting behind Rashaan Salaam and Ki-Jana Carter (who and who). Despite missing two games with an injured calf and ankle during the 2003 season, McNair finished with the best numbers of his career -- including 24 touchdown passes and a quarterback rating of 100.4. McNair and Peyton Manning were named co-NFL MVPs for the season. "Mississippi has lost a tremendous legend,'' said Cardell Jones, McNair's college coach at Alcorn State.

Swim Club Invites Day Care Back After Racism Allegations Goes National

2009-07-13T09:54:00.003-05:00

A group of protesters gathers in front of the club on Thursday.

A suburban Philadelphia swim club has invited children from a largely minority day-care center to come back after a June reversal that fueled allegations of racism against the club. After the “alleged” racial comments incident turned into a national story and protesters started picketing at the swim club, a hasty Sunday afternoon meeting of the Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania was called. And club members voted overwhelmingly to try to work things out with the day-care center. The day-care center, which had contracted to use the pool, after budget cuts forced some pools in the Philadelphia area to close, has accused some swim club members of making racist comments to Black and Brown children.

This quick change of heart is more likely the result of the club having been subpoenaed by the state Human Rights Commission, which launched a fact-finding investigation last week after allegations of racism at the Valley Club. The club director’s wife said the club canceled its contract with the Creative Steps day-care because of safety, crowding and noise concerns, not racism. (Why is the director’s wife speaking for the club? – maybe because he can’t get his foot out of his mouth. He said that having the day-care center children would change the complexion [definition: skin tone; facial appearance, nature; character] of the club). She also said, "and the legal advice was to try to get together with these camps.”

Alethea Wright, Creative Steps’ director has repeatedly criticized the club for its tepid response to the charges and said the children in her care were "emotionally damaged" by the incident. "These children are scarred. How can I take those children back there?" she said. However, the day-care center’s lawyer said the center will give the Valley Club's offer "due consideration" once it is received and looks forward to sitting down with the parties. “"The children are our primary concern.” (Lawyer speak for as soon as you pay the damages we will back off.)

Swimming privileges for about 65 children from Creative Steps were revoked after their first visit June 29. Some children said White members of the club made racist comments to the children, asking why "black children were there" and raising concerns that "they might steal from us." A few days later, the day-care center's $1,950 check was returned.

The club director told reporters that he had underestimated the amount of children who would participate, and the club was unable to supervise that many kids. Ms. Wright has rejected the camp's contention that the swim club's pool was overcrowded. The club had accepted a 10-to-1 ratio of children to adults and was considering adding up to three lifeguards, according to e-mails obtained by CNN. And Wright said she still has concerns about the issue. "Are the members who made those comments still there?" she asked

2009-07-11T12:57:00.002-05:00

Please excuse the harsh words - but the contents are great.

Michael Jackson Remembered

2009-07-07T10:20:00.006-05:00

He was praised and ridiculed. He broke down barriers and built them around himself. He soared to heights unimaginable with his music, and he made the front page of gutter tabloids worldwide. For Michael Jackson, the spotlight was always present, and the rest of the world followed. Even his passing has played out in the spotlight: Thousands are expected to swamp Los Angeles to mourn him today at the Staples Center.

The city of Los Angeles braces for massive spectacle as an army of Michael Jackson fans poured into the city from places far-flung, to collectively mourn their idol in a massive ceremony today. Gates to the Staples Center were opened about 6 a.m. PT. The LAPD has put up concrete barriers around the center, allowing only fans with tickets to the star-studded event to enter. Parking lots in the area raised their prices, some as high as $30. Airports throughout Southern California saw a spike in bookings. And several movie theaters in the area announced special screenings of the event, which will also be carried live by some television networks and Web sites.

Monday night, more than 12 hours before the service, the mood was almost festive, with fans lined up around the block to sign the memorial wall. Police and security officers kept a close watch. Helicopters flew overhead, and sheriff's deputies could be seen strolling through with bomb-sniffing dogs. Media from around the world rolled cameras and took photos. Vendors strolled through the crowd, offering everything from Jackson T-shirts to copies of old magazines featuring the star on the cover to homemade “King of Pop" soda for $5.

The Jackson family remained tight-lipped about where the singer will be buried, but signs pointed to Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn cemetery. Several carloads of people, including family members among them, came and went from the heavily secured cemetery after sunset Monday. Shortly before the cars began arriving, a hearse drove up, with at least five police cars in tow.

Today will begin with a private gathering of Jackson family members at the cemetery at 8 a.m. (PT). The California Highway Patrol will escort Jackson family members from his parents' Encino, California, home to the cemetery and then to the Staples Center. AEG Live, the concert promoter handling the memorial, said there would be no funeral processional. The Staples event is expected to feature singers Mariah Carey, Usher and Stevie Wonder. Also participating will be basketball stars Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson; singers Jennifer Hudson, John Mayer and Smokey Robinson; and activists Martin Luther King III and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

All day Monday, fans who won tickets to the memorial service through a lottery swarmed to Dodger Stadium -- some in smart cars, some on scooters and even one in an airport shuttle. They entered energized with anticipation and exited shaking with excitement, holding two priceless tickets and sporting wristbands that organizers put on them to prevent resale. Organizers used a computer to choose 8,750 names from 1.6 million people who registered online. Each received a pair of tickets, for a total of 17,500 tickets.

Just 11,000 of those are for seats inside the Staples Center. The other 6,500 are for viewing the memorial telecast across the street at the Nokia Theater. AEG Live owns and operates both venues. The Jackson family set aside an additional 9,000 Staples Center seats to give out to people they choose.

Also Monday, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge granted control of Michael Jackson's assets to the executors of his will. The executors, his longtime personal attorney, and a music industry executive and longtime friend sought immediate control of the entertainer's assets at a hearing before the judge. The men said control of the assets would allow them to tend to Jackson's numerous outstanding debts, legal cases and business obligations (lawyer speak for we’re going to fill our pockets and give you some change too). The media talks about MJ’s debts, but he always had the leverage with half ownership of the various star music catalogs, including the Beatles, Sly and the Family Stone, and until recently Little Richard’s. The Beatles alone is worth more that $500 million.

The judge appointed the men special administrators until another hearing on August 3. He said they will be responsible for protecting the estate from immediate losses. His mother, Katherine Jackson, started administering his assets the day after he died. Lawyers for Katherine Jackson objected to the judge's decision, saying "irreparable damage" could be done to the estate in coming weeks with lawyers in control. Do you think his assets should be controlled by lawyers or his mother?

Former NFL QB Steve McNair Shot to Death

2009-07-06T10:51:00.003-05:00

Former NFL quarterback Steve McNair was shot multiple times in Nashville, Tennessee Saturday. Police said they found McNair and a woman identified as Sahel Kazemi fatally shot receiving a phone call about an injured person in a condominium in downtown Nashville. The ex-NFL star was shot twice in the head and twice in the chest, while Ms. Kazemi was shot once in the head. McNair's body was found seated on a living room sofa and a semi-automatic pistol was found under Kazemi's body, which was on the floor. The bodies were found two days after Kazemi was pulled over in an Escalade, registered to her and McNair, and charged with driving under the influence. McNair was in the car at the time. McNair, a married father of four, and Sahel Kazemi apparently were involved in a dating relationship over the past several months.

McNair met Kazemi at the Dave & Buster’s restaurant where she worked as a server and where his family ate often. The two began dating a few months ago. Ms. Kazemi bought a gun a couple of days before she was found dead alongside the slain former NFL quarterback. “There was no way she was depressed and wanting to do this,” he said. “She was so happy. … She just had it made, you know, this guy taking care of everything,” said her nephew, who also said his aunt believed Steve McNair was divorcing his wife and she was preparing to sell her furniture to move in with him. Sounds like the common occurrence of the girlfriend disappointed when she finds out that the husband is not leaving his wife for her.

Mechelle McNair has been described as very distraught about her husband’s death but has not commented on it. Nashville courts had no record of a McNair divorce case, but a 14,000-square-foot home he owned in Nashville is on the market for $3 million.
Publicly, McNair was a happily married man and proud father of four sons who split his time between his Mississippi farm and a home in Music City, where celebrities are cherished, not hassled. His death, however, thrust a darker side of his private life into the spotlight.

On the football field, he simply was “Air McNair,” a winner. McNair still holds the NCAA’s Football Championship Series (formerly Division I-AA) records for career yards passing (14,496) and total offense (16,823) from his days at Alcorn State University, a HBCU school.

He played 13 NFL seasons, starting with the then-Houston Oilers, which became the Tennessee Titans. He led the Titans to the 2000 Super Bowl. He was named the NFL's co-Most Valuable Player with Indianapolis Colts QB Peyton Manning in 2003. He ended his career with the Baltimore Ravens last season, after being traded away by the Titans after they drafted Vince Young as a replacement for the aching and expensive veteran. Steve McNair played with unquestioned heart and leadership and NFL fans were shocked by the news of his death.

What is so sad is that his family will forever have this to remember every Fourth of July. And after such a marvelous career, a person is remembered by a last act, which becomes your legacy.

Palin Resigns (Quits) as Governor

2009-07-03T20:25:00.002-05:00

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announces that she is stepping down from office at the end of the month. The news rattles a Republican Party already plagued with setbacks in recent weeks, including extramarital affairs disclosed by two other 2012 presidential prospects, Nevada Senator John Ensign and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. Governor Palin hinted she had a bigger role in mind, saying she wanted to make a "positive change outside government." She said that this is in Alaska's best interest and that her family is happy.

In a hastily arranged news conference at her home Governor Palin said she will formally step down July 26, and Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the governor's picnic in Fairbanks, Alaska. She still has two years left to her term.

The 2008 vice presidential nominee was seen as a likely presidential contender in 2012 and had many supporters among the party's base. But the last week brought a highly critical piece in Vanity Fair magazine, with aides questioning if she was ever really prepared for the presidency. The backbiting continued through the week, with follow-up articles recounting the nasty infighting that plagued her failed bid.
Palin's resignation, timed on the eve of the July 4 holiday when many Americans had already begun a three-day weekend, seemed designed to avoid publicity while openly leaving office. She alluded to how she could help change the country and help military members — code that she didn't think her time on the national stage was over. And a spokeswoman for Palin's political action committee SarahPAC, said the group continues to accept donations on its Web site, with a rise in funds after Palin's announcement.

I would think this eliminates her from serious consideration for the presidency in 2012. In the presidential race, Palin became the butt of talk-show jokes and Democratic criticism after news broke that the Republican Party had spent $150,000 or more on a designer wardrobe, accessories and hair and makeup services for her. The high-end spending spree contrasted with the down-to-earth image she sought to craft for herself and became an unwelcome issue for the McCain campaign. An unnamed advisor said that Governor Palin was "really unhappy with the way her life was going. Palin expressed frustration with her current role as governor. She felt that the pressures of the job combined with her family obligations were becoming too much. Just imagine her running and her opponent saying you quit your last office, maybe you will quit being president when the pressure is on also. This certainly calls into question her commitment to public service. YOU BETCHA!!!

Governor Palin said, “I cannot stand here as your governor and allow the millions of dollars and all that time go to waste just so I can hold the title of governor." I wonder what she has up her sleeve now? This leads me to suspect her to pop up on some national radio or TV show with a lucrative contract.

Sarah Palin's announcement comes after several recent blows to the Republican Party. Senator Ensign, a member of the Christian ministry Promise Keepers, stepped down from the Senate Republican leadership last month after admitting he had an affair for much of last year with a woman on his campaign staff who was married to one of his Senate aides. Ensign later disclosed he had helped the woman's husband get two jobs during the affair. And just days after news of Ensign's affair broke, Governor Sanford admitted an affair with a woman in Argentina. Some lawmakers are now calling for his resignation. Before the admission, Sanford had been missing from the state for five days visiting his lover. He had slipped his security detail, lied to his staff about where he was and failed to transfer power to the lieutenant governor in case of a state emergency.

America's "Other" Private Schools

2009-07-01T23:17:00.002-05:00

If you mention the names of New England's private schools most Americans will recognize them. Both John F. Kennedy, Jr. and former president George W. Bush attended Phillips Academy in Massachusetts. Schools such as Phillips and Exeter have educated the children of generations of America's first families. Less well known, however, are Black private schools, whose existence has been virtually ignored.

Over 200 Black academies operated in the South prior to 1920. Secondary schools in the South during this time were few and far between, and the few that existed were in the major cities. In 1916 four southern states did not have a single public high school for Blacks, and half of all Black students at the secondary level were enrolled in private academies. Georgia had one public Black high school but closed it to redirect funds to the education of White children.

The lack of public secondary education provided for Black students reflected the philosophy in the South, which did not make education a high political or social item for Black Americans. So Blacks found ways to establish their own schools. They were aided by religious groups and by philanthropists such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Julius Rosenwald, who gave generous amounts of money to build schools in Black communities. These philanthropists often directed that their aid should fund "industrial education" favored by Booker T. Washington, who had counseled Blacks against pressing for social equality and urged them to train themselves as useful workers for the southern economy. No wonder “good old boy” Booker T was one of the few Black folks in history books.

The Washington concept of industrial education, however, was not embraced by all Blacks. Dr. William Edward Burghardt DuBois, the first Black American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard, actively opposed Washington's ideas. Dr. DuBois urged Blacks to pursue collegiate courses and a classical education. And the DuBois philosophy echoed well with Black academies. The competing Washington-DuBois concepts ultimately led to two types of schools for Blacks: County training schools largely emphasized industrial education and some teacher training, while academies largely emphasized college preparatory subjects and some teacher training.

Religious denominations also founded Black academies in the South, especially the Presbyterian Church, which established over 75 private schools in the South. In South Carolina alone, Presbyterians established 25 schools. Boggs Academy in Keysville, Georgia was the first boarding school established by the Presbyterians. Shortly before it closed in 1986, Boggs was the only predominantly Black accredited boarding school in the U.S. Today, the former academy continues as the Boggs Rural Life Center.

The Baptists founded Fredericksburg Normal and Industrial Academy in Virginia in 1905 and Bettis Academy in Trenton, South Carolina, in 1881. The Methodist Episcopal Church founded Mather Academy in Camden, S.C., in 1887. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church established Clinton Normal and Industrial Institute in Rock Hill, S.C., in 1896. The American Missionary Association established academies as well as some private Black colleges. Avery Institute in Charleston, S.C., was established by the AMA in 1865. Avery was a grade and high school with a small department for training elementary teachers and was known for its high academic and moral standards. It closed in 1954, and its successor is known as the Avery Museum and Research Center of African American Culture.

Black academies provided a high quality of education for Black youth in an inhospitable time, when the typical southern view of prejudice and a low view of Black intelligence denied educational opportunity to Blacks. Because large numbers of academies were affiliated with church denominations, a religious orientation and attendance at weekly chapel and Sunday services was obligatory. Social activities among students and between men and women were strictly monitored. Boggs Academy, for example, required its students to be in their dormitories by 9:30 p.m. and in bed by 10 p.m. Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, North Carolina required the students to dress up for the evening meal and the rules of manners and table etiquette were strictly observed.

The instruction in academies was highly structured and heavily inclined towards college preparation. In fact, one of the touted values was that this type of schooling led easily to college admission. While the typical academy did not emphasize industrial education, its students were taught to respect the dignity of labor. Students frequently were assigned chores at their schools, such as trimming shrubs or cleaning floors. Courses focused on clerical, business subjects and home economics. Boggs Academy defined its program as having four parts: study, workshop, work, and play. The play aspect centered on athletics and the arts. Boggs had outstanding football and basketball teams. Its choir frequently toured the country giving concerts to raise funds for the school, as well as to provide experiences for the students to visit famous historical and cultural sites.

Perhaps the best testimonials to the excellence of the Black academies were supplied by their graduates, who distinguished themselves in many fields of endeavor. The long list of accomplished graduates includes:

Famed jazz musician Dizzy Gilespie, a graduate of Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina; Judge H. Carl Moultrie, a graduate of Avery Institute in Charleston, S.C., who presided over the trial of the eleven Hanafi gunmen who seized 134 hostages in Washington, D.C., in 1977; Dr. Frank DeCosta, former dean of the Graduate School, Morgan State University, was a 1927 graduate of Avery Institute; Ms. businesswoman and owner of TVOne and RadioOne, graduate of Piney Woods Country Life School in Piney Woods, Mississippi; and Alice B. Bullock, dean of the Howard University Law School, a graduate of Boggs Academy.

The “golden era” in education of Blacks in the U.S., which was established just after the Civil War, ended as church groups cut back on their support and as public school education, though segregated, became more available. The accomplishments of these schools provide eloquent documentation that blacks have had a long and historic interest in intellectual development, and they did what they could, in spite of severe hardships, to achieve their educational goals. There are today a half dozen private schools predominately for Blacks still in operation, which comprise the Association of African American Boarding Schools. The schools are: Laurinburg Institute, Laurinburg, N.C.; Piney Woods Country Life School, Piney Woods, Miss.; Southern Normal School, Brewton, Alabama; Pine Forge Academy, Pine Forge, Pennsylvania; and Redemption Christian Academy, Troy, New York.

Good Hair/Bad Hair

2009-06-29T15:01:00.002-05:00

Black hairstyles are as diverse as the Black community itself. There are naturals, weaves, chemically relaxed styles, braids and dreadlocks, to name just a few. Black hair and its care go well beyond the multibillion-dollar industry it has become and is deeply rooted in Black identity and culture. For many Black parents, having a child walk around with unkempt hair is an almost unpardonable sin. That desire to be well groomed extends into adulthood. In the U.S., barbershops and beauty salons are perhaps second only to Black churches as the oldest institutions in the community. Black people want to look good from the cradle to the grave.

Notice how a Black man with dreadlocks perceived as opposed to say a Black man with short cropped or even with a shaved head. He is not as approachable with the locks. There is the perception and misconceptions of the “angry Black man.” There is no other racial or ethnic group in which hair comes to bear on someone's politics. For Black people, our hair has been infused with these racial politics. Not about hair per se, it's about what hair means, particularly for Black women in terms of racial identity. On one level, hair matters because some outdated ideal still linger, for instance if a Black woman straightens her hair she is "selling out the race" and/or "embracing the white standard of beauty" while women who wear their hair in natural styles are "blacker than thou. No one is saying that about White women, Yellow women or Brown women. If you don’t think so let’s take First Lady Michelle Obama. She has been criticized in certain areas as being radical or too outspoken about race. And this uneases some people. She is a tall dark-skinned woman and that intimidates some people. If now you add an Afro or twistees then she becomes really scary. Remember the cover that The New Yorker magazine ran with a drawing portraying Michelle Obama wearing an Angela Davis-style Afro while “fist bumping” (dapping) a turban wearing Barack Obama. I took it to poke fun at what people really fear. But we are not at the point where we can laugh at Black images, because we, as do others, feel that every Black image reflects on Black people as a whole.

When a child has straight hair, they are told they have “good hair” and while people aren't telling children with curly hair that they have “bad hair,” in reality that is what we are saying. But in reality good hair is not straight hair, but healthy hair is good hair. Chris Rock saw these same attitudes in his young daughters and it helped motivate his new documentary "Good Hair." The film is narrated by Rock and explores Black hair from a variety of angles, including the booming $9 billion Black hair industry and the science behind chemical relaxers used to straighten hair. The comedian spent nearly two years exploring the world of black hair for his documentary. He managed to sit down with a variety of Black celebrities, including actress Nia Long, Maya Angelou and Al Sharpton, and question them about their hair. In the movie, Chris Rock visits barbershops in Harlem, salons in Beverly Hills as well as the extravagant Bronner Brothers Hair Show in Atlanta, where stylists wield their shears in intense hair battles. In the documentary Rock even goes as far as India, which is a major place where the hair from many weaves worn by Black women actually comes from.

The First Ever Juneteenth Celebration Hosted by the Leader of the Free World on the South Lawn of the White House

2009-06-27T11:20:00.003-05:00

President Barack Obama hosted a BBQ for young men on the South Lawn of the White House June 19, 2009. Officially they said the bar-b-que was to mentor young men about the importance of family and community activism. But a ‘que on June 19th? The day Black folks in the U.S. commemorate freeing the slaves in Texas!? Coincidence?! Maybe it was to celebrate Father’s Day Weekend…

You gotta love this President! Especially since y’all know some folks are going to be heated about BBQ’s going down on the White House lawn. He invited several celebrity fathers, influential men, and local teen boys over for some chit chat about the responsibility of men and fathers…and some BBQ! Dwyane Wade, Alonzo Mourning, Etan Thomas, the President of Motorola, the President of Morehouse College, and many other men were in attendance. Chef Bobby Flay was there to get steaks and burgers poppin’ for everybody while the Prez served them up. I'm luvin it!

Words to Live By

2009-06-26T20:31:00.004-05:00

I was not going to blog about Michael Jackson, but decided to at least post my favorite song by him. The lyrics to Man in the Mirror are great. I wish we all could live by them. Michael certainly lived by the make that change part.

From Homeless to Harvard

2009-06-25T11:08:00.001-05:00

Seventeen year-old high school student Kenneth Chancey is an honors student and star football player. He is student body president and one of the most popular people at school. He is also homeless.

Kenneth has just finished his junior year at Hollywood's Helen Bernstein High School, where he was named best overall academic student. He's the starting running back on the football team, cutting and dashing his way past his opponents. But when classes and practices end, he begins the difficult journey home with his 14-year-old sister, Stephanie. The journey takes over an hour. He lives at Skid Row with his father and sister, at the Union Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter. He walks down the littered streets of one of the roughest areas of Los Angeles. Drug deals are made around him. The stench of the place is overwhelming.

But Kenneth Chancey is on another journey too. He hopes to go from being homeless to becoming a Harvard grad. "I would love to be able to say that I graduated from Harvard University with a PhD in medicine and be able to share my story," he says. "I have to dream because obviously my reality is horrible."

Bad as it is, life for Kenneth is much better than when he was in sixth grade. Then he lived in a van with his mother and stepfather. His mom did drugs in front of him and, he says, his stepfather would hit him.

His father, Gordon Costello, says he's proud of his son for emerging as a leader, despite everything that's been thrown at him. It took a lot of getting used to a shelter. He and his sister hated it, but they somehow managed to adjust and decided to make the best of it.

Teachers say Kenneth has a dynamic personality that attracts students to him. They also say he's good in athletics, good in academics and he's good at getting people to get involved. He doesn't hold back. He showed students a PowerPoint presentation of his life and told them they should strive to do great things. He told them that if he can do it in his situation, then you can do it.

He's in the process of applying to Harvard. He hopes to eventually become a doctor. He knows he can't afford its $50,000-plus-a-year tuition, but he's not going to let that keep him from dreaming. "I know that I'm better than Skid Row. I know that I can accomplish something," he says.
If he has children one day, he says, he hopes it's a lesson to pass on to them. He says he would love to tell my children that he graduated from a top school and that if he can do it, they can do it.

Role Models or Silly Dads

2009-06-22T16:43:00.003-05:00

Listening to my pastor’s Father’s Day sermon yesterday concerning characteristics of a good and godly dad made me take a look back at what we have been groomed to think what a father is supposed to be. When Black folks begin to appear on TV in family settings, usually in the form of a sitcom, we really didn’t care what they were doing - just the fact that they were there was “good enough”. But now that I look back, and even today there were no really good father figures on TV. Even on one of the most successful sitcoms of all times, the Cosby Show, Heathcliff Huxtable was made to look like an idiot at home, even though he was a successful doctor. The children had little respect for him and anytime a real problem came up they went to wife Clair to solve it. And the ridicule of the male image was passed down to the son Theo, who was just as bad or worse.

And you can go down the list of Black sitcom and basically interchange the dads despite their varied social economic status was. There was the longest running Black sitcom, the Jeffersons, where George Jefferson, a successful entrepreneur who worked and “moved on up” from a working class section of Queens into a luxury apartment in Manhattan, by owning seven dry-cleaner stores. And still he was the wacko dad with the goofball son, Lionel and they both needed wife Louise to make sure they behaved. How about Michael Kyle of My Wife and Kids with the stupid son, Junior, kept in line by wife Jay.

Family Matters originally focused on the character of Carl Winslow who was always bailed out by wife Harriette. The producers changed it a hare and gave them a rebellious son Eddie. That didn’t seem to be working so they brought in a nerdy next-door neighbor, Steve Urkel, midway through the first season and he quickly became the focus of the show. Sanford and Son only had dad Fred G. Sanford, a 65-year-old junk dealer living in Watts, and Lamont, his 30-year-old son in the household. Fred was stubborn and argumentative with frequent money-making schemes which backfired and created more troubles. Fred was constantly insulting his son, usually calling him a “big dummy”. Lamont insulted his father also, sometimes referring to him as an "old fool".

There was the Evans family in Good Times. James Evans was father of the buffoon son J.J. and wife Florida worked around the clock “keeping their heads above water”. They lived in the infamous Cabrini-Green projects of Chicago. They killed off James in the fourth season because he was fed up with J.J. character. Then there was Amen where Deacon Ernest Frye, of the First Community Church of Philadelphia was often dishonest and frequently got into trouble with his many harebrained schemes. His 37-year-old daughter, Thelma was in charge of keeping him in line.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with a man intelligent enough to be Judge Philip “Uncle Phil” Banks but made to look foolish by all the children, especially nephew Will Smith. Two foolish men are not enough for the Fresh Prince producers. Son Carlton is ignorant and Will’s friend Jazz is just plain stupid. And do we even to go to Martin Payne and Gina Waters, Martin's more level-headed, long suffering better half, and later his wife. How about The Bernie Mac Show, The Hughleys, House of Payne, and Meet the Browns.

Cartoons even got into it with Oscar Proud with rational and level-headed Trudy Proud with daughter Penny Proud, a 14-year-old who is usually embarrassed by the way her father acts.

As with other sitcoms with a common target audience, TV networks have often scheduled Black sitcoms in blocks on a given night of the week. While this has helped to foster an audience for many of these shows, it has been criticized as creating a "ghetto" for them, where they are less likely to be watched by non-Black viewers who might tune in early for a "White" show they are already interested in, or stay tuned in after another show has finished. In the 2000s, UPN emerged as the most prolific broadcaster of Black sitcoms, scheduling one or two nights of programming each week featuring them.

U.S. Senate Apologizes for Slavery...blah, blah

2009-06-18T14:18:00.000-05:00

Today the U.S. Senate passed a resolution apologizing to Black Americans for the wrongs of slavery and segregation. The resolution is similar to the U.S. House of Representatives nonbinding resolution, (does not obligate them to do anything – they patted themselves on the back and said that’s that), adopted last year. Besides only a handful of senators was present for the voice vote, so they can say to the people who sent them to Congress, I didn’t have anything to do with it. And because the resolution is nonbinding, it does not have to be forwarded to the president for his signature.

Several states have passed similar resolutions, but last year’s House resolution was the first time a branch of the U.S. federal government did so. The resolution “acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery, and Jim Crow laws," and "apologizes to Black Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws." Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enacted mostly in U.S. Southern and border states between the 1870s and 1965 that acted to deny the right to vote and other civil liberties to Blacks, and to legally segregate them from Whites (you know, the same crap that the U.S. said that South Africa was wrong for doing).

It doesn't fix anything, but it does at least put it on paper that the country admits to injustice. Many members of the Black community have called on lawmakers to give cash payments (reparations) or other financial benefits to descendants of slaves as compensation for the suffering caused by slavery (like they did for descendants of Japanese citizens that were held in camps during World War II or the grants given to Native-American tribes for hijacking their land). But the nonbinding resolution made it quite clear the only thing we are getting is a “we’re sorry, now shut up and get on with your Juneteenth celebrations” (June 19, the day in 1865 when word of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas – two years after it actually was issued.)

At lease now we can show our children that the U.S. government has admitted they were wrong. And we must not depend on anyone to take care of us but God and ourselves.

Ninja President

2009-06-17T19:44:00.002-05:00

Maybe he should slap some of his opponents like that.

Otis Smith Leads Orlando Magic as General Manager

2009-06-16T11:25:00.004-05:00

Otis Smith was a journeyman (the dictionary describes the term as a competent and reliable but unexceptional performer) whose NBA career was cut short by injury as a player, but the Jacksonville native is front and center in his role as general manager of the Orlando Magic. He was bounced between three teams in six NBA seasons as a forward from Jacksonville University before being forced to retire in 1993 with a knee injury. Smith is in charge of all basketball operations - capped an impressive rise up the executive ladder with a trip to the year’s NBA final – where the Magic was defeated by the Los Angeles Lakers.

Smith was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida and played basketball at Jacksonville University where he became the only player in school history to tally more than 1,700 points and 900 rebounds in his collegiate career. His jersey was retired at Jacksonville University in 2002. He earned a degree in marketing and management. He was then taken with the 17th pick in the second round of the 1986 NBA Draft by the Denver Nuggets. He also played for the Golden State Warriors before becoming a member of the Orlando Magic on June 15. Sadly, Otis Smith retired with a knee injury after his sixth season.

Otis Smith has held several positions for the Orlando Magic including: Director of Community Relations, Director of Player Development, Co-General Manager, and he has been the General Manager of the Orlando Magic since May 3, 2006.

Denver’s Mark Warkentien won the 2009 NBA Executive of the Year Award, but along with Danny Ferry who brought Mo Williams to Cleveland to help lead the team to a 66-win season, LA’s Mitch Kupchak for the theft of Pau Gasol along with getting Trevor Ariza and Shannon Brown off other team’s benches, Otis Smith has to be in the conversation. Of course, Warkentien pulled arguably the best in-season move by sending Allen Iverson to Detroit for Chauncey Billups, which gave the Nuggets the toughness and defensive intensity to go from a Western Conference also-ran to a legitimate contender.

Take a look at the job Otis Smith has done:
June 7 2007
Released head coach Billy Donovan and named Stan Van Gundy head coach.
July 11 2007
Traded a conditional second-round pick and cash to the Seattle SuperSonics for forward Rashard Lewis.
July 12 2007
Signed center Dwight Howard to a contract extension.
August 27 2007
Signed center Marcin Gortat.
October 31 2007
Signed guard Jameer Nelson to a contract extension.
Draft 2008
Selected guard Courtney Lee (22nd overall pick).
July 10 2008
Signed guard Mickael Pietrus.
July 15 2008
Signed guard Anthony Johnson.
February 19 2009
Traded forward Brian Cook to the Houston Rockets for guard Rafer Alston.

So, in the last two years, Smith has 1) locked up his two cornerstones (Howard and Nelson) to long term contracts, 2) traded for the versatile Lewis, who wreaked havoc in the Cleveland series, 3) found two starter-quality perimeter players in the draft (Lee) and free agency (Pietrus), 4) found a couple of hard-nosed rotation guys in the draft (Gortat) and free agency (Johnson), 5) pulled off a deal for Rafer Alston when Nelson went down, and 6) found a guy to coach them all.

Stats:
Seasons 4
Playoffs 3
Division Titles 2
Conference Titles 1
Not bad.

Jonathan Butler: Falling In Love with Jesus

2009-06-15T12:18:00.002-05:00

Jonathan Butler is a born and brewed South African Grammy award nominee and an internationally acclaimed artist whose music has weaved hope and faith, inspiring fans all over the world.

Time dedicated to his music is time dedicated to a life changing experience, for this is a gifted man with a phenomenal voice and extraordinary musical skills. The message in his songs overflows with a depth and profoundness, whether he is talking about love, or love-changing topics.

With many years as a jazz singer, song writer and guitarist, Jonathan Butler, like a fine wine, has surely gotten better with time. Jazz affectionists in around the world have loved him for years. However, most have no idea that he has dominated the African gospel music industry for years. Now sharing stages with Grammy award winners like Cece Winans and Kirk Whalum at the Stellar Awards, he is quickly becoming one of the biggest gospel forces in the world music industry.

Container Homes: Build Your Home One Box at a Time

2009-06-12T15:13:00.004-05:00

People drive by Magoline Hazelton’s house just to take a look in North Charleston, South Carolina. From the outside, her home doesn't seem much different from the rest of the neighborhood. But the big difference is that her house is made from cargo shipping containers. Using containers to build homes has increasingly become a trend in the past several years because it can be cheaper and faster than using traditional construction methods. About 18 million containers are used worldwide to transport a variety of everyday products, such as cars, toys and food. And because the United States imports more than it exports, many containers end up stacked at ports. SG Blocks, whose name stands for safe and green blocks, has made a business from the container overflow.

The containers are designed for hostile dynamic life at sea. With minor modification, they can easily become a multi-family living system. Modifying containers into homes uses significantly less energy than melting them down. These containers weigh about 9,000 pounds, and it takes about 9,000 kilowatt hours of energy to melt down 9,000 pounds of steel. You can modify that existing piece of steel with approximately 400 kilowatt hours of energy input. That's a 95 percent energy reduction. The energy saved by transforming a single container into a home, rather than melting it down, can power a standard 70-watt light bulb for up to 15 years.

Ms. Hazelton's home took 10 weeks to build. Generally, SG Blocks has found that recycled homes cut construction time in half. Typical homes can take four to eight months to build. For container homes, it usually takes two to four months. The cost of building a single family container home is comparable to a traditional home, but you get steel home instead of a wood home, which is more durable and has a lower carbon footprint. It's also water resistant and termite resistant.

Companies around the world are using shipping containers as building materials to create offices, army barracks, dorms and even designer homes. They can make them look like anything you want. If you want it minimalistic, so you can see the container walls, they can do that. If you want stucco or brick or siding, they can do that as well.

While each container has its own roof, when multiple containers are put together side by side, there are gaps between the boxes. Therefore, a traditional roof is put on top of the entire home, providing additional safety in inclement weather. When the boxes are joined together, the gaps are sealed, so even if you lose your roof above, you'd have protection. The second roof also provides another benefit. Ms. Hazelton finds she can't even hear the rain hitting her home when it's pouring outside.

Her house has been almost maintenance free since she moved in. The only thing she has to do in the last five years is exchanged the hot water heater.

Young Man on a Solid Foundation

2009-06-11T13:44:00.001-05:00

Ten year-old Jonathan McCoy’s speech to end the use of the “N” word has become a YouTube sensation. But as they say, behind every great man is a great woman, and vice-versa. Much of the credit for the positive path that this young man is on can be credited to his mother, Linda Mims McCoy. She is raising a focused, intelligent young Black man. She has been married for 21 years, has 18 brothers and sisters, all but one by the same parents. Yet she had difficulty conceiving, miscarrying two children before having Jonathan. She calls him her “miracle” child. She wanted her son to have the best – not of material things, but of her time and commitment.
The fifth grader has an A-average and plans to spend his summer doing what boys do: Playing, hanging out with friends and - well, maybe not so much like the other boys - building a kid-friendly Web site. Her advice to other mothers raising Black sons or daughters include the following:

Make time for your child: The best gift that you can give them is time. Even if you work full time give your child time. There are a lot of things that a child may not have materially, but make sure they have a wealth of resources spiritually, mentally and emotionally. You don’t have to them everything they want, but give them everything that they need to succeed.

Seek alternate educational options: Males learn differently from females. Jonathan is very strong-willed and extremely opinionated. Sometimes in the predominantly White schools, it became a challenge. They would say he was so smart but they would say he was a bad seed, because he would challenge them on everything. It wasn’t a defiant challenge; he just wanted to know. They pulled him out of regular school and put him into virtual school online. There are home school programs online that are absolutely free. They are public schools and they give you all the materials - a printer and a computer loaded with everything that you need. They give you everything that will enhance your child’s education. Give them the flexibility to learn at their own pace. The virtual schools are a year ahead of public school. As long as you pass the assessment for the grade level you can start wherever you are academically. Our best friends have homeschooled four sons – two have graduated from college, one is just about to graduate from high school and the last one will finish high school in a couple of years. You may be the only chip in the cookie, but whatever is best... But to be successful with it, you have to make the time. If you don’t it’s really a waste. You also have online teachers. Not only are you teaching them, but they have to take Language Arts and Math with a webcam and a teacher with other children in the same state, just like signing up for an online college class.

Be willing to adapt when necessary: Jonathan’s going to middle school in the fall. He is signed up for virtual school and for public school as well. As far as the social aspect, as far as getting involved in clubs and things like that, they may want to be a part of a club. Shelter their innocence, but you don’t want them to be ignorant of what’s going on in the world.

Join a parenting group: Parent networking groups are great. It doesn’t matter where you are socially or economically. You can find parenting networks everywhere. Linda McCoy said, “When I gave birth to him, there was a young girl that came around. She was asking moms to sign up for this program for low-income families, and I signed up anyway. I started going to some of their meetings where they taught parents how to take care of their children and gave them an opportunity to have an outlet.” Look online or go to your local community center, there are parenting resources. Some churches (it doesn’t have to be the one you attend) are part of a network of sources for parents.

Engage them: Recognize him as a male because males learn differently from females. If we take the time to engage our boys, find out and cultivate their interests and not give them flowery stories and things that girls like, they can learn. But we have to capture their interest. If we try to treat them like girls, we lose them. One of the problems in school today is the lack of Black male teachers. We have all these women in the school system and their way of dealing with boys is they are going to send them to the principal’s office, when in fact they are not engaging them. This is true not only for Black boys, but the same thing is happening with little White boys too. Boost their self-esteem. Constantly tell him that he’s going to be somebody, that he’s somebody great, and that he’s great right now. Constantly feed him with positive information. Feed his expectations; tell him he’s going to be rich and famous. Whatever he sets his mind to, encourage it.

Give them a spiritual foundation: A lot of children’s confidence comes from his faith in God. Don’t let them hold grudges. Instill in them to not pay attention to what people say about you. Constantly give them encouragement at every turn.

Encourage communication and honest dialogue: If it's like that and that’s the way it is, that’s how you present it to them. Mrs. McCoy said, “I told Jonathan that Mom smoked weed; only three times, but I did it. I told him that Mom had premarital sex. I don’t hide anything from my child.” (Don’t forget to tell them that it’s wrong when it’s wrong.) “My husband is much more private, but he’s learning to open up because he sees that that’s cultivating the man he’ll become. Because I’m open with him, he’s not afraid or ashamed to tell me everything that’s going on in his life."

Treat him like a boy: Treat him like a boy. Play around with him. You can be tough with them, but you have to see their heart.

Every child can succeed if they’re given the right tools: Children change every six months. If there’s a growth spurt physically, there’s a growth spurt mentally. They constantly change, and we have to be ready for what they have to go through. Every child starts off with the same make-up in terms of learning. It’s what you put in them. And you have to do it at the start. People say that Jonathan is smart and that is true. But I know that that’s available to everyone his age if they work at it. Some get it faster than others. You just have to find their interest.